Michael A. Martin

By the 1890s most tenant farmers in Ireland had security of tenure and their rents were fixed by the Land Commission. Thousands of farmers were in the process of buying their holdings with loans provided by the British Government. While the era of the landlord was coming to an end, these reforms did not appear to bring significant improvement in living conditions for farmers.

The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction

Horace Plunkett was a unionist Member of Parliament for South County Dublin and came from a distinguished Anglo-Norman landed family. In 1895 he wrote a letter to the Irish newspapers inviting all who were interested to join a committee to explore non-contentious measures to promote the economic welfare of Ireland. He suggested that the committee should meet while Parliament was in recess. This led it to be known as the Recess Committee. The aim was to bring together all creeds and classes in a movement for the material and social advancement of the country. This was an ad hoc cross-party group of parliamentarians and other eminent people. The Committee met between January and August 1896 to press for the establishment of a Board of Agriculture and Industries for Ireland. Other countries had already set up such departments.

The Committee recommended that a ministry of agriculture and industries for Ireland should be established.

In 1899 the legislation establishing the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI) was enacted. The role of DATI was to

• improve the quality of crops and livestock
• deal with animal and plant disease
• encourage fishing and planting of forests
• collect statistics on many aspects of Irish life.

Horace Plunkett was appointed Vice President and effectively head of the Department. The Recess committee had recommended that the President of the new department should be an MP who would report to Parliament independently of the Chief Secretary of Ireland. However the Act named the Chief Secretary as the President and it was he who spoke for DATI in Parliament.

DATI was overseen by The Agricultural Board some of whose members were elected.

DATI Purchases Goodbody Estate

At the November 1904 meeting of the Agricultural Board the need for an agricultural station for Connaught had “become more pressing”. A number of issues were identified

• farmers in the West were unwilling to attend shows and sales or visit breeding establishments in the East or Midlands
• it was not desirable to relieve farmers of the responsibility of selecting the animals being acquired under livestock schemes
• there was a need for a special breeding establishment where animals suited to the West could be produced
• it was desirable to have an information bureau or sub-office in Connaught to relieve pressure on the central offices

The Board identified certain requirements in relation to the location of the station. These included

• near a railway station
• large area of land with different qualities capable of raising all kinds of purebred stock, growing grain and potatoes good enough for sale as seed and demonstrating all kinds of farming to apprentices

Having inspected several places DATI none were considered suitable with the exception of Goodbody’s estate near Athenry.

By November 1904 the Congested Districts Board (CDB) had acquired an option to purchase the Goodbody estate in Athenry amounting to 2,309 acres.

On 25th January 1905 the Board were informed that the Congested Districts Board had consented to allow DATI “to purchase direct the Goodbody Estate on the terms offered by the CDB viz. £24,000 together with a bonus of 12%”. This was for the estate of 2,300 acres. The tenants on the property were to be dealt with later. A grant of £5,000 was approved for stocking the farm.

By November 1905 the Land Commission was asked to purchase those portions of the estate which were not required by DATI. Of 2,305 acres it was proposed to sell 1,565 acres and retain 740 acres.

Local Opposition

There was some sustained local opposition to the establishment of an agricultural station at Athenry or at least to the amount of land being retained for that purpose. As early as 1905 there was a report of at least five shots being discharged into the dwelling house of a herd employed by DATI. From February 1908 a force of seventeen policemen was based in three huts at the Agricultural Station. The cost of this force was levied on the ratepayers and by the end of May 1910 the cost amounted to £2,065. In addition a canteen based there for the sale of drink and provisions together with a transport van for the delivery of provisions to town and country had a turnover of £250 per month.

In July 1907, when visiting Athenry, T W Russell, who succeeded Horace Plunkett as Vice President of DATI in the spring of that year, accompanied by Mr Bailey of the Estates Commissioners, met with the Athenry Town Tenants Association. The latter were representing tenants who “demanded accommodation land for themselves and their families”. They also met a delegation from the United Irish League (UIL). The UIL case was that a portion of the 670 acres held by the agricultural college could be dispensed with and that 300 acres should be given to surrounding peasants who were so badly in need of it. The report makes reference to the spiking of meadows and damage to machinery at night that had occurred. A delegation from the Labourers Society also met Russell in relation to the wages paid at the college.

