Farming in the Eighteenth Century
The basis for my statements
about eighteenth century farming in Carlow is the letters
written by Phil Kennedy, Farm Steward at Castletown to his
boss, Samuel Faulkner, and sometimes, when Mr. Faulkner was
away, to his nephew, Mr. Norwood. I also draw some information
from the letters of John Donnelly of Fort Faulkner, and Pat
Hackett of Font Hill, which is now part of the Alexander farms.
In addition I have read a short version of Arthur Young’s Tour
of Ireland in 1776, somewhat before my period, and also Dr.
Louis Cullen’s books.
The products mentioned in the
letters are wheat, oats, cattle, and occasionally sheep, and
turf. The other products which my friends write about are
garden things - potatoes, cabbage, cauliflowers, apples, pears
and tobacco.
Phil Kennedy’s letters are
weekly reports which he usually wrote on Sunday. He heads them
with a list of the names of the workers, their wages, and jobs
they were doing. It is notable that they rarely worked a full
six day week because the weather was so treacherous. As well,
most of them seem to have been casuals who were hired and fired
with the greatest of ease. This practice with labour was not
unknown as late as the nineteen fifties.
One of Phil’s earliest
letters is dated 4 March 1786, in a week when only five men
worked on the place. He says: “I intend to be sowing oats this
evening week, God willing the weather to permit. All things
here are well.” In this letter is reflected the bad weather of
the first week of March - Pat Brophy worked only 4 days at 8
pence per day, earning 1/8. Pat Murphy made 1/9 working 3½ days
at 6 pence per day. Will Murphy, Thomas Murphy and Bartle
Bourke also made only 1/9 at the 6 penny rate. The 6 pence a
day rate was paid to nearly all but a few workers for almost a
century.
Mowers were paid more - 2
shillings per day during the season. Interestingly the girls
who bound the sheaves at harvest were paid the man’s rate of
six pence per day on the days they worked.
Other snippets from Phil’s
letters in 1786 are: 25 May - “I came here on Saturday last and
I have got the potatoes planted.”
- Cookes Patent Drill Machine1789
machine for sowing
On 24 July he reported: “I
have reaped some of the bere (bere barley) and will cut the
rest on Monday.” This early date suggests the possibility that
this “bere” was winter variety. Later, on 13 August, he
comments: “I have cut no corn yet, but the bere next to the
house which has two stacks on it. There will be wheat, oats and
bere to reap this week.” He shows eleven men working.
Of course there was no spring
wheat in Ireland until many years, after Phil’s time. Wheat was
always sown in October, and followed a fallowing of a ploughed
up grass field. They tilled away at it all summer before sowing
in October.
On August 20 he reported
again; his wage sheet showed that he had six girls “binding” on
Monday and Wednesday, when they were paid 6 pence per day. The
fourteen men were “quarrying, ploughing and reaping.”
In this letter he reports the
death of a cow from “the blane.” He excuses this loss by saying
there was a lot of it about. I asked a vet some years ago what
on earth was the blane - and he said it was real enough; it was
an allergic reaction that cattle can get.
On 24 September he reported
that he was drawing in hay and corn. The corn would have been
brought to the old haggard behind the still existing barn to be
threshed with flails on the slate threshing floor. There were
stone affairs on which to build the ricks at the door of the
threshing floor which stood there into the 1950’s. The hay
would have been made into a rick although some of it would have
gone into the loft of the stable for horses. In this letter he
added that “the fallow is ready to sow if I only had the seed.”
He was successful with this, as he wrote on 15 October to say:
“I have got the last of the wheat sowed yesterday.” I should
add that almost two hundred years later we got the last of the
wheat sowed on 12 October an improvement of two days in two
centuries.
An interesting point
throughout the letters is the amount of time spent on
reclamation work - putting in shores which he calls “sewers”
and blasting stones out of the fields. The stones were used to
make the sides and tops of the shores and also the buildings
that were going up on the farm. Carlow is largely glacial
drift. The land is full of stones - from things the size of
your fist to lumps the size of a Volkswagen. The Director of
the Geological Survey remarked that the geological maps of
Carlow show a continuous process of reclamation, more than any
other county in Ireland. The Carlow farmer has some claim to
the Dutch saying that “God made the world but the Dutch made
Holland.”
Another thing that went on
was tree-planting. Kennedy often orders thousands of young
trees, as well as thorn quicks for hedges. It is not often
realized that the hedge is a recent addition to the Irish
landscape. Earth banks may be a bit older, but most Irish
fences are later than the Battle of the Boyne, and many are
nineteenth century. John Donnelly in Wicklow ran nurseries at
Fort Falkner and so did Kennedy to some extent.
