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[Post Famine Ireland- Social Structure
Ireland as it
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© 2006 by Desmond Keenan. Book available from Xlibris.com and Amazon.com]
THE ECONOMY I: AGRICULTURE
Chapter Summary. This chapter deals with all the major aspects of the Irish economy with regard to primary production from the soils, rivers, and seas, both pastoral and tillage. Related questions such as the Co-operative Movement, the tenure of land, the improvement of land largely through drainage, and the Land Acts which transferred the holding of land are described. The hyperlinks immediately below are to the most important headings.
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Agriculture
Overview of the Period
Agriculture was developing rapidly in Ireland as in the rest of the United Kingdom. So snapshots, as it were, of its state at any given time are very interesting. Comparing the second half of the nineteenth century with the first half, by 1850 the use of oxen for ploughing had died out. So too had the rundale-runrig system of ploughing associated with the big wooden plough. Fields were ploughed flat, and under-soil drainage was installed. For field cultivation, the use of the spade-shovel for anything other than gardens had ceased. There were no longer huge armies of cheap labourers to dig fields, or use scythes. Indeed farm labour became scarce in some areas. Smaller lighter iron ploughs drawn by horses and drill cultivation with ploughs and hoes became the norm. Artificial fertilisers became general, and the use of organic farm manure was at times abandoned. By mid-century, the endless experiments with crossing and breeding had resulted in the adoption of a limited number of breeds of cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and poultry. Virtually the whole cattle industry could be summed up in one word, ‘shorthorn’. As roads and railways reached the furthest parts almost all farming became market-orientated. Subsistence agriculture ceased, and even the smallest farmer tried to produce something he could sell.
When discussing Irish agriculture it is necessary to remember that the gentlemen farmers and the strong farmers many of them Protestants, produced the vast bulk of agricultural produce which was sold commercially, even though by 1900 almost all the small farmers were producing some output for the market. However this might be limited to a calf, a pig, or a couple of sheep a year. A rough calculation shows that 300,000 farmers with an average farm size of 15 acres could cultivate 4.5 million acres. 120,000 farmers with an average farm size of 65 acres could cultivate 7.8 million acres, while 35,000 farmers with an average farm size of 150 acres would cultivate 5.25 million acres. The latter two combined would cultivate about 13 million acres or three times as much as the small farmers (See table of farm sizes in Foreman, Ireland, 183; with regard to numbers engaged in farming two thirds had under 30 acres). It must also be taken into account that the smaller the farm the less there is left for marketing after consumption on the farm is taken into account. Also, the small farmer normally had less machinery, less fertiliser, poorer seed and livestock. Foreman’s table shows that the percentage of holdings under 30 acres declined from over 90% before the Famine to 66% in 1901 and declined further to 55% in 1953-4. The total superficial area of Ireland was about 32,000 square miles or 20,327,947 acres of which 4,787,003 were bog, waste, barren mountain, waters and marsh. So approximately 15 million acres were available for the various branches of agriculture.
For nearly twenty years after the Famine agriculture was prosperous in the United Kingdom. The period from 1850 to 1874 was described as the ‘Golden Age’ of British farming (Briggs and Jordan, Economic History of England, 323-8). It was also a period of great agricultural prosperity in Ireland. Farm machinery became more complex, resulting in the reaper-binder, the threshing mill, and eventually the tractor. The introduction of a revolutionary device, the milk separator, along with pasteurisation, was to revolutionise the whole dairy industry. Agriculture as practised by the best farmers in the United Kingdom was probably the best in Europe. Many Irish farmers were also improving their lands. But developments in Ireland never reached the same extremes as in England, so it was less affected by the ‘Great Depression’. Many of the progressive farmers were Protestants.
The Great Agricultural Depression is regarded as lasting from 1874 to 1896. It commenced with a series of bad harvests the worst of which was in 1879. Agricultural prices did not rise as a result of the poor crops because alternative sources of wheat could be found overseas at first particularly in America. Then a reliable refrigeration system for ships was devised, and mutton was found to lend itself to being transported in a frozen state. Australia shipped its first refrigerated cargo in 1881 and New Zealand commenced exporting frozen mutton in 1882. Vast quantities of wheat, frozen mutton, canned beef, and wool flooded into the country. The large-scale transportation of fresh meat was not feasible, and as fresh meat always tasted better than de-frozen meat the demand for it remained fairly stable. Tillage for the production of cereals had been encouraged by the Corn Laws, but as cereals now produced a smaller return than beef, tillage steadily decreased to produce a new equilibrium. Dairy produce, fruit and vegetables similarly could not be imported, so more were produced.
In Ireland the commercial agricultural sector had not spread so far on to unsuitable soils, nor had there been the same intensive inputs of expensive fertilisers and machinery. So Irish commercial farmers were not hit as badly as English ones. The recession was shallower and more short-lived. Nor were Irish rents so high. (The bad harvest in 1879 was a godsend to agitators like Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell but the agitation and terrorism of the Land League was of a political nature and not directed either at intolerable conditions of tenure or major losses of revenue. In any case their agitation was largely directed at small tenant farmers in the west of Ireland, who produced very little for the market.) Output in most of the branches of the livestock industry rose steadily, though there was a decline in the number of milch (milk) cows after the Danes entered the English butter market. The Danes raised their milk production per cow from 220 gallons in 1861 to 605 gallons per cow in 1914 and the butter fat content from 68 lbs to 239 lbs, and most of the soil in Denmark was less fertile than in Ireland (Farmers’ Gazette 27 Nov 1920). The development of Danish agriculture took an entire generation but by 1910 could be regarded as having caught up with Ireland. The English market was also growing so the volume of Irish exports was not affected. Nevertheless the Danes increasingly set the standards which Irish farmers had to match by the nineteen twenties.
Beginning around 1889 with the start of the co-operative movement and the creamery movement there were signs of a renewal of effort to develop Irish agriculture. Farmers began to measure output, to measure the milk and count the eggs, and to get rid of under-performing stock. This was given an added stimulus by the formation of a Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in 1899. In the twentieth century considerable progress was made, and there was even an increase in tillage. During the First World War compulsory tillage brought a great increase to the number of acres under the plough, and led to the general adoption of the motor tractor.
Yet in 1904 the Farmers’ Gazette noted that it was well known that agriculture was backward in some parts of Ireland, and that there was a need to study the matter before making any proposals for improvement.
The first obvious one was the number of uneconomic holdings. Then there was the lack of working capital. There was the lack of any inducement to invest in the improvement in land. The lack of proper housing for the farmer or his stock; the steady increase in second class pasture which would yield 4 times as much if it were tilled; the complacent satisfaction with the present situation which relegates Ireland to the place of a rancher to supply stock to English farmers to fatten; the prevalent practice of selling the best stock and breeding from the worst; the almost complete loss in some districts of the art of tillage; the want of regular systems of rotations; the aversion to doing more than the minimum to clean the land; the want of pride in the performance of farmwork and in the arrangements about the farmstead; the tendency to put off ploughing, sowing, and harvesting to the last moment; the small value that is put on time; the lack of recognition that the best manure for land is labour. The Land Act (1903) would do away with the evils of dual ownership, but will still leave a large number of uneconomic holdings, which not even the abolition of the rent itself could make viable (Farmers’ Gazette 2 Jan. 1904). (Even half a century later many of these facts were still noticeable, especially on tiny farms.)
Giving evidence to a Royal Commission a witness said that according to his experience there had been no improvement the cattle in Ireland in the past 50 years; no more butter was being produced per cow, and no more beef; tillage had likewise been stagnant. In England the case was quite different; land which fifty years ago carried 50 cows now carried 90. Everywhere in Ireland we see farms going backward; being over-run with gorse, ferns and weeds. The farmers say the grass is becoming more sour and lacking in nutrition, with more acid plants taking over from the nutritious grasses, and the quantity of hay cut per acre was falling off (Farmer’s Gazette 15 March 1902).
Though speaking in general, it is clear that the Gazette was referring chiefly to those farmers with second grade land who devoted almost all of it to breeding cattle for sale. Nor as we will see had there been any shortage of efforts over the previous fifty years to improve agriculture. But the only tillage many farmers would have done was planting a few acres of potatoes for home consumption every year. It seems undeniable that in many parts of Ireland where stock raising was the principle occupation that many farmers were just lazy, and lacked the stimulus of competitive rents. The question must also be raised why specialist milk or beef producers adopted the shorthorn. O’Grada gives figures which seem to show that growth in productivity, though low by continental standards, was actually higher than in Britain. But part of the high productivity gains on the Continent can be explained by the low level from which they started. They just had to copy from the British Isles (O’Grada, Economic History, 262).
