sentences:  The political background to the movement was the post-famine Encumbered Estates Act 1849, and the resultant change in land ownership at landlord level.In the north of Ireland, Protestant and Presbyterian ministers feared that the new landlords would destroy the "Ulster custom" of tenancy, which compensated tenants for any improvement undertaken.Concurrently, in the south of Ireland politically minded young Catholic priests were agitating for the adoption there of the Ulster custom as a measure of reform.