A year for which we have a
lot of information is 1789. On 11 January Phil reported: “We
had a great fall of snow last night.” On 18 January he reported
that there was snow ten feet to fourteen feet deep on the road
to Kyleballyhue. This must have been drifting. Even in 1933
snow on the flat was no more than about two feet deep. We had
1789 style drifts in 1982 on the road to Kyleballyhue.
A lot of Kennedy’s reports
reflect customs that were still usual in the late 1940’s and
1950’s. He reported on 15 February 1789: “I met Ned Nolan at
the Chapel on Sunday last.” He was to see Nolan about
permission to lay a watercourse through his land in
Kyleballyhue. Well into the 1950’s it was usual for Martin
Murphy, the Sugar Company loading agent, to hand out dockets
for beet at Tinryland Chapel after Mass on Sundays.
I have a theory that there
are reasonable and probable grounds for believing that Martin
Murphy of Ballyloo, the loading agent, was a descendant of
Garret Murphy of Linkardstown, who is constantly referred to by
Mr. Kennedy. He seems to have been the parish’s adviser,
arbitrator, source of extra horses and carts, and I would love
to get more information about him. We think he didn’t live in
Brendan Dowling’s house in Linkardstown, but either in Michael
Murphy’s, where the Dwyers formerly lived, or perhaps in
Linkardstown House, where the Byrnes lived and which was
demolished when the farm was divided.
His wife’s tombstone is in
Linkardstown graveyard, dated 1799.
On 15 March 1789 Mr. Kennedy
wrote to Mr. Faulkner that he was worried that all his help
would disperse to plant their own potatoes. Well into the
nineteen fifties there was a conflict between farm workers’
ambition to harvest their spuds and employers’ ambition to
harvest sugar beet. I know the feeling.
The regular workers had two
acre gardens, but unlike the West where the famine revealed
that there was no money economy, the Carlow workers were paid
in cash as well as in kind. Kennedy often reports receiving
drafts or notes and converting them into Cash to pay wages.
On 26 April 1789 he wrote a
letter that gives us a firm price on a cow. He wrote:
“I sold a cow at the fair of
Tullow for 5 pounds 5 shillings. She got the bull six different
times and never stood to it.” He also added: “I got a ton of
hay from Jerry Brian of Fonthill at 2 guineas a ton.”
On 17 June he reports: “Mr.
Eliott got 30 shillings per barrel for his wheat.” Wheat often
hit 30 shillings and over. Yet a cow was only worth 5 guineas.
Compare the situation now where wheat is about £12 per barrel
and a fat cow is worth about 40 times as much. Horses were
worth more than cows when Phil wanted work horses he told the
boss that he would need thirty pounds to buy two horses in any
of the fairs.
On 28 June 1789 he reported
bad news. The little mare had foaled, and the foal was weak.
Phil fed it with milk from the spout of a teapot but it died.
Incidentally, Phil himself rode about on a little mare called
Grania, of which he was very fond. He went vast distances on
farm business; he mentions going to the fair of Bennettsbridge.
He also took a horse and cart loaded with garden produce to
Dublin on one occasion, although he usually sent one of the
senior workers. These carters would stop at Oldtown mill in
County Kildare en route to Dublin where Mr. Montgomery, a
relative of the Faulkners, lived. There is a tradition that the
carts were made at the Forge in Castletown, where Donal Murphy
lives, and were sold in Dublin. The carter presumably rode the
horse back.
On July 9,1789 Phil made a
report that is rather interesting. He wrote: “I have sold the
wheat to Mr. Phelan at Anagh, he calls it Milford, at 30
shillings a barrel, to take his bill on James Connolly, factor,
at thirty one days. I sold it on Sunday last, I believe from
what I saw in the newspapers you sent me, it will rise
considerably if there is given liberty of exportation. I could
wish to know before I would send any of it, whether you are
pleased with the agreement or not, though I would be very sorry
to retrait from the bargain I made.”
He then goes on to complain
about the broken weather interfering with the hay. Three days
later he says that he is glad Sam is pleased with the price of
the wheat. He is winnowing about thirty six barrels, and there
are another 24 barrels still to be threshed. He was like a
modern grain merchant or co-op clearing stores ahead of the
next harvest.
Not from Phil’s letters, but
from a letter of Hugh Faulkners we learn that after ploughing
the fallows, the ground was made into lazy beds before
broadcasting the seeds. I saw this still done in the west in
the late 1960’s, and it probably still goes on in Connemara
now.
