c. 77), to facilitate the sale of Irish estates whose owners, because of the Great Famine, were unable to meet their obligations.

The 1849 Act allowed this court to order sales of the land by ignoring entails.

The economic need for the court was caused by the impoverishment of many Irish tenant farmers during the 1840s famine, that made it impossible for them to pay their rents as agreed to a landlord, and in turn he could not make his mortgage payments.

An example of this is with the trustees of the estate of William Mellish, whose daughter Margaret had married the 2nd Earl of Glengall with a substantial inheritance.

The trustees challenged the behaviour of the Earl in 1847, and he was declared bankrupt in the same year.