The Irish Land Commission was created by the British crown in 1843 to "inquire into the occupation of the land in Ireland. The office of the commission was in Dublin Castle, and the records were, on its conclusion, deposited in the records tower there, from whence they were transferred in 1898 to the Public Record Office".[1] It took on the role of a rent fixing commission in 1881 under the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881 (also known as the second Irish Land Act). For a century it was the body responsible for re-distributing farmland in most of Ireland. It was formally abolished in 1999.