In the lawn below our house
you can still see the trace of lazy beds, although I was once
told they were from beds of cabbage plants.
There’s plenty of bad news in
Phil’s letters. ‘I have disagreeable news to tell you: that one
of your horses dropped dead under an empty car coming from
Myshall a Tuesday last, where they went with some hay that Mr.
Cornwall bought from Carpenter in Carlow. The bay horse that I
bought in Carlow for three guineas three years last August for
7 guineas, I cannot find that any accident happened to him, but
took a stagger in his head, and dropped immediately.”
The field names we uses are
the same Kennedy used. This is a field behind our house, about
200 yards away: “I considered that the field called Rossmore
was not fit for meadowing, nor neither would it do so well for
black cattle; therefore I bought 40 brood ewes at 14/6 each,
from a Mr. Kinsella, son-in-law to Owen Coghlan.”
On 15 November he reported
more purchases: “I bought at the fair of Carlow a colt three
years old last May for ten guineas from Andrew Murry, likewise
a filly the same age for nine guineas from Daniel Kinsella, but
when I tried her in the plough there was no possibility of
getting any good of her, so that I was obliged to return her.
So wicked a beast I never saw.” In this letter he reports: “We
had a great fall of snow this morning and still continues.”
On 25 November 1789 Phil
wrote to Mr. Faulkner: “I sent by Larry Mahon this morning who
I expect will be in town to-morrow evening, a sack with
parsnips, and carrots, a sack of potatoes, a basket of onions,
five geese, two turkeys, I would have sent more turkeys but did
not think them good enough yet.”
Then he gives a list of panes
of glass, hinges, lead, oil and a bladder of white paint “in
return of this car,” This may scotch the legend of the cars
being sold in Dublin.
On 3 January 1790 Phil
reports something new - Ned Nolan has lent him two plough
bullocks to help keep the ploughs going.
On 12 February 1792, Phil
Kennedy wrote a letter that is worth quoting in full, or
almost:
Honoured Sir:
The whole of this week has
been taken up winnowing, sending the wheat into Carlow, shaking
hay for the seed, putting wheat into the barn, ploughing and
harrowing. I have sent to Athy by Mr. Phelan’s boat fifty five
barrels of wheat, which was at Athy on Thursday evening. If I
had this stack threshed I believe I might let the rest stand,
for some time, as I find prices are getting low, and the barley
straw will answer for the cattle.
I am, sir, with the greatest
respect, your most obedient and humble servant,
Phil Kennedy.
Now the 55 barrels he speaks
of are almost seven tons of wheat. If that was the sole cargo
the boat must have been rather small, but of course she may
have carried more cargo. Ruth Heard, in the book “The Canals of
the South of Ireland,” mentions that in 1789 William Chapman
reported to the Irish parliament that the boats using the
Barrow were generally from 20 to 40 tons, but his new scheme
would involve passing boats of 80 tons. In fact the Barrow
never carried loads of greater than 40 tons, so perhaps she
carried other cargo. But Barrow boat men are on record as
saying that at that time they could only carry 18 tons in
summer due to lack of water.
Some farmers still speak of
grass seeds as “hay seeds.” This is not because of the bad
habit of cutting hay off a first ley, but because the seeds
were got by, as Phil says, shaking them out of the hay. It
speaks badly for 18th century haymaking that the grasses had
gone to seed.
A week later, Phil wrote:
“However, we are training two young bullocks, more as I find
that we have insufficient for the business without their
assistance.” This is the second time he mentions bullocks - he
borrowed some from Ned Nolan. It is interesting that there was
an idea that using bullocks was more up to date than using
horses for heavy work. Yet there was no tradition of bullocks
having been used on the place when I came here first in 1932.
Not only had they disappeared but the tradition had gone with
them.
On 15 April 1792 Phil wrote:
“Monday last being an idle day with me, I went to
Leighlinbridge as I was told there was 19/- per barrel for
barley there. On trying them all, I could get no more than
15/6. I came from there to Carlow, and 16/- is the highest I
could get. The demand for seed barley does not answer my
expectations. I believe I shall have about 30 barrels fit to
spare, and if you would think it worth doing, I would put it on
board one of the boats for Dublin. I will not sell any of it
until I hear from you, which I expect will be on Tuesday. We
are getting on well with the sowing. God willing the weather
holds, we will have the principal part of it done this week.
