New book charts history of Carrick ground rents’ saga

- Mickey McDonnell -

PAT BYRNE knew it was a story that needed to be told, and when it didn’t look like anyone else was going to do the telling, Pat decided to tell it himself.

The end result is an elegantly crafted 406-page hardback that recounts in detail how businesspeople in Byrne’s native Carrickmacross have been battling for 30 years and more to free themselves from the system of ground rents that can be traced back to the 16th century.

If the overflow crowd of upwards of 300 that attended the launch of ‘Wrong Side of the Street: Carrickmacross Tenants Fight for Freehold’ last Friday night (November 7) is anything to go by, it seems that the subject was close to the hearts of more than a few of Pat’s fellow Farney folk.

That might seem like a big turnout for the launch of a local history book, but Wrong Side of the Street isn’t just a historical tome, it marks a crucial crossroads in a long-running struggle that probably has a few more pages to turn before the final words can be put to paper.

Another big difference with this “history” is that the author isn’t simply narrating objectively from the academic sidelines, as is the norm with such works. Pat was himself a key driving force in the latter years of the local ground rents campaign, and makes no bones about his own opposition to a legacy issue that so many people in the town have perceived as a barrier to ongoing commercial and indeed community development.

The significance of Byrne’s achievements in pushing the campaign and now documenting it in the pages of his book was underlined by the attendance at Friday’s event of a virtual ‘who’s who’ of the wider Carrick community, with speakers including an eminent professor in law, another in history, and a retired Supreme Court judge.

To cap it off, Pat himself was rewarded with a prolonged standing ovation after delivering a well-received contribution in which he, in turn, paid tribute to everyone who helped along the way.

The title of the book stems from a historical anachronism, unique to Carrickmacross, that has seen the town literally split down the middle of its main street, with property owners to the east enjoying freehold rights while their counterparts on the western end have leaseholds connected to a landlord family with origins in the Elizabethan age.

While the town tenants of the Bath estate were able to buy out the “fee simple”, or freehold, of their properties in the years following the 1885 Land Act, the Shirley family to the west stood firm, leaving the occupiers of those buildings with leaseholds of varying lengths and obliged to pay ongoing rents.

Pat’s book recounts how the ramifications of this arrangement began to come home to roost from the late 1970s onwards. In 1977 the lease on one property came up for renewal, and the rent increased from €40 per year to €650. When the new 21-year lease itself expired in 1998, the rent jumped again to £10,000 (€12,700). The town’s old post office on the north end of Main Street was another example, in this case going up from £500 per annum in 1993 to £10,250 — with a judge having actually doubled the £5,125 that JES Holdings Ltd (the Shirley estate) had asked for.

From the 1990s onwards, and with the Shirleys not wanting to sell, many leaseholders on the west side were considering their options including the legal route. In 1998, two prominent business people, Aidan Daly and supermarket owner Gus O ’Gorman, began a process in which they relied on the 1978 Landlord and Tenant Ground Rent Act in their bids to buy out the JES Holdings interest.

Thus began a long, drawn-out saga that saw the formation in 2000 of Shirley Tenants Action Group (STAG), and O’Gorman’s challenge was used as a test. This was appealed all the way up and, while O’Gorman won at High Court level, JES Holdings was successful in the Supreme Court. This resulted in a 2012 judgement that, while officially rejecting Shirley’s main argument on constitutionality, made it easier in future cases for any landlord to claim an involvement in having erected or altered a building.

In effect, the campaigners were forced back to the drawing board to go the political route to revise the 1978 Act. Pat Byrne became a key figure in the campaign at this stage, producing a landmark video in 2016 entitled What’s Next for Carrickmacross.

He was also deeply involved keeping lawyers and politicians focused on drafting an update to the legislation. This process ultimately delivered the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (Amendment) Act 2019, which sought to circumvent some of the factors that led to the 2012 Supreme Court ruling.

Wrong Side of the Street charts this intriguing process in detail but goes further. It examines ground rents issues across Ireland, with chapters that look closely at legal battles from Lough Derg in Co Donegal to Cappoquin in Co Waterford; Midleton, Co Cork and, much closer to home, Kingscourt in Cavan.

The most recent chapter in the Carrickmacross crusade was the successful acquisition in November 2024 by Jim and Colm McBride of their freehold in the Shirley Arms Hotel. This was achieved through a deal made with Philip Shirley when the matter was before Monaghan Circuit Court and Shirley agreed to sell for a figure of €474,000 including stamp duty.

Perfect setting

And so it was that the Shirley Arms, still bearing the Shirley name, provided the perfect setting for Friday’s book launch.

There was a general buzz of anticipation as the main room quickly filled out from 7pm onwards, with musical entertainment by local songsters Glór na Carraige.

Monaghan County Council’s chairperson PJ O’Hanlon, an old school buddy of Pat’s, acted as a lively MC for the event, and he welcomed among others former TDs Dr Rory O’Hanlon and Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and current Oireachtas members Matt Carthy TD and Senator Robbie Gallagher. Also present was leading lawyer Gavin Ralston SC.