It seems clear that overall the value of the outputs of land relative to the costs of inputs from 1880 onwards was steadily falling and continued to fall up the Second World War. One major increase was the cost of farm labour. A clergyman wrote that a small glebe of church land which brought a steady income in 1870 was bringing no income at all by 1920 after the cost of the labour was subtracted. One result of this was the steady decline of holdings under 30 acres though these still amounted to over 50% of all holdings in the 1950s (Freeman, Ireland, 183). This affected the whole British Isles. After the Second World War it was realised that farming would have to be subsidised if a strategic minimum of home-produced food was to be maintained. [Top]
Livestock
Beef Cattle
The big development in the second half of the nineteenth century was the large-scale adoption of the shorthorn as the best breed of cattle for Ireland. Originally it was a dual purpose cow which various breeders developed either for beef or milk production. Though a Dairy shorthorn was also developed it was primarily a beef breed. By and large Irish farmers, even in the great creamery areas, did not favour specialised milk-breeds before the twentieth century. What they wanted was a cow which would give a reasonable amount of milk for consumption or the production of butter which then could be sold to the butcher for meat. No attempt was made to measure how much milk a cow produced, the farmers just judging by their eyes the amount of milk a given cow produced. Beef production was always the chief objective of the farmer. Only in Meath and Westmeath where butter production was minimal was the specialist beef breed, the Hereford preferred. The great advantage of the Hereford was that it could be fattened solely on grass, whereas the shorthorn and the Aberdeen Angus needed to be finished with feeding concentrates. The Aberdeen-Angus, a Scottish breed, was regarded as doing well on poorer land, as also did another Scottish breed, the Galloway, though the latter was purely a beef breed. The shorthorn breed was not widely adopted until after the Famine. Shortly after 1850 some improving farmers in Munster, where dairying was most concentrated, began importing and developing the shorthorn.
When around 1900, the Department of Agriculture began registering pure-bred bulls, shorthorns accounted for 65% of the total. The next largest group was the Aberdeen Angus with 6%, followed by the Hereford with 2½%. 26% of bulls registered were described as crossbred, these being particularly numerous in Munster (Farmers’ Gazette 9 August 1902). The only native Irish breeds surviving were the Kerry and its relation the Dexter, the latter being purely a beef breed, and together they amounted to 2½% of the Department’s approved bulls. The Irish brindled cow was common until 1850, after which a prejudice grew up against brindled animals. (A brindled animal had dark streaks or flecks on a lighter background). The brindled cow survived until 1900 in the poorer districts where they had a reputation of being poor milkers, and the Congested Districts Board preferred the Aberdeen Angus and the Galloway. However, crossing with shorthorns improved the breed until the shorthorn fever swept the country (Farmers’ Gazette 26 May 1900). The Dishley, or longhorn, so popular before the Famine disappeared.
The Department’s figures were of course misleading for it was trying to spread the use of established breeds the pedigree of whose bulls was established. The use of scrub bulls was widespread. The quality of a beef bull was easier to determine than that of a dairy bull. Both the breeder and the butcher could look at the bull, estimate its weight and see how much flesh was on the bull in the appropriate places for the best cuts of beef. The farmer could judge what weight the cattle had attained in the four years of their lives. Oddly enough, the purebred animal had another advantage when it was being bought at a fair, and that was that it looked better than the progeny of the non-descript bull!
All over the United Kingdom, following the repeal of the Corn Laws the price of cereals fell steadily, and farmers turned to the production of cattle. One reason for this was to cut costs. It was argued that farmers could have increased their profits if they had retained more tillage which would have better maintained the fertility of the soils in poorer areas. But against this it was said that increasingly farm labourers were leaving the countryside for better wages and conditions in the towns. Also it was maintained that the use of green crops gave a bad taste to milk and made it unsaleable. The over-riding factor was however the ever-increasing demand for fresh meat in English towns and cities. More and more people were able to afford to buy meat, and to have meat at the principal meal on more than one day of the week. Most parts of the animal could be sold for cheaper food, including the liver, the kidneys, and the fat which was rendered down to make cooking fats such as lard or dripping.
Cattle were sent to British markets from all over eastern and central Ireland, but the great centre of the beef industry was the limestone plains covered with glacial drift in Meath, Kildare and Westmeath. There is no obvious reason why this could not have been a great dairying region for the soil was suitable for both.
Even west of the Shannon the graziers formed the backbone of the economy. These graziers were farmers with comparatively large grassland farms which in the early twentieth century were targeted by agitators who wanted the big grazing farms confiscated by the Government and split up into smaller tillage farms. Cattle-ranching was the only successful business west of the Shannon. If the land was given over to tillage, the landowners argued, returns would be lower, and consequently the tenants would be unable to pay the existing rents (Weekly Irish Times 8 September 1906). In any case the land was often totally unsuitable for tillage. This was often the case when there was a thin soil over thick infertile glacial drift consisting largely of clay. The large farmers did not bother raising their own stock preferring to buy year old calves from the small farmers, and these calves were often the sole marketable product of the small farmers. (Soil apart, there was not in the area a tradition of growing tillage crops for the market. When a sugar beet factory was much later built in the region the beet had to be brought from the tillage areas in the east of Ireland. Similarly, it always proved impossible to get farmers outside Ulster to grow flax.)
The key figure in the success of the beef industry was the cattle dealer. He usually had some land of his own on which he could hold a stock of cattle. Like most other agricultural products cattle become ready for the market at the same time, namely at the end of summer, so a cattle dealer could hold over cattle to smooth out the supply to the English markets. As the cattle were bought and sold at the autumn fairs, sending them all directly to the English markets would cause a glut. The dealers had contacts with farmers, with the banks, with the railway and steamship companies and with the buyers at English fairs who were buying for the slaughterhouses. It was their organisation which made the beef industry profitable. The cattle from the less rich grasslands could not be sent directly to the butchers. The animals often had to finished off by fatteners who either had very good land or else stall-fed the cattle. Most of the cattle were shorthorns, except as noted above, Herefords in the Midlands. By the year 1900 many small farmers were using an Aberdeen Angus bull on small local cattle which produced a small animal which was popular with butchers. As with sheep and pigs, smaller and leaner animals were now being sought by the butchers. The whole tendency was away from enormous fat animals towards smaller animals with less fat. The drawback of this cross was that the cows were poor milkers (Farmers’ Gazette 9 June 1900).
The relative prosperity of much of Ireland, and of Connaught in particular, depended on the railways. Though the Grand and Royal Canals had played some part in opening up central Ireland to trade the Midland Great Western Railway had lines connecting Dublin with five west coast ports, Galway, Clifden, Westport, Killala, and Sligo, each branch having small spur-lines leading off it. Most places were within 20 miles of a railway so cattle did not loose much weight while being herded on foot to the railway. The railway companies and the ports made provision for the transfer of the cattle from the railway trucks on to the cattleboats and off again on the other side. The great port for the export of live cattle was Dublin, while Birkenhead in Cheshire, on the opposite side of the Mersey from Liverpool was the great importation port. In the course of time the three largest railways in Ireland were connected to the docks at the North Wall in Dublin. Birkenhead was similarly linked to the major British railways. Over 40% of the live cattle trade passed through the North Wall reflecting the great concentration of beef cattle in the Midlands.
The time for shipping the cattle depended on the times of the English fairs. The Government in 1895 issued an Order, the Animals (Transit and General) (Ireland) Order 1895, which gave detailed instructions regarding what it required. In accordance with this Order, inspectors made frequent checks on ports and railway yards to see the instructions were complied with; the cattleboats, stock-yards and lairs were also frequently inspected. A lair was an enclosed space close to a railway where cattle could be let out of the trucks, be given food and water, and be rested. Inspectors made frequent checks on ports and railway yards to see they were complied with (County Councils Gazette 4 May 1900).
In 1912 the English Board of Agriculture made more rules regarding the transport of live animals. After coming off the cattle boats the cattle were to be held for twelve hours in the lairs for rest, feeding, watering and inspection. This was not popular with the cattle dealers because it upset long-standing arrangements which inter-connected the Irish, English, and Scottish fairs. One reason for this new order was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Ireland.
Despite these inspections the horrors of the live cattle trade between Ireland and Britain in 1924 were described. Many cattle died or were slaughtered on board; cattle landed with their sides ripped by the horns of other animals; stick marks caused by the use of sticks by Irish drovers - really a bad habit rather than conscious cruelty. The losses due to injuries caused on transit amounted to £1 million a year (Weekly Northern Whig 9 February 1924).
With regard to exports, the cattle industry was second only to the linen industry in value, with live cattle exports accounting for about two thirds and dairy products one third. The numbers of cattle being exported rose from around 195,000 in the immediate post-Famine period to around 835,000 before the First World War. Figures given by Burke are broadly comparable, as are those given in the Northern Whig in 1924, though it is clear there are differences in accounting (Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine, 49; Burke, Industrial History, 329; Weekly Northern Whig 9 February 1924). The 765,251 cattle exported in 1919 brought in £22.7 million which was approximately equal to £12 million in 1914.
Ireland was at the very margin of the area suitable for the cultivation of all cereals except oats, but its soils and climate made it the best grass-growing region in Europe. In 1850, the Irish livestock industry was among the most advanced in the world at the time, and Ireland was one of the countries Danish farmers studied and from which they bought livestock when they wished to improve their own farm animals. The more progressive and market-orientated Irish farmers decided that the shorthorn breed, either pure or crossed with local cattle, was best suited Irish conditions. It resulted in a small, well-fleshed beast which was much in demand, and remained in demand, by English butchers. Great efforts were made to eradicate disease which would have destroyed markets. Despite the lamentations of nationalist writers with regard to the decline in tillage and the consequent fall in population, cattle-rearing produced the best return from Ireland’s natural resources.
