The Charter granted to the Irish settlers by Henry III on his accession. It was practically a recital of the clauses of Magna Charta, with such variations as were rendered necessary by the different conditions. Irish Church Act, Althorp’s. An Act passed in 1833 abolishing the Church fees, which were paid by all, whether Churchmen, Catholics or Dissenters, and reducing the number of Irish bishops from twenty-two to twelve. Irish Church Disestablishment. An Act for the disestablishment and partial disendowment of the Irish Church was passed by Mr. Gladstone’s Government in 1869. The Irish bishops lost their seats in the House of Lords, the Irish Ecclesiastical Courts were abolished, and the union between the English and Irish Churches dissolved. The future government of the Irish Church was entrusted to a synod elected by the clergy and laity. Of the Church property, valued at about sixteen millions, seven millions were used to compensate incumbents and to replace the Maynooth Grant and the Regium Donum. Irish Land Act, 1870. An Act passed by Mr. Gladstone’s Government giving for the first time a legal status to the Ulster custom and extending it to all tenancies in Ireland. The Act provided for compensation for disturbance and compensation for improvements in the event of the landlord determining a tenancy, and enacted that improvements should be deemed to be the tenant’s, the onus of proof to the contrary being thrown upon the landlord. Irish Land Act, 1881. This Act, passed in 1881, introduced the principle of judicial interference between landlord and tenant. It permitted the sale of tenant right and allowed the tenant to apply to the Court to fix a judicial rent, such rent to hold good for fifteen years. It made certain alterations, in the tenant’s favour, in the law relating to compensation for improvements. It further established a Land Commission with power (1) to advance money to tenants for the purchase of their holdings, and (2) under certain conditions to purchase whole estates from the landlords. Irish Land Act, 1885. An Act known as Lord Ashbourne’s Act, giving additional facilities for the purchase by tenants of their holdings. An advance of £5,000,000 was made to the Land Commissioners for this purpose, while the terms to purchasers were more generous than those of the Bill of 1881. The purchase money was to be advanced at 4 per cent., and be repayable in forty-nine years, while the surplus of the Disestablished Church funds was to be used as a guarantee to the State against loss. Irish Land Act, 1896. An Act amending and consolidating the previous Land Acts and dealing specially with the case of “Town Parks.” It introduced no new principle, and though the Nationalists tried to secure the valuation of these holdings at prairie value, the Government carried in the main their plan for an equitable division between landlord and tenant of any increase of value due to situation. Irish Land Conference.