This dissertation is in part an examination of the mechanisms of the Land Commission in the application of the Irish land policy and demonstrates the attempt to create in the Irish countryside a rural idyll. Part of the dissertation will also examine the migration policy that evolved in the early years of the state and will use as a case study the migrant group who came to Leixlip Co. Kildare. During the latter years of the nineteenth century the land-distribution policies to deal with the Congested districts of the west of Ireland were put in place. The Land Commission was created in 1881 functioning as the agent through which land was purchased and redistributed to allottees. With the independence of Ireland, the Irish State continued the principal of land-distribution. In a report to the then government in 1923, the Gaeltacht Commission suggested that land in the congested districts might be exchanged for land elsewhere in the west and more radically for land in the east. This study explores the widespread clientelism by the Fianna Fail Party in generating political support and together with the vision of Eamon De Valera the creation of an Arcadian rural society. A case study of a townland in the east, Kilmacredock, County Kildare demonstrates the impact of these land-distribution policies. This impact is manifest for the migrants by the need to reshape their identity and a sense of place on their arrival in 1959. In the 21st century changes to the urban rural fringe have created further change in the townland with the growth of the city into the hinterland. The new houses, the motorway and attendant exchanges have surrounded the townland and further change will inevitably come.