The beef cattle industry was not greatly affected by the decision of the Danes to concentrate on the production of milk, bacon, and eggs. Nevertheless, it would seem that Irish stock-raisers could have done considerably more to improve their output. On less favourable soils a certain amount of tillage would have maintained or increased the fertility of the soil. More careful attention to breeding could have reduced the period the animal needed to reach maturity. Feeding during the winter-time, again requiring some tillage, would also have shortened the time the animal needed to reach their prime. This would have involved some extra costs, while to increase the market the price would have to be reduced. The farmer would have to work harder for a lesser return, hoping that increased sales would make up the difference. In addition it proved easier to force the landlord to reduce the rent in order to increase profits. Cattle-rearing could be a lazy but profitable occupation. Many farmers, especially small farmers, did maintain a rotation: potatoes, cereal, hay, and then grazing.
After the Second World War when there was a plentiful supply of graduate agricultural advisors, often employed by the banks, farmers were encouraged to keep strict accounts and records, to borrow more against the projected return, to get the soil in each field tested, to apply more lime and fertiliser, to sub-soil and mole-drain their fields, to till their fields in rotation to maintain fertility, to maintain only pedigree herds from progeny-tested bulls, to cross-breed sheep for the early lamb market, to winter-feed young cattle with turnips and silage to maintain their condition, to acquire manure-handling machinery to get as much manure, straw and slurry back on to the land, to buy certificated seeds from the great co-ops, to install hygienic milking parlours, and so on. It was a different world. Farming became agri-business.
The Dairy Industry
This was one of the branches of Irish agriculture which was most subject to foreign competition. At first it benefited from the steam-ships and the railways which made it easier to collect butter for sale in England. The butter export industry was well developed especially around Cork city. Butter was made by churning on the farms and was collected and put into small wooden barrels or casks for export. The taste and quality was very variable. However, the Cork Butter Market had an elaborate system of grading. In 1884 an Act of Parliament was passed which allowed the free sale of butter, so there was no guarantee of quality (Burke, Industrial History, 323).
Like the other farmers the dairy farmers adopted the shorthorn or the shorthorn cross, but no attempt was made to establish if a cow was even paying its own way. On milk yields, the Farmers’ Gazette noted Irish cows with an output of 420 gallons of milk and 126 pounds of butter a year. Still, in 1920, the Farmer’s Gazette (27 Nov. 1920) considered that the average Irish milking cow was not covering its costs. (Presumably, this was done by counting the cost of farm labour, real or imputed. For the small farmer for whom the grass and the labour were free, there was an adequate cash return.) The Americans under experimental conditions by then had cows producing 564 pounds of butter a year. In Ireland it had been shown that many of the cows in a dairy herd were kept at a loss. Too many farmers were unwilling to sell off a cow while she produces any milk at all (Farmers Gazette 27 September 1902). Comments like these were common in the farming periodicals and the Irish Homestead up to 1920. Indeed, despite reports on the productivity of the Friesian cow, a milk breed, the Irish remained faithful to the dual purpose shorthorn. If properly selected the shorthorn could give at least 800 gallons without sacrificing the quality of the beef. One shorthorn cow at Slane Castle, County Meath in 1901 was measured as giving 1,100 gallons.
The same criticisms were made of stock-rearing in the dairy industry as were made regarding the beef industry. There was this big difference between the two branches. The dairy industry was to be subjected to intense foreign competition whereas the beef industry was not. The number of dairy cows did not increase, but remained constant at around 1½ millions. It is probably true that until the big co-operative creameries were well-established few farmers could have profitably invested in the great milk breeds like the Friesian, half of the calves of which had to be rejected as virtually useless, unless exported to the Continent for veal.
Little attempt was made to develop the production of milk in winter. A fall in supply in winter-time would mean a rise in price, so the loss of income would be slight. On the other hand the production of milk in winter could involve the labour intensive production of silage. Hay, though less nutritious, could often be easier to make. Around 1880 silage was hailed as the great panacea of Irish farming, but by 1900 many who tried it had given up making it. In making silage, the heavy, newly-cut grass had to be handled, and the equally heavy silage with its distasteful smell had again to be handled. Farm labourers detested it. This was at a time when there was no machinery for managing it (Farmers’ Gazette 25 August 1900). Turnips were not favoured for dairy cows because it was said they gave an unfavourable taste to the milk.
The development of the creameries will be dealt with under food processing, but something can be said regarding the traditional way of making butter. Milk is an emulsion of fats and proteins in water. The fats are lighter than the proteins and readily separate out if left standing with the cream rising to the top. To make butter, either the milk or the cream is agitated or churned to make the fat particles adhere together into globules of butter. These are gathered from the top of the remaining liquid which is called buttermilk, washed with clean water to remove traces of buttermilk and then salted for preservation. In northern Ireland the custom was to churn the whole milk, but in southern Ireland only the cream. Milk from which the cream was removed was called skim milk and was often used to feed calves. The milk remaining after churning was called buttermilk and was a favourite human beverage. It was slightly sour-tasting but very refreshing especially in hot weather.
To collect the cream, the milk was placed in either shallow containers from which the cream when it rose to the surface could be skimmed off, or later in tall thin containers. The introduction about 1886 into Ireland of the Petersen separator was the beginning of a notable advance in this country. The mechanical separator was based on the principle that milk was heavier than cream, so if the milk was put in a vessel that could be spun rapidly, the milk would move to the sides, and the cream would remain in the centre from where it could be drawn off. Small separators could be rotated by hand, but the larger ones were steam-driven. The mechanical separators were far better than the older methods. About three years later it was recognised that if the milk were heated the separation was better; and at the same time the dairy thermometer came into use. The Petersen was followed by the Alexandra and it by the Alpha Laval; this latter has now four competitors. Mechanical milk testers were also developed; the past 14 years have seen a transformation in Irish dairies (Farmers’ Gazette 9 May 1903). A farmer with 40 cows would have a home separator and a dairy maid.
The farm churn was either a dash churn, a barrel churn, or a box churn. The most ancient, dating from the fifteenth century, was the dash churn. It consisted of a tall thin barrel, narrower at the top than the bottom, fitted with a removable lid with a hole in its centre through which a plunger could be passed. The plunger consisted of a round wooden shaft at one end of which was a wooden circular disc perforated with holes. The milk was churned by raising and dashing the plunger in a steady unbroken rhythm up and down. The barrel, or end-over-end or tumbling churn, consisted of a barrel fixed on a frame with a handle at its side to cause it to rotate end-over-end. In the box churn the milk was agitated by means of paddles inside a box turned by a crank handle. The dash churn was the simplest and remained in use on small farms at least until the 1940s.
In 1900 the Farmers’ Gazette had a scathing Article on the backward condition of butter-making on small farms. There were often traces of cow hairs and buttermilk remains revealing careless straining of the milk and washing of the butter; there were smoky flavours from keeping milk indoors; other odours from keeping the dairy too near the byres. Very few have thermometers. There was poor packing or protection; butter wrapped in a calico cloth was put into a farm cart, and then often left in the sun. Dairies were often used as stables in the winter. They had earthen floors; the walls were rough and not limewashed; cement or flagged floors being rare. Utensils, particularly churns, were defective. For creaming the oak keelers and earthenware pans were preferred to the tin-ware, the latter being accused of giving a bad odour to the milk. The cream was left on the milk until it was sour, instead of creaming at regular intervals; the ripening of cream was often not understood, and resulted in the failure of butter-making during winter; ripening was often allowed to go too far in summer, and a starter was not used in winter, and when it was used it was invariably too sour (Farmer’s Gazette, 3 November 1900). (After the Second World War, the Ministry of Agriculture in Northern Ireland set out the minimum standards with grants for cattle byres and dairies, for even the smallest farmers who offered milk for sale.)
The use of milk thermometers was unknown and never used in dairies; the cream was heated by placing a shovelful of burning peat next to the vessel. A strainer was never use or only a coarse one; milking was always done with hands wetted by dipping them in milk; those used to this method find changing to dry-handed milking very difficult. In hot weather the milk was generally cooled before setting and allowed to get sour and thick before skimming; the cream was churned at any temperature and any degree of acidity; in cold weather if there was difficulty in churning hot water was added to the churn. The cream was always over-churned, and the butter generally worked by hand instead of being pressed with a wooden scoop. Salt of an inferior quality was universal, and butter paper never used. The butter was sent to the market in an untidy and careless manner, and in hot weather was half-melted before it arrived at the market. Most of these errors have now been done away with (loc.cit.). These problems were not peculiar to Ireland.
