AS MANY OF THE chapters have touched upon individually, the legacy and memory of the land agent in Britain and Ireland made a strong impression on both contemporary and subsequent poetry, fiction, drama and folklore. This is unsurprising, given the wide range of powers, personalities and activities of land agents in all corners of the British and Irish isles, as well as the sheer scale of their dominion. Despite the urbanisation and industrialisation overtaking much of society in this period, large sections of it remained rural and agricultural, and the power of the landed and aristocratic classes, though subject to challenge, remained strong. Ireland – Belfast, Dublin and Cork aside – remained a fundamentally rural society and agricultural economy well into the twentieth century. As such, the requirements for, and scope of activities of, land agents remained significant and the raw materials for fictional presentations of such powerful figures prevalent.

A number of common stereotypes of the land agent can be traced in fiction and poetry from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, which had a powerful impact on their image in social, communal and popular memory. These shared stereotypes act as linking membrane between the four nations of the British and Irish isles, right into the present day, differences in traditions, languages and religion notwithstanding. The first of these was a will to rule, an overweening desire for the exercise of power, not simply on behalf of their employers, but for its own sake.