Free sale, fixity of tenure, and fair rent

Free sale, fixity of tenure, and fair rent, also known as the Three Fs, were a set of demands first issued by the Tenant Right League in their campaign for land reform in Ireland from the 1850s. They were,

• Free sale—meaning a tenant could sell the interest in his holding to an incoming tenant without landlord interference;
• Fixity of tenure—meaning that a tenant could not be evicted if he had paid the rent;
• Fair rent—meaning rent control: for the first time in the United Kingdom, fair rent would be decided by land courts, and not by the landlords.^[1]

Many historians argue that their absence contributed severely to the Great Irish Famine (1846–49), as it allowed the mass eviction of starving tenants. The Three Fs were campaigned for by a number of political movements, notably the Independent Irish Party (1852–1858) and later the Irish Parliamentary Party during the Land War (from 1878). They were conceded by the British Government in a series of Irish Land Acts enacted from the 1870s on, with essentially full implementation in the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881.^[2]

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