Farming in Irish Life

Ireland lacks a general land utilization survey comparable with that of Great Britain, though i-inch-to-the-mile maps are being compiled for t e whole of Northern Ireland and some fragments of Eire. This article must therefore be of a tentative nature as it is based largely on statistical materials available, on various studies dealing with particular aspects of agricultural life of country, and on field work of author, his students, and members of Irish Geographical Society. The treatment rests on a recognition of economic difference between Northern Ireland and Eire at present time, and on a correlation between actual size of farms and their economy, followed by a summary account of agricultural production and an assessment of connection between farming and population problem. No attempt is made to romanticize rural communities who, in many cases, live in conditions of considerable hardship though they are unquestionably more fortunate than their predecessors of fifty or a hundred years ago. As more than one-third of Irish population depends directly on agriculture for a living and landscape is primarily rural rather than urban, it is reasonable to regard farming as key to country's social geography. The agricultural problems of Ireland may be viewed historically, politically, and commercially and, perhaps most important of all, in terms of social welfare. Safety lies in consideration of commercial factors alone, but such an approach is entirely inadequate in a country with a stormy political history, much of which has centred around occupation and ownership of land and difficulty of making a living. Contemplation of Irish rural scene may lead to such despairing comments as that of C. H. Oldham x who wrote in 1914 that the pitiful ii-i% devoted to ploughed land offers no adequate basis for employment of agricultural population . . . in arts of using a most fertile soil in business of agriculture, Ireland is but a ruined land, wasted and withered by fifty-years-long struggle to settle question of land tenure. Even so, a true assessment of country's life demands recognition of its agricultural basis, as Ireland lacks concentrated industrial development seen in such areas as West Riding of Yorkshire, parts of Lancashire, or Black Country. Only in and around Belfast is modern heavy industry superimposed on a primarily agricultural foundation; elsewhere factories exist chiefly to process agricultural staples or to meet needs of rural communities. Even great linen industry of north-east has risen on a basis of flax growing and processing on actual farmsteads

Geography · Irish · Linguistics · Irish and British Studies · Philosophy

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