BIG READ: 'Get big or get out,' Offaly farmer recalls a busy life
The concept of meitheal and community ‘used to be stronger’ among farmers
The book “Farming in Ireland” has been painstakingly researched by Cloghan man Pat Brereton and features interviews with Frank Clarke, Tom Loonam, John Dolan, Emma Dolan, Michael Silke, Johnny Butterfield, Padge Mulhare, and Thomas Brereton, among others.
The book is widely available online and in a number of bookstores, including Midland Books in Tullamore.
Pat said researching the book meant coming home to meet neighbours and friends, which was a good thing to experience.
Pat writes with great felicity, asks many great questions and receives a lot of very interesting answers from the farmers. Here is one of those farmers and a few of his comments.
Tom Loonam from Attinkee is a specialist in tillage and grain production and was the IFA leader of Offaly for a good number of years. Tom told Pat that successful grain production was all about size; “get big or get out” was a frequently used slogan. A good deal of his farm is given over to tillage.
After leaving school Tom worked on his parents’ farm from the age of sixteen. A lot was happening at that time and tractors had no cabs then to protect farmers. The machines started with hand-controlled push handles, and these early machines were used to plough the land. In the late ‘50s when electricity was only coming into the area, he remembers seeing poles going into the ground. This was a big visual change in the landscape. His land was a mix between good land, as well as callows which is good for hay, alongside more moor-type soil that is good for grazing. Sugar beet was an important crop then and a lot of work was involved, with the crop being very popular. Lots of people were needed to help around the process of thinning beet on their knees. The crop was pulled by hand and taken to Belmont Train Station and uploaded again by hand onto the train. The first machine to help in this process arrived in the mid or late ‘60s. He finally purchased a lorry and drove beet to the factories. Although it was hard work Tom said the closing down of the industry was a big blow. He feels it was a decision that was unfairly made. The industry had been started by the Irish government in the 1930s and for years had been a huge employer.
Pat asked him about meitheal and community. Tom said the concept of meitheal used to be stronger among farmers years ago, in his younger years. “But nobody notices it now; neighbours do not even talk to each other as much now.” (In an aside Pat commented that this observation was made to him by several farmers).
Tom pointed out that dairy farming has become too big, “without ever thinking of the problems, problems with calves and the slurry waste etc.”