Protesters backed by Sinn Fein have occupied the Duke of Devonshire’s bookshop, after claims that sheep farmers on his historic Irish estate faced rent increases of about 900 per cent.
The disturbance at Heywood Hill, in Mayfair, central London, could be catalogued under history, politics, the Easter Rising, aristocracy and economics. It was directed towards the shop’s owner, Peregrine Cavendish, 81, the 12th Duke of Devonshire, who has a 3,237-hectare estate at Lismore, Co Waterford, in the sout east of Ireland.
Sheep farmers in the rugged Knockmealdown Mountains claim that some of their rents are being increased from €520 (£454) per hectare to €5,200.
Supporters of the sheep farmers in Lismore, County Waterford who have been subject to the land rent increases
Thomas Fitzgerald, who traces his family’s involvement in sheep farming in the Knockmealdowns to the 1600s, told The Journal: “We’re getting nowhere with it and we want to negotiate on it, so the lads then in London asked what could they do. They knew the duke has a bookshop in London so they did a sit-in protest to draw attention to it, to say to the duke that this is not just a local story.”
He said that a “small number” of the protesters hailed from Lismore, but others were young people born in London who had Irish parents. They chanted “English landlords out of Ireland” before moving inside to occupy the shop for an hour on Thursday last week.
It was not clear if any actual farmers were involved. One prominent speaker told the small crowd: “We stand with the Palestinians, we stand with the Lebanese, and we stand with the Iranians. And we stand today with the people of Lismore”.
The occupation was supported by the Terence MacSwiney Commemoration Committee, named after the lord mayor of Cork who died on hunger strike after his arrest by the British in 1920 during the Irish war of independence. The committee supported Gerry Adams outside the High Court last month during the civil case over his alleged membership of the IRA. Members of the RMT rail union also joined the protest.
The protesters were invited into the bookshop for water and coffee by the Duke of Devonshire’s son-in-law
Heywood Hill was described as the favourite bookshop of the late Queen Elizabeth, while Evelyn Waugh regarded it as the “centre for all that was left of fashionable and intellectual London”.
Nicky Dunne, 55, the Duke’s son-in-law who runs the bookshop, gave a bemused welcome to the protesters, saying: “Thank you for coming. You never know what’s going to happen in books.” He offered them water and coffee, explaining: “There is nothing more hospitable than going to an Irish home, so I want you to feel welcome here.”
The Devonshire family’s seat in England is at Chatsworth, the stately home in the Derbyshire Dales.
Lismore Castle, the family’s seat in Ireland since 1753, is run by the duke’s heir, William, the Earl of Burlington, 56, and his wife, Laura, 54. The family’s various estates and other assets are managed by the Devonshire Group, a diverse collection of businesses and charities.
Peregrine Cavendish, 81, the 12th Duke of Devonshire, at Lismore CastleAlamy
Conor McGuinness, the Sinn Fein representative for Waterford in the Irish parliament and the party’s rural affairs spokesman, this weekend described the dispute as the “unfinished business of 1916”, referring to the Easter Rising against British rule.
“An injustice is being done to these men — they have farmed the Knockmealdowns for generations and are now being driven off the land by an absentee landlord, a British aristocrat who is imposing a 900 per cent rent increase,” he wrote on Facebook. “It’s 2026, not 1846.”
The Lismore Estate said the rent increase for graziers in the Knockmealdown Mountains was the first since 2017Alamy
Martin Heydon, Ireland’s agriculture minister, told the Irish parliament last month that the government would not intervene in the dispute but it hoped “a resolution can be found”.
The Lismore Estate said a rent review for tenants was completed in 2023.
“It is the first increase in rents for this group of grazing occupiers in the Knockmealdown Mountains since 2017, and ensures that we maintain fair rates for all our agricultural occupiers, be they on the mountains or lower lands,” said a spokeswoman.
“The rent we have proposed to the graziers is considerably less than the market rent. We have engaged with this group of graziers who object to the rental increase but have not yet received a collective and aligned response from them.”
The spokesman said the rent increase for the graziers would take the price per hectare from €5 to €50 by 2029, which is 25 per cent of the current market rate. The rate for this year is €25.