The dairy instructresses fresh from the Munster Institute of Dairying no doubt relished relating these tales of horror, but how common they were is not clear. At the time of the Famine it was noted that the women from the poorest districts had no knowledge of cookery apart from boiling potatoes. But most countrywomen making butter for sale in the butter-market in the local town had a major obstacle to overcome despite the primitive nature of their equipment, and that was to avoid having a tainted taste. The women buying the butter always carried a small silver coin, a sixpence, with which to taste the butter before buying.
There was a more serious problem with regard to the selling of milk, and that was the fact that many diseases could be spread through milk. The problem was not confined to remote parts of County Cork but involved those supplying the Dublin market. Following the research on germs by Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister medical people began to pay close attention to them in the transmission of disease. Diseases like enteric fever, scarlet fever and measles, but also, and much worse, typhoid and tuberculosis. Medical Officers of Health became concerned.
A report in the Irish Homestead in 1921 said that 49% of the liquid milk supplied to Dublin city would have been pronounced unfit for human consumption if the standards of Boston, Massachusetts, had been applied. The pathological laboratory in Trinity College, Dublin tested 100 samples of the milk supplied. One sample in every twelve contained bacilli of tuberculosis. Dublin had a very poor record, and those who deal in this trade seem entirely ignorant of it; one supplier had 28 million bacteria per cubic centimetre, and that was not the worst which was 73 million bacteria; one would have thought they were selling bacteria not milk. Dr Biggar went to one farm and instructed the farmer how to milk and under his instruction with regard to cleanliness and hygiene the bacteria count dropped to one thirtieth of what it had been; indeed with further re-arrangements of the farm the count could have been lowered further (Irish Homestead 11 June 1921.)
The Butter Market and the Creamery Movement
The creamery movement is often confused with the Co-operative Movement which developed many large and successful creameries but which had a much wider agenda. Creameries could be formed either on a co-operative basis by milk producers, or else started by an individual or a group as shareholders who would purchase the milk from the suppliers. In the first case the risk fell on the producers; in the second case on the purchasers.
The basic idea with regard to creameries is that butter should be made in what resembled factory conditions. The idea coincided with the perceived need for pasteurisation of milk and the development of the mechanical cream separator. Also in the 1880s came the idea of using a thermometer at various stages in the process, especially during pasteurisation. Simply to boil milk gave an unpalatable taste. But to raise the milk to a moderately high temperature and maintain the temperature for a period of perhaps 30 minutes destroyed the germs without impairing the taste. The bacteria necessary for the production of butter can be re-introduced from a pure source. This method was researched and pioneered in Denmark. There was no particular need why these new methods could not be adapted to the family farm, but they lent themselves much better to factory production.
The chief need to be considered when choosing a site was the availability of a constant supply of uncontaminated water. The site should be close to a good system of roads. Most early creameries were small as the farmers had to bring the milk in carts. As the practice of collecting milk by lorry or truck developed creameries became much larger. A steam engine was needed to drive the machinery and to provide heat for pasteurisation, and also to provide power for the milk cooler afterwards. Most important of all was a good manager who knew the various processes. At first Danish or Swedish managers were invited. Pure cultures of bacteria for starting were also imported from around 1895. It was reported that they improved the taste of Irish butter. Where the milk had been pasteurised before churning, and this was becoming increasingly common, the starters were essential. Pasteurising of the milk was necessary for another reason and this was to prevent the spread of disease among calves. All milk supplied to a creamery was pooled and separated, and then an equal quantity of skim milk was returned to the farmers to feed to the calves. Without pasteurisation disease could be spread from farm to farm. Machinery was developed for separating, churning, working the butter, weighing and packing.
It was to be many years before the creamery system was settled satisfactorily. There were those who argued that too much time was spent carting the milk, and that the skim milk spread disease among calves. There was rivalry between the co-operative creameries and proprietary creameries. This became more intense after Horace Plunkett, a Unionist politician and founder of the co-operative movement in Ireland was made Vice-President of the new Irish Department of Agriculture and was regarded as unduly favouring co-operation. However, between them they prevented the Irish dairy industry from being driven out entirely from the traditional British markets. In Ulster in 1895 there were 12 fully equipped creameries; in 1900 there were 109 equal to the total of the other three provinces put together; Ulster was not regarded as a naturally dairying province, so its success was remarkable. By 1911 there were 380 creameries in operation. Eventually a rationalisation took place, which was aided by the development of roads, motor lorries, and milk tankers. The milk-churns by the farmers’ gates marked the collection area of a creamery. The co-operative creameries ultimately proved more successful and the proprietary ones disappeared.
Creameries followed the example of the Danes not only in using pasteurisation and high quality cultures for making the milk. They produced a more standard product, and following Danish example again made it up into one pound blocks and wrapped it in grease-proof paper. [Top]
The Co-operative Movement
It is appropriate to treat the Irish Co-operative Movement here for it was linked closely with the creamery movement, though its aims were much wider. (It will also be mentioned later in other contexts.) In 1889 Horace Plunkett, a son of the 16th Lord Dunsany, started his first co-operative at Dunsany, Co. Meath. Though it was destined to remain the only co-operative in that county, the movement spread widely across Ireland, and indeed round the world. The Dunsany family was the Protestant branch of the Plunketts while the earls of Fingall were of the Catholic branch. Arthur Plunkett, the 11th Earl of Fingall was a cousin of Horace. He married Elizabeth Burke, and she as the Countess of Fingall supported enthusiastically the efforts of her cousin by marriage. The motto of Plunkett’s Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was ‘Better farming, better business, and better living’. Horace considered that he was developing the production side, George Russell (A.E.) the editor of The Irish Homestead was advising on business and marketing, so it was left to Lady Fingall to improve living conditions in the Irish countryside through the United Irish Women, later, the Irish Countrywomen’s Association (Fingall, Seventy Year’s Young, 346).
The co-operative movement is regarded as having begun in Rochdale in Lancashire in 1844 for retail shopping. It was developed by the Danes for production as well. Plunkett established, in 1878, in association with the tenants on the family estate, a Dunsany co-operative society, the germ of the idea that was to dominate his later life. In 1889 Horace Plunkett returned from America where he had been working on a ranch in Wyoming whither he had gone when threatened with tuberculosis and launched his movement. He was joined by the Rev. Thomas Aloysius Finlay S.J (1848-1940) a Jesuit priest, educationalist, and author, who was born at Lanesborough, Co. Roscommon. From 1883 to 1900 Fr Finlay occupied the chair of philosophy at University College, Dublin. He travelled the country promoting co-operation, and in 1895 was elected vice-president of the resultant Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (T. Morrisey, DNB (2004), Finlay, T.). He established The Irish Homestead in 1896 as the organ of the co-operative movement in Ireland and was its editor until 1906. Finlay was at first assisted as sub-editor by William Lee Plunket, Lord Plunket (one t) son of the Protestant archbishop of Dublin. Under George Russell (A.E.), editor from 1906 to 1923, it became a journal of international importance.
From 1889 Plunkett formed small co-operative creameries, and several small farmers’ societies, and in 1891 he was able to report that 1,000 Irish farmers had joined the movement and had formed 18 co-operative societies. In 1894 he was obliged to form the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) to supervise a movement which had become too large for him alone to control. Many farmers were unwilling to participate, but by 1900 400 branches had been started mainly in the dairying industry. There were also some engaged in giving instruction in agriculture, in the poultry and egg trade, and in the bacon curing and horse-breeding lines (Church of Ireland Gazette 12 January 1900). Of the 600 creameries established between 1890 and 1900 260 were co-operatives. The creamery movement did not spread to Ulster until around 1897 but in three years 108 co-operative creameries were established and 30 more planned (Homestead 12 May 1900).
By the end of 1919 the number of co-operative societies in Ireland was 1,028 with a paid up share capital of £434,400, a loan capital of £882,770, and a turnover of £11,158,583; over the figures for 1918 this meant an increase of 78 new societies, 17,885 new members, an increase of £441,233 in loan and share capital, and an increase of £2,070,915 in turnover; this latter was not solely due to an increase in prices; volumes traded went up as well. The largest increase was in the agricultural or general purpose society which was becoming the common or typical one; such were not specialised in their aims and they undertook to do everything for their members, buying, selling and manufacturing. Broken down into groups they were as follows:
Central and Auxiliary Dairy Societies, 439 in number with membership of 50,324, a loan and share capital of £607,800 and a turnover of £7,047, 079. Next came the Agricultural Societies which number 350, have their share and loan capital of £362,028 and a turnover of £1,279,471. Of Credit Banks there were 3 with 15,940 members, and a turnover of £33,834. There were also 13 societies of poultry-keepers, 55 miscellaneous societies and home industries societies including bacon factories and meat-processing, 31 flax societies, and finally two federations [total 1028]; this organisation is a tribute to Sir Horace Plunkett, and some of the best and most clear-headed of Irishmen of our time (Homestead 10 February 1921). By the third decade of the twentieth century the manufacture of butter for the market was almost exclusively in the hands of the co-operative creameries (Burke, Industrial History, 324). Plunkett was particularly interested in providing cheap credit to small farms and introducing Raiffeisen banks or credit unions on the lines developed by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen in Germany.
