`This Recklessly Generous Landlord': John Hamilton of Donegal 1800-1884, by Dermot James Woodfield Press, 255pp, £10.95

When the young Marquis of Kenmare visited his tenantry in Co Kerry in 1868 "to study the desires and comfort of the people", it was evident from his remarks at the time that he regarded his mission as a romantic venture: "It will afford me an occupation not only interesting but pleasing . . . I shall hail every manifestation of improvement with delight!"

This exotic - and oxymoronic - concept of "the romance of land-lordism" was subsequently scathingly demolished by James Godkin in his book The Land- War in Ireland, published in 1870. While conceding the possibility of "the good landlord", Godkin fingered the real IT]bete noire in what he called "the hierarchy in the heaven of landlordism" - the under-bailiff, the head-bailiff, the chief-clerk in the office, the subagent, the head-agent.

"The chief characteristic of landlord power, as felt by the tenant," wrote Godkin, "is arbitrariness. The agent may make any rule he pleases, and as many exceptions to every rule as he pleases." The comments applied particularly to absentee landlords and their concomitant evils - layers of middlemen, high rents and widespread evictions. This was the general picture in Ireland during the Land War - a decidedly unromantic one.

But there were exceptions, and John Hamilton of Brownhall and St Ernan's, Co Donegal, was one of those. Inheriting some 20,000 acres when he reached the age of 21, Hamilton spent the next 60 years trying to improve the lot of his tenants, managing everything himself rather than through an agent - he built houses, drained land, constructed roads and maintained schools. Even the local parish priest, Father John Doherty, a critic of landlordism in general, wrote of him: "His tenants honour him, respect him and love him for his personal kindness and friendliness towards them."

Although he had inherited, along with the estate, a family fortune estimated (in today's money) at almost £1 million, in the spring of 1832 Hamilton was noting in his diary that he was "cramped in every endeavour to do good by my limited means". He had, in short, spent most of the fortune on good works, giving rise to his depiction as "this recklessly generous landlord".

We owe much of our knowledge about John Hamilton to his own writings - diaries, journals, agricultural records, even a novel (about the Fenians!). He was also a linguist, speaking Irish, German and French, and a competent artist. Dermot James's pen-picture of Hamilton is derived from the man's own writings: "He was deeply - almost obsessively- religious, constantly questioning both himself and others, and there can be no doubt that his religious beliefs were the main driving force of his life and influenced most of his dealings with his fellow men. It was, however, his dealings with his own tenants (as well as neighbouring poor who were not his tenants) that marked him out as an exceptional person and an unusually generous and benevolent landlord."It was his generosity, and not some squander-mania gene, that led to the situation when, by the time he was 50, not only was all his capital gone but part of his huge estate had also been mortgaged. He was humble enough to admit later that he could have achieved the same results with less than half the expenditure if he had been less impatient to get things done quickly. His religious zeal was not the rigid, stifling kind that brooks no alternative; in fact, although "brought up in rather ultra-Protestant principles", he felt it was grossly unfair that Roman Catholics and Presbyterians had to pay tithe money to support the Established Church and he welcomed disestablishment. He set up Sabbath Schools in Donegal town and other places, though not with the intention of proselytising the Catholics who attended, pace other landlords and churchmen.

His religious zeal drew him to contemplation of being ordained at one stage but he resigned himself to the fact that he would probably have left the Church if his own thinking "progressed". Instead he sublimated his ardent feelings in working for his fellow men. He married twice and had seven children. The Hamilton name is still known and respected in Co Donegal.

Dermot James has performed a worthy task in bringing this unique character to life in an intriguing book. Hamilton may have been untypical of his class, but that untypicality makes his life and labours so much more instructive. John Hamilton was a man before his time, someone who would undoubtedly fit more easily into the pluralist Ireland of today.

Richard Roche is a writer and historian

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