In reply to a question Russell gave the following account to the House of Commons on 5^th February 1908. In the autumn of 1907 the Department decided to put into complete habitable condition Newfort House, situated on part of the Agricultural Station at Athenry, which up to 1906 had been occupied by a herd. A tender was accepted from a local builder, who undertook to do the necessary work for about £50, and on the 2nd October, 1907, the builder in question brought into this house a quantity of timber which he intended using in effecting the necessary repairs. At a late hour on the same night the house was found to be on fire; the buildings were completely burned out, only the walls being left standing. As the herd above referred to had practically to be evicted by the Department, and as the Department’s meadows containing over forty acres had been spiked about a month previous, and the house of a labourer fired into, while before the completion of the harvest a dispute as to labourers’ wages arose, there were 869 substantial grounds for regarding the burning as malicious, and a claim was accordingly made for compensation. The case was heard at Galway Quarter Sessions early last November, and was resisted by the county council, who, however, did not contest the question of malice. The Recorder gave a decree for £470 with costs, to be levied off the town of Athenry.

A report in the Connacht Tribune of 20th November 1909 underlines the local resentment to the establishment of the Station.

The Department of Agriculture still refuses to meet the wishes of the people and retain their police barracks and canteen on the farm called an agricultural station and work at the institution is carried on amidst the surroundings of magazine rifles. The present staff look upon the townspeople as so many serfs unworthy of recognition and to this system the Brothers of Upper Merrion nod assent.

Some eight or nine students are at present at the agricultural station as “farm” apprentices or in other words agricultural labourers working for their feeding. “Farm” apprentices is a high sounding name for an ordinary labourer who hods out manure and cleans out stables. We wonder if these people who sent their sons to the Athenry agricultural station are aware that they can learn the RIC drill during spare hours and how to use a magazine.

At Glasnevin with 50 acres of land the pupils are students and can be taught everything in connection with farming. At Athenry 600 acres of land is required for nine “farm” apprentices or labourers. What are the benefits derived from the Department of Agriculture at Athenry? Since February 1908 some twenty four police and a canteen have formed part of the institution for the education of farmers’ sons. These twenty four police since then have cost the ratepayers £33 each policeman per annum- that is £1386- and this system of robbery is to be continued. A police canteen has been in full swing on the Department’s lands since February 1908and the average sale of this “Imperial” shop has been £300 per month £7,685.There has therefore been a sum of over £6300 taken away from the traders of Athenry. To rob the hardworking traders of Athenry of such a huge portion of their commerce is a crime worthy of punishment and if present tactics are pursued by the popular Department in any other part of Ireland it would be wiped out in a fortnight. The sum total of the police robbery in this county by this Department up to date amounts to £7,696 since February last.

A great many people think that Mr Russell should remove these police but this is not the fact because instead of Mr Russell ruling this Department the Department rules him. Until the official tyranny which at present exists in the Department is done away with it will be a millstone around the necks of the poor people of Athenry.

Do the people of Athenry derive any benefit from this 600 acres of land with its agricultural station? To sum this question up is quite easy. Early in the year when mutton was carrying a good price they kindly killed sheep and under the local traders. At the present milk is selling at its usual winter price and the Department is underselling the local people by supplying cheap milk and when the milk becomes cheap the Department will cease to sell. The Department will buy popularity in Athenry with its buttermilk but unfortunately the people who can fight do not live on buttermilk

No town in Ireland has been so completely robbed by “Department co-operation” as Athenry has been. Fancy £300 per month or £3600 per annum! The canteen is nothing more than a co-operative store. It sells to members and the members (police) make large purchases for private individuals surreptitiously and having the opportunity of bicycling at co-operative prices sell cheaply.

 In 1910 on the occasion of his triennial visit to the parish Archbishop Healy of Tuam condemned the commission of outrages in Athenry and strongly supported the establishment of the agricultural college.

The 1911 Census lists 13 members of the Royal Irish Constabulary stationed in Newford. At the same time there were 30 constables based at the RIC Barracks in Cross Street, Athenry.

The name given to one of the fields on the farm, The Spiked Meadow, is a reminder of some of the tactics employed by the land agitators.

Agricultural Training

The role of the Agricultural Station included not alone the supply of improved breeding stock and technical information but also the provision of training for young farmers. The earliest reference to students in Athenry is in May 1905 when the Agricultural Board were informed that temporary provision had been made for a limited number of students. In August 1905 Horace Plunkett informed the Board that a temporary wood and iron building to accommodate 10 boys and a house master had been completed. It consisted of a large dining room and class room, dormitory, lavatories and a master’s room. In November the Board learned that, as the accommodation provided was limited, apprentices would not be required to pay any fees and that a resident master had been appointed.