Despite the successes of the IAOS the co-operative movement in Ireland was not nearly as successful as in other countries. One reason for this was that its philosophy of self-help was totally contrary to that of the nationalist politicians who preached that Home Rule was the necessary and sufficient cause of Irish prosperity and who were naturally opposed to anything that might make Irish farmers contented. The other was the failure of most of the Catholic clergy to support any organisation which was run on non-sectarian lines. Their suspicions of Plunkett were confirmed when he wrote in his book Ireland and the New Century that the Catholic priests were spending money on the ornamentation of their churches when it would have been better spent on improving the people’s welfare.
Plunkett, when he was Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture gave an annual grant to the IAOS, but this was withdrawn by his successor on the grounds that the IAOS was anti-nationalist (Echo 18 Nov. 1911). Plunkett attributed some of the animosity against co-operatives to their success in overcoming vested interests, especially among butter-merchants. In one case a co-op cut the price of artificial manures to the farmers by 40%, or in at least one case 100%. It was noted too that the average credit (with interest) of the Dublin merchants to the country farmers was reduced from nearly a year, to a couple of months; this was because the creameries paid monthly for the supply of milk, and this regular supply of cash enabled them to pay their own bills promptly. The farmer could save forty pounds a year; but what the town trader really wanted was the farmer's little holding (Weekly Irish Times 23 Nov, 1912; Industrial Journal 26 Mar 1910). (We can suspect that the original suppliers had operated a ring to maintain the price.)
The creameries associated with the IAOS suffered heavily during the terrorist campaign by the IRA from 1919 to 1921 for reasons which were and remain very obscure, for it was a non-political organisation.
The United Irishwomen, taken over and developed by the Countess of Fingall had some success. It was concerned with health issues, but also with leisure interests especially for young people in rural areas. Later its name was changed to the Irish Countrywomen’s Association. It had nothing like the success of its imitator the Women’s Institute in Britain which with Government support was able to establish a branch in most rural parishes.
Poultry and Pigs
The steamship and then the railway brought an enormous expansion in the export of eggs and poultry products even before the Famine. In the post-Famine period exports increased in value to around three quarters that of cattle exports. The industry remained a small-scale one and largely a woman’s one, the wives of farmers being responsible for the individual flocks. An effective collection and delivery system was essential, on at least a weekly basis. Eggs can be kept for longer or shorter periods without refrigeration or preservation, but the longer they are kept the greater the likelihood of them going rotten. A wise cook invariable broke each egg separately into a cup before using. In the second half of the nineteenth century, up to six weeks might elapse between the laying of the egg and its use (Farmers’ Gazette 16 Oct 1920). In 1909 the Department of Agriculture, speaking with regard to complaints from England with regard to dirty and stale eggs, said that both producers and dealers in eggs had still the bad habit of keeping eggs too long. But they maintained that the English dealers were not prepared to pay extra for clean or fresh eggs (Weekly Irish Times 9 Jan 09). The English market could buy all the eggs the Irish and Danes could produce, so there was little incentive for the Irish farmer’s wife to exert herself unduly.
Once again, the Danes set new standards. Egg producers belonged to co-ops. Every egg sold had to be collected on a daily basis, washed, stamped and dated with the producer’s mark, carefully packed, and dispatched to the distributors in England. Any complaints could be traced back to the source. Irish producers had to follow suit, and this was best done through co-operatives. But traditional egg dealers could also do some things to improve their eggs. In the twentieth century, poultry instructresses employed by the new county councils played their part in developing the industry as well. One such instructress in 1902 complained that henhouses were invariably too small, too badly ventilated, and with roosts too high (Farmers’ Gazette 3 May 1902). Figures for 1902 showed that Ireland had around 18.8 million hens, with both Tyrone and Down having over a million birds each. Monaghan, also an Ulster county, with almost three quarters of a million birds had the greatest density, because it was a smaller county. Ulster had over 7 million birds while Munster and Leinster had over 4 million each (Farmers’ Gazette 15 Nov 02). (It was not only in manufacturing that Ulster was pulling ahead of the rest of Ireland.) Poultry numbers had increased steadily from about 9.5 million in 1857. Four million birds were added to the flock between 1890 and 1900. Poultry in 1902 numbered 18,504,324 a decrease of 7.25% from the average of the preceding decade; of these 1,038,492 were turkeys, 1,836,191 were geese, 2,945,721 were ducks and 12,683,920 were ordinary fowl (Weekly Irish Times 6 June 03). Geese still outnumbered turkeys, though their numbers were falling.
At the turn of the twentieth century the common Irish hen was a mongrel, black in colour and small in size and laying small eggs whose chief bloodline was a Spanish hen of notable egg-laying quality. The black hen was a hardy bird, well-adapted to living outdoors in all Irish weathers. It survived on what it could gather around the farmyard, and was given some boiled potatoes and Indian meal (corn meal). It was useless for eating. Incubators, heated by paraffin oil or kerosene were being used increasingly for hatching eggs, partly because larger numbers of birds could be hatched at the same time and also because hatching could be commenced earlier. Hens did not naturally become broody and sit on their eggs before late April or early May. The returns of the Department of Agriculture showed that output of individual flocks under commercial conditions could be determined; the egg average for the 135 flocks with records was 120 eggs per hen per annum; one flock gave 200 eggs each, and 5 flocks 180 eggs average, and 10 160.
There was an interest in improving the breeds. In 1909 the White Leghorns, Brown Leghorns, Buff Orpingtons, and White Wyandottes, breeds developed in the 19th century, were considered the best (Weekly Irish Times 15 May 09). By 1915 the Black Orpington was added as well as the 'new breeds' Blue Orpingtons, Anconas, and Andalusians. The writer commended highly the Rhode Island Reds from America (Weekly Irish Times 21 Aug. 1915). By 1919 it was noted that if hens were kept in a small yard they laid more eggs and fattened quicker than if allowed to roam around the farmyard, and would also lay throughout the year. Up to 200 eggs a year could be obtained instead of 100 only in the summer (Weekly Irish Times 18 Jan. 1919). (The average of 100 eggs was not far from the American average of 104 at the time. By the year 2,000 the American average was 244.) The large poultry shed was now coming into fashion. In 1920 the main producers were still the farmers’ wives. A farmer in Lurgan in 1924 said he kept a flock of 50 White Wyandottes, spent £8 on feedstuff and achieved sales of approximately £23. The editor considered that the low output of others could be caused by poor stock, elderly stock, and poor management; too many people breed from unselected flocks (Farmers Gazette 3, 10 May 1924). This was the same complaint as was made regarding other livestock and seeds for tillage. There were complaints about the quality of Irish eggs and the Department of Agriculture was considering a system of date stamping. A system of spot checking potatoes for export in the North of Ireland worked wonders. Ireland had become the greatest egg-exporting country in the world (Farmers’ Gazette 16 Oct., 18 Dec. 1920)
The value of eggs exported increased from £3 million in 1913 to £15 million in 1919, while live and dead poultry and feathers amounted to another £3 million. (Allowing for inflation this was an increase from £3 million to £7.5 million.). By 1920, at £18 million the poultry industry almost equalled the value of the export of fat and store cattle combined, namely £21.7 million. Exports of poultry products etc. in
eggs £15,603,000
poultry £2,750,000
feathers £96,310
total poultry £18,449,310 (Homestead 6 Mar 1920)
Pig production had always been important in Ireland. Like the butter and poultry industries production was on a small scale, with most farmers trying to rear some pigs for the market each year. For many small farmers the income they derived from pigs was almost as great at that from cattle (Homestead 16 June 1900). The export of salted pork became a large industry at the end of the eighteenth century, and contracts for the Royal Navy were eagerly sought after. Tastes changed to less heavily salted forms of pig meat like hams and bacon, so ham and bacon factories were established from 1825 onwards and were very successful. Though salt was still used in the process it was called curing rather than salting. In Ireland in 1900 the bacon factories, nineteen in all, were large and few; 3 in Cork, 4 in Limerick, 1 in Tralee, 3 in Waterford, 1 in Dundalk, 2 in Dublin, and 2 in Belfast; in addition Ireland shipped 20,000 live pigs a week to England. It should be noted that the majority of these factories were in the south of Ireland where the dairy industry was strongest. (Later Northern Ireland increased its pig production.) Skim milk became an important part of the pig’s diet. In Denmark where 25 years ago there were few factories there were now 48, of which 26 were co-operative and 22 privately-owned; these slaughter 1.2 million pigs a year, nearly all for the English market (Farmers’ Gazette 22 Dec. 1900).
The breed of the pig followed the demands of the market, for the shape of the pig, its size, and the amount of fat in the meat varied with the demands of the butchers. Lean bacon was more popular in England and there were now 5 principal breeds of bacon pigs; in order of popularity the Large White York; the Middle White York, the Berkshire, the Tamworth, and the Small White York. The Yorkshire pig was developed in England in the nineteenth century from the original Large York crossed with a small fat Chinese pig to get the best of both breeds, and this was successful. It was long and lean and especially suited for making bacon from its flanks. As with cattle, butchers favoured a smaller but well-fleshed animal.
