The Vandeleurs Took Their Homes. Then They Took Their Names.
We know from contemporary reports that more than 20,000 people were evicted by the Vandeleurs in just this period alone – but we only have the names of 68 evicted, the heads of households of a total of 404 people; the other 336 counted merely as numbers of males and females. Thousands upon thousands more vanished from the record entirely. Their lives and identities—lost to hunger, displacement, death, and deliberate silence.
If you can’t name them, you can’t remember them. And if you can’t remember them, history gets to pretend it never happened. This is how injustice survives: not only through suffering, but through forgetting.
The whitewashing of history begins by erasing the victims. We must refuse to let that happen.
Source Notes:
Summary with Source Links
This dataset is based on nominal eviction returns from Captain Arthur Edward Kennedy’s 1848–49 reports to the British Parliament, published in ‘Reports and Returns Relating to Evictions in the Kilrush Union (Ireland)’.
The current dataset covers a verified but partial list of named evictees from Vandeleur lands during the Great Famine (1847–1849), based on surviving nominal returns in public records.
Many more names remain in archival documents that are not yet transcribed or digitized, particularly from lesser-known townlands or later returns.
🔍 Researchers can access more records through the following sources:
📘 1. Full Parliamentary Papers
- Title: Reports and Returns Relating to Evictions in the Kilrush Union (Ireland), 1847–1849
- Compiler: Capt. Arthur Edward Kennedy, Poor Law Inspector
- Includes: Enclosures with nominal and statistical eviction returns
- Link: Read on Archive.org
- Search Tip: Use “Vandeleur”, “Kilrush”, or specific townlands (e.g. “Tullabrack”) to find relevant returns
- Additional Holdings: ProQuest U.K. Parliamentary Papers (institutional access required)
🏛️ 2. Clare County Archives
- Holdings:
- Kilrush Poor Law Union Minute Books (1842–1923)
- Relief Committee Records
- Local estate records and land valuations
- Access: Physical visit or request via Clare County Archives
- Finding Guide: Clare Archives – Poor Law Collection
- General site: https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/archives/archives.htm
🗃️ 3. National Archives of Ireland (NAI)
- Relevant Records:
- Landed Estates Court sales
- Poor Law and eviction correspondence
- Land Commission files (post-1881 redress and redistribution)
- Search portal: https://www.nationalarchives.ie/search-the-archives/
- Catalogue (for Land Commission): https://www.nationalarchives.ie/land-commission/
- Note: Some records require in-person access or written request.
📄 4. Land Commission Estate Files (Irish Land Commission)
- Includes:
- Tenant purchase records
- Compensation files
- Maps and allotments of formerly Vandeleur-owned estates
- Now held by: National Archives of Ireland
- Details and finding aid: Land Commission Overview (NAI)
- Access is largely manual, with records sorted by county, estate, or vendor.
Justice for the Famine Victims Committee 