At that November 1905 meeting Board members were informed that DATI were of the opinion that provision should be made for at least 50 apprentices. The cost of a suitable college was put at £25,000. The Board agreed to approve the erection of a suitable college in Athenry with the necessary out-offices and farm buildings. DATI were to prepare plans and estimates to bring before a subsequent meeting a definite proposal as to the amount to be allocated for the erection of the new college. These plans were delayed until an excellent supply of good water had been obtained which had been done by February 1906.

By February 1907 the original plans had been revised with a view to reducing the expenditure. Now it was proposed to spend £10,000 on buildings excluding roads, cottages, farm buildings and other permanent improvements. The Board agreed with this proposal although the views expressed by some members were that more, smaller, local schools would bring instruction within reach of a large number of small farmers.

Construction did not proceed. In response to a question in Parliament in 1909, reported in the Connacht Tribune 14th September 1909.  T. W. Russell stated:

The Department from time to time have had under consideration the question of establishing an Agricultural College at Athenry and in 1907 a sum of £10,000 for building such a college as distinct from expenditure on the station was provisionally set aside. Owing to several local difficulties seriously interfering with the work of the place the project of building the College was indefinitely postponed and the department have resolved not to proceed with it.

An editorial in The Tuam Herald of 21^st August 1909 provides comment on the situation as outlined in the Parliamentary response. The following is just part of that editorial.

Whether the course is justified or not is probably, with some, a very open question and we are not going to say that the ostensible grounds alleged for abandoning the undertaking are not weighty and serious ones but we do not go the entire length with our present means of information of saying that they are sufficient in themselves. We are not prepared to maintain that the local difficulties referred to were not formidable and are not discouraging and it would be arrant folly to argue that an enterprise which had to be carried out under the conditions that now exist could be extended or persisted with. When, in consequence of the outrages committed on the lands, the authorities at Athenry Station had to seek compensation and did obtain hundreds of pounds compensation and when a special police hut was erected and still continues on the very lands it would be sheer folly on the part on any independent journal to try and minimise or, as some do, ignore such an untoward state of things. We do say and have time after time said when referring to the said occurrences that have taken place in that locality that as elsewhere these acts were the work of misguided and mischievous individuals and found no favour or sympathy among the people but still they occur, are undirected and followed by the usual unhappy results as regards police precautions and one of these now is the abandonment of the College.

The following is part of a newspaper advertisement seeking to recruit apprentices to Athenry Agricultural Station and outlines the training being offered.

Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland

Agricultural Station, Athenry, County Galway

Session 1905-1906

The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction have acquired lands and premises at Athenry, County Galway as a station in connection with their Agricultural schemes, for the selection and distribution of different kinds of livestock, poultry and c. and for the carrying out of experiments in the breeding and feeding of livestock, in tillage, dairying and for tests of inventions in all branches of Agriculture.

It is intended to admit to the station a number of young men as apprentices who will be required to take part, under the supervision of an experienced Agriculturist, in all the work of the farm, whether in connection with seasonable operation or permanent improvements. In addition to the work in the fields, provision will be made for practical instruction in the farmyard, dairy, workshop and garden. In the classroom attention will in the evenings and at other times when outdoor work is not pressing, to English, Arithmetic (including Surveying), Book-keeping, and Technical Agriculture. The instruction will not have reference to any examinations and will be of such character as will continue the general education of the pupils and be useful to young men who intend to become farmers.

By 1913 the training offered to apprentices was for one year duration. Apprentices were admitted without the payment of any fee. They were required to be part of the operations of the fields and farmyard. Technical instruction was provided in the classroom during part of each working day in winter. At the end of one year’s satisfactory apprenticeship apprentices were eligible for a payment up to but not exceeding £5.

The Connacht Tribune in April 1913 carried an analysis of the Department of Agriculture Annual Report for 1911-12. Lamenting the fact that the people of County Galway and the West did not avail themselves of the activities of the Department of Agriculture it went on to state that “Athenry Agriculture College had not proved a triumph of organisation as a centre of scientific agriculture or a fruitful font of profit-making inspiration”.

In 1915 there were 27 students in Athenry of whom 9 were scholarship holders. The remainder paid fees of from £3 to £15 per annum for farmers sons, depending on valuation, and £20 per annum for others.