On the other hand the fat pig was very popular in Ireland as its lard was used to cook vegetables like cabbage. The Irish pig was a large ugly animal, which produced lean meat when it was young, but was usually kept for four years until it was large and fat. Bacon with potatoes and cabbage was a very popular Irish meal. As farmers turned to the Yorkshire pig for export imports of fat American bacon for home consumption soared and the American bacon was cheaper than the Irish. In County Tyrone they also crossed the Chinese pig with the Very Large York and developed a pig which became popular in Ireland (Homestead 30 June 1900). Farmers settled on the Large York because of its suitability for making bacon, though in Ulster they preferred the Tyrone pig.
One of the reasons for the popularity of the pig with farmers was that they could be fed on cheap food like potatoes and other root crops, could eat up left-overs from cooking and could scavenge around the farmyard. Pigs are natural grazers and were often put into the fields for most of the year just to graze like cattle. As they were notorious for rooting up ground, rings were put in their noses to prevent this. This starch-based food produced fat pigs, so it was realised that their feed should include ground barley or oats with skim milk. It became the aim to produce a pig ready for curing in 7 months, which required a diet of barley, skim milk or buttermilk with white potatoes for bulk.
As with beef cattle, the pigs were sold to dealers who either sold them to the bacon factories or exported them live to England. Around 1890 about 650,000 live pigs were being exported, but this declined rapidly in the twentieth century with about 130,000 exported in 1922 (Northern Whig 9 Feb 23). With regard to bacon and ham, in 1902 900,000 hundredweights were being exported and 780,000 hundredweights of mainly American bacon were being imported (Burke, Industrial History, 320-1).
Other Livestock: Sheep and Horses
Sheep formed an important part of the Irish economy. The numbers exported to England were often greater than those of cattle, but the return on a sheep was much less than that on a cow. Though Ireland retained a woollen manufacturing industry, the bulk of the wool-clip was exported to England. Bradford in Yorkshire was the world centre for sorting, grading, and pricing wool. As with other livestock, their numbers tended to increase as tillage decreased.
Progressive Irish farmers, like their British counterparts since the mid-eighteenth century, had experimented with improving breeds with greater or lesser success. One thing became clear and that was that the merino which produced the best and most sought-after wool would not thrive in the Irish climate. Sheep are bred to produce wool and mutton, and it proved difficult to get a satisfactory dual purpose sheep, and it was precisely a dual-purpose beast that Irish farmers desired. They wanted a sheep that would give a reasonable quantity of wool and then could be sold as mutton. Mutton did not lend itself to salting, but responded well to freezing. From 1880 onwards frozen mutton was imported from the Southern Hemisphere. Nevertheless, exports of live sheep to England continued to rise. Wool is very variable and for the volumes required for machine manufacturing had to be carefully sorted and graded. The wool sorters and graders in Bradford were renowned for their expertise. Basically there was long wool and short wool, wool with good spinning qualities, and some with good felting qualities, some very fine and some very coarse, some with good weaving and some with good knitting properties. Different breeds of sheep produced different kinds of wool, but as far as Irish farmers were concerned Britain would take anything they produced. The mutton was more important. The coarsest wool was used for carpets.
Before the Famine Irish sheep-farmers had settled on either a small, short-woolled sheep called the Wicklow, or a large long-woolled sheep called the Roscommon. The Wicklow sheep resembled the Downs breeds and were often crossed with them. Their wool was particularly good for making flannel. More popular was the large, long-woolled sheep, commonly called the Roscommon, though the modern Roscommon has a large infusion of the Dishley or Leicestershire sheep. Most farmers though outside County Roscommon preferred to adopt the Leicestershire breed which produced an abundance of long coarse wool and a good carcass, the rather similar Lincoln, or the Border Leicester. (This wool was used chiefly in making carpets.) By 1900 most lowland sheep in Ireland were the result of various mixtures of these breeds.
Mountain sheep were noted for their hardiness, and their ability to survive on the rough mountain pastures. In the eighteenth century the then Marquis of Stafford revolutionised the economy of large parts of northern Scotland by introducing the Cheviot sheep from the Scottish border with England. After the Famine, the Cheviot was introduced to mountainous areas in Ireland, either as a separate breed, or to improve local mountain sheep like the Wicklow or the Kerry. They produced an excellent mutton, though they were slow to mature, as well as a useful amount of wool. As the meat was more important than the wool, farmers about 1870 began crossing the Cheviot with a ram of one of the Downs breeds with excellent results. The Shropshire was the principal of the Downs breed used. The question which faced the ordinary farmer was what rams to use with the ordinary ewes of the country (Farmers’ Gazette 20 Dec 1902).
By the beginning of the twentieth century, farmers were selecting from many British breeds to see what gave the best results. In Scotland, the Scottish Blackface had virtually displaced the Cheviot, and Irish farmers were now using Blackface rams rather than Cheviots in their mountain flocks. Lowland farmers were turning to rams from the Downs breeds to produce a small, rapidly maturing lamb. Of the large breeds the Border Leicester was the most common. The Roscommon was going out of favour except in Roscommon because its carcass was too large. As with the pigs the demand was for smaller joints. Exports of live sheep in 1902 exceeded 1 million, while the average for the preceding decade was 875,000. By the second decade of the 20th century the average export was around 500,000.
The enormous imports of wool from the Southern Hemisphere forced farmers to turn to half-bred lambs which fattened easily. This was a trend which became permanent. The Downs breeds were particularly useful in this respect. The Blackface was adopted on many lowland farms because of its excellent mutton and early lambing. Later it was found that they did not thrive on the lowlands, but gradually displaced Cheviots from the mountains. It had a very coarse wool, much in demand for carpet-making. The total sheep population was around 3.7 million. As in the beef and poultry industries we can be sure that the majority of farmers, especially the poorer ones, were not particularly concerned about the quality of the rams or the sheep either so long as they got some wool and mutton. As the costs of keeping the sheep were little more than the costs of the poor-quality pasture any money they brought in counted as profit. There were two major problems with sheep. Certain breeds like the Downs were subject to foot-rot on wet soils. The other was the contagious sheep scab to prevent which it was necessary to dip them regularly in a special sheep dip. There were several Government Orders connected with this problem.
Strangely the use of horses reached its height in the age of steam. Steam power had three great uses which transformed the world, in fixed engines, in ships, and on railways. All traffic to and from railway stations had therefore to be horse-drawn. Some attempts were made to develop steam-powered machines for agriculture, but their weight limited their use. The most common was the steam threshing engine. Weak bridges and legal restrictions limited the use of heavy steam lorries.
In the first half of the nineteenth century Irish farmers experimented with improvements to the local horses. Thoroughbreds were imported, but for farm horses the Leicestershire horse was often used. The Thoroughbred was a highly specialised race horse and it was very successfully developed in Ireland. Probably the most successful breeder of racehorses, both for flat racing and over the jumps was John Gubbins, a Limerickman who lived at Bruree, Co. Limerick. One of his horses won the English Grand National at Aintree in 1882 (Gubbins DNB).
The pure Thoroughbred could also be used to develop light horses, light hunters, hacks and so on. Horses varied in size from slow powerful drayhorses to small ponies. But the ordinary Irish farmers wanted a general purpose horse, useful for riding, pulling a plough or a cart, and capable of jumping moderately at the back of a hunt. One writer noted that the Irish farmer always wanted a horse to carry him to the hunt and referred to imported English Hackneys as ‘hearse horses’ (White, Royal Dublin Society, 165). By using Thoroughbred stallions on local mares there gradually emerged such a horse which possessed the required qualities.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century Ireland became known, especially on the Continent, as a source for excellent cavalry horses. They could be used for artillery or light cavalry. The horses were just picked by eye at horse fairs and it would seem that the individual horses were as much a matter of good luck as good judgment. After 1880 the qualities of the breed were threatened by the importation of heavy English horses like the Clydesdales and Shires which resulted in a heavier slower animal (Kidd, Horse Breeds, 60). The general standard of horses in Ireland was poor, but there were enough reasonably good mares of mixed origin to provide a reasonable supply of horses for export. But for the individual farmer this was very much a lottery.
The Congested Districts Board (1891) and the Department of Agriculture (1898) also considered how the Irish horse might be improved. As The Farmers’ Gazette in 1900 noted in Ireland horse breeding for hunters at the moment was entirely haphazard; the horse was judged on its own merits but before it is foaled nobody knows whether it will turn out a carthorse, a carriage horse, a hunter, or a costermonger's pony; the fashion for crossbred hunters sold as geldings means they are the crosses of every known breed. The Gazette continued saying that in Ireland we had a breed of clean-legged draught horses, long, deep-bodied; flat-legged, free, lean-shouldered types, with none of the defects of the English heavy horse the Suffolk, invaluable as a poor farmer's breed, and a source of wealth as the mother of the Irish weight carrying hunter and trooper; of all others in existence there is no such valuable natural country breed. With careful selection there is no reason why a breed of Irish draught horse should not be established; remnants still exist in the west and hilly districts where turf is carried in creels, and in the light tillage counties (Farmers’ Gazette 4, 11 Aug. 1900; Weekly Irish Times 1 Dec 1906)). The Department came round to the view that a light draught horse from which hunters could be bred best met Ireland’s needs. These hunters met most of the needs of the various armies, and the local farmers. The breed of Irish Draught Horse was gradually established. In 1907 registration of stallions was introduced and in 1917 a stud book was started. Nevertheless the other breeds, the Thoroughbred, the Clydesdale, the Hackney, the Shires and other stallions in lesser numbers were recorded by the Department of Agriculture. The Department also gave premiums for them.