The main speakers on the night were leading law expert Professor John Wylie, former Supreme Court judge Marie Baker and Professor Terence Dooley of NUI Maynooth.

Professor Wylie, author of numerous books, who himself was involved in the drafting of the new legislation, started on a good-humoured note when he described it as “a great honour and privilege to be in Carrickmacross as a guest of the Pat Byrne Show”!

Congratulating Pat on the book, he said it was a testament to the business people of Carrickmacross and their determination in getting legislation on the books “to reverse a rather unfortunate decision of the Supreme Court”.

Not mincing his words, Prof Wylie said, if the ruling had stood, it would have had “disastrous effects” in terms of tenant rights to buy out the freehold of their property.

In addressing the launch, Marie Baker, who was involved in the O’Gorman case in the mid 1990s and later appointed a judge to the High Court in 2014 and to the Supreme Court in December 2019, was careful to assure everyone she had not been a member of the latter at the time of the vexatious 2012 ruling!

The Co Cork native recalled being involved in the Carrickmacross ground rent cases as far back as 1985 when, as a young barrister, she helped out in the Aidan Daly case.

She explained that under the then fairly recent 1978 Landlord and Tenant Act, if you owned a building, you should be able to buy the land on which it was built. They were winning in the courts all the way up to the High Court before being stopped in their tracks by the Shirleys’ constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court.

She was happy that things ended up “reasonably well” because of the Carrickmacross-driven 2019 legislation.

Before officially launching the book, Professor Terence Dooley, Head of History at Maynooth, said Pat Byrne could now add his name to the pantheon of noted Monaghan historians including EP Shirley, Denis Carolan Rushe and Peadar Livingstone.

But this was more than just a history book, as it dealt with a highly contentious social economic and political issue that had long been airbrushed by historians.

Alluding to old newspaper reports on tensions arising from the Shirley leaseholds in the 1880s and again in 1909, he pointed to how these still resonated with the town tenants 100 years later. And that was what gave this intriguing study by Pat Byrne such a wide appeal, even outside of Carrickmacross.

He remembered being first approached by Pat for help with the project and how, during his research, his interest on the evolution of towns and how their old landlords benefited grew. What Pat Byrne had written was, in effect, “a real eye opener for historians, as well as, hopefully, for the legal fraternity.”

Pat had been “on a mission”, and that was to reveal a whole hidden history. He had been “like a dog with a bone”. This had involved assiduously researching primary sources, interviewing the main protagonists of the modern era, and knocking on closed doors until they opened.

“The end product is a story that is told with verve and with passion,” Prof Dooley said, adding, “he managed to convince some of the most eminent legal minds in the country of the importance of what he was doing is surely a tribute to the originality of his work.”

In conclusion, he recommended the new book as an ideal Christmas present for friends or family anywhere and declared Wrong Side of the Street officially launched. In congratulating the people of Carrickmacross, Prof Dooley said he hoped they would now find themselves “on the right side of the street”.

Introducing the man of the moment, PJ O’Hanlon recalled nights when he and others would often discuss the two-sides-of-the-street ground rents issue over pints in the pub. But it was Pat Byrne who “did something that nobody dreamt was possible”.

Pat himself, best known until now as a local events photographer in the Carrick area, began by thanking all the speakers and everyone involved in organising the event. He said his book was an attempt to shine a light on the issue, locally and nationally. He felt that, for far too long, it had been treated like a technical footnote.

Welcoming the fact that the Shirley estate had conceded an out-of-court settlement for the freehold of the hotel, he said this had confirmed to him that the new 2019 legislation had reopened a door the 2012 ruling had closed. He was now hoping other tenants would do the same.

Recalling how Prof Dooley had warned him of the “mammoth task” ahead, he said, had he known the truth of that advice at the time, he might have reconsidered his position! But he was delighted that he stuck with the book and that it was now done.

Giving a brief chapter by chapter overview, Pat gave words of thanks to many of the people he met along the way and in different parts of the country and the politicians who were involved in pushing for the changed legislation. These included former TDs Rory O’Hanlon and Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Jim O’Callaghan, Heather Humphreys, former Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan and Senator Robbie Gallagher. Local solicitor Tony Donagher and Prof Wylie were mentioned for their work in drafting a formula of words for the new legislation.

This was eventually signed into law in December 2019, paving the way for the McBride brothers. But not to be forgotten was one of the men who started the whole process, Gus O’Gorman (this prompted a resounding round of applause for the hale and hearty looking 91-year old, who was happily seated near the front).

Pat finished with words of thanks to his wife Marie and their children and grandchildren, as well as his mother Mary and brothers Francis and Raymond. He also tipped the hat to Jim and Colm McBride for allowing him to narrate their story and to hold this launch in their “in their now freehold Shirley Arms Hotel”.

Finally, he told the gathering that history wasn’t just about the past, it was about people like themselves who brought it forward. Having expressed the hope that everyone would enjoy the book, he was rewarded with a heartfelt standing ovation.

‘Wrong Side of the Street’ can be obtained directly from Books.ie for €29.99, and is on sale at Keegan’s and Birdy’s newsagents and O’Gorman’s SuperValu in Carrickmacross and at Pat’s Shop, Kingscourt.