There is a fair in Tullow on Saturday next, and if you think
well of it to send thirty or forty guineas perhaps there might
be some cattle got there, as I think your grass is as forward
as other people’s. As it turned out, prices in Tullow were too
high, and Phil didn’t buy. However, he had ideas of buying at
the fair of Carlow. He intended to drive the six plough
bullocks to the fair, and if he could not sell them for what he
considered their value, he would put them with three more 4
years old bullocks on the Rossmore to feed. As we know that the
Rossmore is still 16 statute acres, he reckoned to graze only
nine big bullocks on 16 statute acres - very low by modern
standards.
He also asked for trefoil and
white clover seed to be under sown in the barley with the
hayseeds he had shaken out of the hay.
In a letter on 13 May he was
still searching for store cattle, which were too dear in
Myshall, but also complained about the drought, which was
affecting the young barley.
He added: “Terence Byrne was
buried a Wednesday last.”
On 24 June he reported that
there was no demand for any commodity at the fair of Carlow,
only wool, which sold from 14/- to 16/- per stone.
In July he commented that one
reason the men were all away was that they were saving their
turf, which was a necessity for them. It is not clear to me
where they went for the turf but it might have been somewhere
in the low ground along the Fox Covert stream which runs from
Graiguenaspiddogue to Staplestown where it joins the Burrin.
This is not Phil’s only reference to turf.
By late August he was
complaining about having to harvest in broken weather - having
complained about drought in the spring. He also reported that
wages had gone to blazes due to a shortage of men, and casuals
were getting two shillings and two pence per day. He also
reported that there were a lot of cows with sore udders
obviously a widespread outbreak of summer mastitis.
Shortly he had good news - he
reported on 9 September that the weather had been good, wheat
was all in stacks, and the barley was in great order and a very
good crop. He had sent 44 barrels of wheat to Sam’s cousin
Montgomery’s mill in Oldtown on Montgomery’s cars. The year
before he had used the canal.
That same September he
mentions buying a cow “at the fair of Barrow- mount” - probably
at that time the village had not been named ‘Goresbridge.” I
must check through our letters for the names of the fairs,
which seemed to have been innumerable.
(I know Seamus Murphy is
doing a bit of research into fairs in Carlow county.)
In April 1793 Phil was laying
out plans and ideas for his boss and suggested de-stocking his
grass, shutting it up for hay, and selling it to the barracks,
where he would get his money immediately. I think the barracks
were not the present Sacred Heart Home but an older barracks
somewhere down near the Barrow but I am not sure,
There are constant references
in the letters to hauling lime. Some of it was for building,
but some of it was for the land. It was put on the fallows
intended for winter wheat. The rate was enormous, and it went
out regardless of the acidity or alkalinity of the land where
it went. This practice eventually produced bad results, which
gave lime a bad name. It was not until soil testing became
available that lime became respectable again - this was not
just as an Irish failing - it also happened in the UK.
The picture I get of Irish
farming at this time is that it was quite a sophisticated
industry. It was even mechanized. Phil bought a winnowing
machine in Tullow for £5. Later in the early nineteenth century
they had a horse gear driving a threshing drum, and at the
Green House they had a horse gear for churning. Other than the
worker’s two-acre gardens, farms were fairly big. Faulkner
rented 95 Irish acres to one tenant - that is about 142 statute
acres.
The farm stewards - Phil
Kennedy, John Donnelly and Pat Hackett were educated men. They
wrote beautifully, did costing’s, carried on correspondence.
They were definitely middle-class - and both Pat Hackett and
Phil Kennedy were executed in 1798. Like the French Revolution,
which preceded it, and the American Revolution still earlier,
it was a bourgeois revolution. Pat Hackett and Phil Kennedy
were middle-class; middle-management men we would call them
now. Phil not only rode about on a horse - usually little
Grania who had a fine foal - but he sealed all his letters with
his own signet. When the Faulkners were annoyed with Phil, or
with their clerk Kearney, they referred to them as Mister
Kennedy, or Mister Kearney.
P. S.
Monetary Conversion:
12 Penny's = 1 Shilling. 20
Shillings = £1.
Today £1 = $1.84291 (June 2006)
- 1
shilling was expressed as 1/- or 1s and 6 Penny's or
Sixpence was expressed as 6d.
- So
£1. 2s. 6d. = One Pound Two and Sixpence.
- Two and Sixpence was often expressed as 2/6
or 'Half a Crown'.
- Two
Shillings was called a 'Florin'.
- Sixpence = 'A
Tanner'
- One Shilling = ''A
Bob'
- Bread = money
- Dough = money
- Lolly = money
Currency Converter:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/default0.asp
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