In 1867 the gentlemen of the Royal Dublin Society became concerned with the decline of the horse population of Ireland especially as Ireland supplied many horses to the cavalry. In the following year they commenced the Dublin Horse Show with prizes given for the various categories of horses, officers’ chargers, carriage geldings, etc., and special prizes for jumping contests. The Horse Show was moved to permanent quarters in Ballsbridge, Dublin in 1881 and has remained there ever since (White, Royal Dublin Society, 157-161). In 1907 hunters were the chief class exhibited amounting to three quarters of all entries. In 1896 the Irish Government established a commission to make recommendations with regard to horse-breeding in Ireland.
There was also considerable discussion about the advisability of restoring the Connemara pony. Ponies are not a distinct breed from horses unlike the donkey and so can interbreed freely with horses. They are smaller than horses, have shorter legs in proportion to their size and are stronger. Their foals have the same proportions as the pony unlike the long-legged foal of the horse. They have very strong backs and were often used in warfare (Kidd, Horse Breeds 12). In the British Isles, several breeds of ponies survive in the wild. The only one to survive in Ireland was the Connemara, and it had been ‘improved’ at one point by introducing Spanish horses from Andalusia. It was not even clear around 1900 whether it had survived as a single type (Farmers Gazette 20 Nov. 1900 quoting a survey by the Department of Agriculture). In was not until 1923 that a society was formed to standardise the breed.
Despite all these efforts the horses found on Irish farms up until their disappearance were a mongrel lot. Farmers just bought a horse he fancied at a horse fair subject to the usual examination of teeth, hooves, gait, and so on. The horse would be selected for the purposes the buyer required, a pony to draw a trap or buggy, a sturdy horse for the plough, a harness horse for a delivery van etc. If a farmer had more than one horse, no two would be similar but invariably there would be a mare from which he expected to breed a hunter.
Goats in Ireland were not the object of great studies. They were kept exclusively for their milk. Horace Plunkett was concerned that their yield of milk was below what could be achieved. The Countess of Fingall has a wry account of the Swiss goats he imported to help to boost milk-yield. The problem with them was that they would eat anything, the thatch off the roof or straw hats (Fingall, Seventy Years Young, 254).
Control of Animal Diseases
As Ireland turned itself into a major exporter of livestock in the second half of the nineteenth century control of animal diseases became very important. There were many restrictions regarding the importation of animals into the British Isles, which, because they were islands, were comparatively easy to control. Vigilance with regard to animal diseases was stepped up in Britain following the outbreaks of rinderpest or cattle plague, an acute viral infection. These were rare, there being only three outbreaks in Britain in the nineteenth century, in 1865-6, 1872, and 1877. The first was the worst for the vets were unprepared; it took the slaughter of 400,000 animals and two years to eradicate. It was at this time that the drastic solution of slaughtering all infected animals was adopted. Subsequently all cattle, sheep, and swine were inspected before shipment by veterinary inspectors employed by the Department of Agriculture and stationed at the ports of Ireland, and on being certified to be free from any of the diseases scheduled under the Diseases of Animals Acts and the Orders in Council were licensed for export. This system of portal veterinary inspection had been in force for over a quarter of a century (Farmers’ Gazette 13 June 1903).
Before the formation of the County Councils in 1898 there was no effective local body to deal with animal diseases, and the Government had to make do with what it had, so control of these diseases was given to the Poor Law Guardians. The powers under Diseases of Animals Acts 1894, and 1896 were transferred from the Poor Law Guardians (Local Government Board) to the new Department of Agriculture and the 33 County Councils, two being in Tipperary. Several Orders in Council of the Lord Lieutenant under those Acts were now in force. The central authorities, the Board of Agriculture in Britain and the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council in Ireland, co-ordinated measures (County Councils Gazette 4 May 1900).The principal diseases were pleural pneumonia, foot and mouth disease, anthrax, swine fever, rabies, glanders in horses, and sheep scab. A Sheep Dipping Act (1903) gave powers to local authorities to make sheep-dipping compulsory in order to eliminate diseases like sheep scab.
The 159 Boards of Guardians had powers to make regulations including one for the muzzling of dogs; the magistrates in the 608 petty sessions districts in Ireland and about 119 other local authorities of boroughs, towns, and townships also had powers under the Dogs Act (1871), when a case of rabies or suspected rabies was found in their district (ibid.). An Order in Council was issued in 1897 making the universal muzzling of dogs in public places in Ireland compulsory to control rabies. These diseases were mostly rare in Ireland, though sheep scab and swine fever persisted. In 1912 there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in County Dublin resulting in the slaughter of over 1,000 cattle. An extensive enquiry failed to reveal how the disease reached Ireland, but it was suspected that some drovers returning from Cumberland might have been responsible. Another outbreak occurred in 1914. These were the first occurrences in Ireland for thirty years. [Top]
Tillage and Crops
The amount of land devoted to tillage crops fell all over the British Isles as prices of cereals fell in England, and the prices for cattle rose. In England it fell from 68% to 48%. Nevertheless it was deplored by nationalist writers as a disaster which they maintained was England’s fault, and which could be reversed by a system of tariffs and export bounties, even though Adam Smith had long since pointed out the folly of that course. (Smith showed that the bounties to assist unsuccessful businesses came from taxing the profitable ones, thus limiting their profit and expansion. With bounties wine could be made from grapes grown in glasshouses on the tops of mountains, but that would be pointless.) The period was characterised by emigration, shortage of farm labour, the increasing use of machinery, the consolidation of holdings which made the use of machinery more feasible. O’Grada reports the increased productivity of farm labour between 1850 and 1900. This was higher than in England but low by comparison with Continental countries in the same period (Ireland, a New Economic History, 260-2). It is likely however that the factors of enlargement of holdings and increased use of machinery could account for all of this. By the year 1900 farmers were complaining of the shortage of farm labour, but there can be little doubt that some of the emigration was caused by the reluctance of farmers to till their lands properly if only to improve the quality of the grass. (As farmers with fewer than 30 acres would use only family labour, and neighbours mutually assisted each other, only one third of farms used hired labour.)
The use of farm machinery for mowing, reaping, threshing, potato-spraying, and milk-separating was increasing, though the use of hand tools never disappeared. In the old spade culture drills or lazybeds were made by hand using a spade, the seed was planted by hand, the weeding was done by hand, the potatoes were dug by hand using a special four-pronged fork with long, thin curved tines called a graip (Partridge, Farm Tools through the Ages, 141). Weeding potatoes or turnips was often done by women on their knees, though hoes would have made it easier. Spade cultivation remained predominant in horticulture. Barbed wire began to be used for fencing around 1900.
The field machines were horse drawn, and powered by friction from the wheels. The tractor which was to revolutionise farming came into wider use during the First World War. But already by 1900 oil or petrol engines and even tractors were appearing on Irish farms. There were also improved harrows and cultivators, and turnip-chopping machines, corrugated iron hay sheds, milking machines, and shearing machines. These latter were powered by pedals; one man pedalled while two men sheared. There was also a horse-drawn potato-digger. Cattle-sheds where young stock could be housed loose on straw beds and the protected manure removed after it was 5 feet thick were available. The IAOS hired out modern machinery like rollers and grubbers. The milk separator was probably the most important single machine (Farmers’ Gazette, Homestead 1900 passim). Though the use of the flail for threshing persisted in places until the Second World War, the steam-driven threshing machine, usually used by contractors, was almost universally adopted, and indeed became an icon of an era until displaced after the Second World War by the combine harvester. Power could be provided by hand crank, by horses walked in a circle, by steam engine or motor tractor, the steam-driven model eventually predominating. The principle of the successful machine was a rotating drum on top, outside of which four beater bars were attached. It was rotated inside another drum with apertures which allowed the sheaves of cereals or legumes to be fed in and the grain and straw to emerge separately. Belt-driven gearing allowed the beaters to be spun at high speed, with other parts moving more slowly. In addition a winnowing fan separated the grain from the chaff, while sieves removed seeds of weeds. A straw elevator was used to build high straw ricks.
In hay-making too there were several machines developed besides the mower. One was the horse-rake with a lever to lift up the tines to drop the hay at regular intervals into windrows. Another was a tedder which turned over the swathe cut by the mower to let the hay dry quicker. It was replaced by a swathe turner which did not scatter the hay. Hay sweeps or collectors collected the hay from the windrows so that hay stacks up to ten feet high could be made. These then could be transported to the hayshed in the farm yard by an ingenious vehicle called a rick-shifter onto which the haystack was winched (Bell and Watson, Irish Farming, 149). (By replacing the horse’s shafts with a drawbar the device was continued into the tractor age.)
Cultivating potatoes by hand was very inefficient, but potato fields had to be a certain size before a horse and plough could be used. By 1900 the smaller farmer was still using old less efficient models of ploughs but there were several new kinds available made of iron. In large fields with good soil the two-wheeled plough was used. In smaller or stonier fields the lighter wheel-less plough was used which was easier for the ploughman to control, but involved much heavier work. If the plough struck a stone the ploughman would jerk it aside to avoid breaking the cast-iron ploughshare. If this broke a trip to the local blacksmith was needed (Farmers’ Journal 1 Mar 1902).
Harvesting had traditionally been done by hand with rows of men with sickles following each other in echelon around the field with the women coming after them to gather and bind the sheaves. Cyrus Hall McCormick’s mowing machine or reaper with reciprocating blade appeared in 1831 and was used as a mower in haymaking as long as hay was made. Marsh’s harvester with canvas belt to gather up the sheaves but no automatic binding came in 1858. The definitive twine binders were developed in the 1880s. All were pulled by horses and friction-driven from the ground wheels. In the twentieth century, the light tractor with an internal combustion engine was to revolutionise tillage, but tractors were hardly known on Irish farms before 1917 when compulsory tillage, manpower shortage, and cheap American models made them essential on larger farms.
The secret of prosperous tillage lay in the timely and thorough preparation of the soil, the selection of good seed, and the application of sufficient lime and fertilisers. Both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it was estimated that the output per acre of a good farmer was up to four times better than that of a bad farmer. The Irish Sugar Company, after the Second World War, demonstrated this be supplying the same seed to farmers on identical land and weighing the output per acre. In one case the ploughing, harrowing, manuring, sowing, weeding, and finally lifting were done thoroughly at the proper times. In another case they were not. The bad farmer of course blamed the seed supplied!
The quality of the soil could in cases be improved by adding lime, marl, gravel, or sand. Lime (calcium hydroxide) reduced acidity, as did marl where it was available. Marl could be sand, clay or silt that contained calcium carbonate. Acids in the soil, principally carbonic acid, came from decaying vegetation in wet conditions. The hydroxide neutralised it. The structure of a heavy clay soil could be improved by adding gravel or sand.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century only farmyard manure was used as a fertiliser; then came guano, then nitrate of soda, dissolved bones and superphosphate (calcium phosphate treated with sulphuric acid to make it more soluble); these were followed by ammonium sulphate, and potash in various grades. At present the farmer relies on nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia to supply nitrogen, superphosphate to supply phosphates, and muriate of potash or sulphate of potash to supply potash (Irish Gardening April 1906). By 1900 a by-product of the production of steel known as basic slag came into general use as a source of phosphates. For phosphorus farmers relied on superphosphate and basic slag, while bones, once widely used, and guano, were less used, the latter because much of it is over-priced for its quality. Basic slag works wonders on moory soils, or those deficient in lime (Farmers Gazette 20 Sept 1902) (Basic slag from ironworks was the impurities which contained metallic oxides and phosphates.) When agricultural co-operatives were formed they effected a reduction of 30, 50 and even 100% in the costs of fertilisers; the lower prices may have injured the trader, but they benefited the farmer and the manufacturer.
In the years after 1850 there was a tendency to apply excessive amounts of lime. Where this was done on soils that were already rich in lime crop production was reduced and resulted in a prejudice against all lime. Potatoes, for example, do best in a slightly acidic soil, and less well in a basic or alkaline soil. Most vegetables prefer an alkaline soil. This shows that there was confusion between lime and fertiliser. Lime is applied to acid soils to reduce their acidity and so to increase the beneficial bacteria in the soil which do not thrive in acidic conditions. Fertiliser supplies nutrients to the plants. By 1900 there was a decline in the use of sea-weed in coastal areas. Formerly the sea-weed had been farmed with stretches of beach marked out for individual families. Harvesting wet sea-weed was an extremely laborious task, though it was allowed to dry before being carted away (Farmers’ Gazette 1 Feb. 1902)
Reliance totally on artificial fertilisers damaged the soil. The use of guano was introduced into Ireland in the 1850s particularly by Scotsmen who were given leases of farms. At first the local Irish would not consider its use, but stuck to the old system of farmyard manure and ditch cleaning. But when they saw the results they went to the opposite extreme and used nothing else. In County Wexford cowsheds were given boarded floors so that there was no need for bedding. All the straw and other fodders were sold; the marl holes and gravel pits were abandoned, and only lunatics would think of clearing out their ditches; the land rapidly became excellent snipe ground [wet and acidic]. Nobody bothered to collect the wrack from the foreshore. Even farm labourers objected to the extra work in bedding cattle and spreading manure. One man the writer had employed left his employment because, as he said, "the artificials could be bought quite handy and saved at less trouble". In various places in the fifties and sixties the landed proprietors took in and improved their moors, both the natural ones and the 'cut-away' bogs; when these were let out to tenants they were given the artificial treatment; this did fairly well in dry years, but in wet years the soil degenerated into unprofitable mud. (It is possible to grow excellent crops on what is left of well-drained bogs after most of the peat has been removed for fuel, but it needs careful management.) The writer noted that the mountaineer neglected all the natural manures around him and bought the artificial which was no trouble except to carry it home. It has however to be paid for, and this, if the crop fails means selling their heifer, or a few sheep (Farmers Gazette 5 July 1902).
Drainage of fields was well-advanced by mid-century. In a wet country like Ireland drainage was more important than irrigation. Most cultivated crops did badly when the soil was water-logged. In the first half of the century, drainage ditches were dug along the edges of fields. In the lazybed and rundale systems surface drains resulted from the mode of cultivation. In the rundale system ploughs were used to raise wide ridges or rigs with dales or valleys between them. In the lazybed system dug with a spade the ridges were narrower and flatter, with deep trenches between them. But by mid-century sub-soil drainage was becoming important. In these trenches were dug at regular intervals, clay tiles or pipes were laid, and the trenches filled in. These drains often had a branching or herringbone pattern. The main branch or stem ran into the ditch at the bottom of the field. These sub-soil drains, though expensive to make needed little maintenance afterwards. The open ditches regularly became clogged if not cleaned out with a shovel regularly. From the eighteenth century onwards various kinds of stone drains were used, but in the second half of the nineteenth century shaped clay tiles or cylindrical pipes were used (Bell and Watson, Irish Farming, 19-21).
Though tillage declined overall the greatest decline was in wheat-growing, where the crop fell to about a tenth of what it had been. British and Irish farmers just could not compete on either cost or quality with American or Australian wheat. Clearly the fall in population of Ireland to a half also had an effect. The crops of oats and barley as well fell to about half of what they had been. These were also used for animal and poultry feed and for distilling. Green crops or root crops too fell considerably from 1.75 million in 1860 to 1 million in 1910. The area under flax fell from 175,000 acres to 50,000. The area under potatoes fell from 1.2 million acres to 588,000. The fall here can be closely correlated with the fall in population for potatoes were used chiefly for human consumption within Ireland. As Lyons notes, in 1908 of the six main tillage crops in only three cases, namely wheat, barley and flax, was more than 30% of the crop sold off the farm. The others were grown for consumption on the farm (Ireland Since the Famine, 48). It should be noted that the figures here quoted are not always directly comparable for different definitions of categories may have been used in either the surveys or in the way they were reported. They do show that there was a decline in tillage but even so up to 2 million acres were still being tilled in 1914. As Burke notes, cattle-raising was always Ireland’s chief agricultural product. Tillage had been artificially increased by Foster’s Corn Law of 1784 (Burke, Industrial History, 314). Other factors were the high prices during the Napoleonic Wars, the Continental System, and the Corn Laws that followed them aimed at maintaining war prices. When these distortions were removed Irish farmers again moved towards the produce that gave them the best return.
The change to haymaking and grazing corresponds with the change in prices available. Prices for wheat, oats, barley, potatoes and flax rose by 50%. The price for hay rose 200%, beef 100%, butter 77%, wool 81%, eggs 71% and young store cattle 129%. These changes in prices explain the drift to dairying, beef raising, poultry-keeping, and haymaking. Hay was the regular winter feed for cattle. By 1900 in Ireland there were 20 million acres of which 4½ millions were in rotation crops, 10½ million were under grass, and 4¾ million acres are bog, marsh, barren mountain, and water. Another reason given for the decline in tillage was the growing scarcity of farm labour. In Ireland farm labourers were highly skilled persons who had to be able to do such diverse tasks as milk cows, castrate rams and bull calves, plough and harrow with horses, use a scythe or mowing machine, build a rick or haystack, and so on. When such men emigrated there was no short-term way of replacing them.
Armagh had the most land under tillage and was the most intensively farmed county.
County under crops under pasture; (percentage of total acreage)
Armagh 42.6 44.6
Down 41.9 41.9
Louth 39.7