When I was speaking last night in competition with the clock I could not have gone on for more than ten minutes if the clock had not been there at all, but since then I have had time to look up a few points and I may possibly delay the Seanad slightly longer in consequence. The only moral of this is it would pay to ignore the clock when I am speaking at the end of a sitting.
I may have left the impression that I had a poor view of Connaught men when they leave their home country but I would like to remove that impression. When they are uprooted and are living in an unnatural environment far from home ties and home influences certain of them fall into temptations which, indeed, are common to human nature in general, and do not behave as good citizens. Yet when they go out from their own country in organised working parties, as they do regularly every year, to England and Scotland there are no better workers and no better behaved citizens. What keeps them right is, I think, partly their innate qualities and partly the fact that they look forward to returning to their native heaths, boglands and farms and that they seem to have a genuine love of their own rugged and somewhat infertile countryside. That, therefore, makes it all the more desirable from the national point of view that somehow conditions should be created which would enable them to live a comfortable life all the year round in their own rugged surroundings.
May I, in passing, ask since these Gaeltacht people are disposed to migrate for seasonal labour to other parts of these islands, if there is any reason why such migration should not be organised with reference to Eastern Ireland and its agricultural areas? As I pointed out on a former occasion, there is a limiting factor to agricultural production in the East Midland counties arising from the fact that there is a real shortage of labour, especially of seasonal labour. That limits the efforts of the Irish sugar company to increase the area under beet. Many farmers have told me and I have read in agricultural papers, that they dare not increase their area under beet beyond the amount that they can handle with their own permanent staff or their own family labour. If it could be arranged that organised bodies of workers from the Gaeltacht should regularly come to and be established in the East Midland counties, perhaps temporarily occupying some of the semi-derelict big houses which you find in any agricultural region even in the eastern parts of the country, and be provided with suitable transport and be distributed throughout the farms of the East Midlands throughout the whole season from the beginning, the planting of the beet, the haymaking, the corn harvesting season, right down to the beet lifting period which is also a period of heavy seasonal work, it might solve two problems at one stroke.
In that connection may I suggest that it is very desirable that there should be co-ordination between the various Government Departments that are concerned with solving our various economic problems, and that this new board should act, not in a piecemeal way as the fifth, sixth or seventh wheel of an already elaborate governmental coach, but as an effective means of co-ordination between existing Government Departments, and should look for the missing components that may make all the difference between a successful solution and a partial one? You have the problem of migration and emigration from the Gaeltacht and you have the problem of a shortage of agricultural labour in the East Midland counties—two problems; but two problems looked at synoptically often add up to one solution. That point of view should be ever present before the eyes of this new board.
May I digress for a moment to differ from my friend and colleague, Senator Professor O'Brien, on his suggestion that there may be a danger of continuous subsidy even after the seven-year period for the new industries which it is proposed to establish? The object of the Bill is to overcome what we may call an initial friction. If that initial friction has been successfully overcome and new industries have been successfully established, then I think, if those industries have taken root, that they will in themselves facilitate further industrial development and will tend to attract new and subsidiary industries to the same neighbourhood. The danger of a continuous subsidy being necessary is one which ought not to exist either in theory or in practice.
There are, however, I think, larger aspects of this whole problem. We have been traditionally inclined to regard the Gaeltacht as an economic drain and the remedies which we propose for solving the problems of the Gaeltacht traditionally take the form of imposing a drain on the rest of the country. If there were no other way in which the conditions of life in these difficult areas could be remedied without some sacrifice on the part of the rest of the country, I would say that nevertheless that sacrifice ought to be made because the debt of the whole country to the people of the Gaeltacht is very considerable. But I think the right and more ambitious objective is that we should, if at all possible, aim to turn the Gaeltacht from being an economic drain into being an economic and cultural asset, a positive asset from the point of view of the country as a whole.
The question of the future of the Gaelic language in Ireland is to my mind primarily an economic question, and unless the economic situation of the Gaeltacht can be put on a permanently satisfactory basis there is no future for Gaelic and very little future for the Gaelic ideal in Ireland.
I know, of course, that the official policy is that all Ireland should eventually become a Gaelic-speaking nation and that policy certainly arouses positive enmity and much hostile criticism, but there is an alternative ideal which could be a unifying influence, unifying people of all religions and living in every part of our 32 counties, and that is what I may call the Quebec ideal with reference to the Gaeltacht. You probably know that Quebec in Canada is a French-speaking area but you may not realise that a very substantial proportion of the people of Canada are French-speaking and there is no danger whatever of the French-speaking region in Canada disappearing through depopulation, and the reason of that is that the French-speaking population of Canada have a tolerable life and a valuable economic asset in the natural resources which belong in their Province.
If anything we do could develop the economic resources of the Gaeltacht it would guarantee the permanence of the Gaelic language and of Gaelic ideals in that particular part of the country. What is still more important, I think that we could get national unity about a policy which aimed at giving an economic basis to the Gaeltacht and which would preserve the Gaelic language and Gaelic culture in that part of the country. That is what I have in mind especially with reference to the amendments which I have handed in.
The fact is that, although we all belong in the Galltacht and our Northern Ireland friends are extremely emphatic about their determination so to belong, nevertheless, people from both areas regularly go to the Gaeltacht for holidays, and part of the charm of those holidays is the people whom they meet, who live in that area, and the people whom they cannot help loving for their many very attractive qualities.
I was very much struck by correspondence that I had with a certain Northern Ireland lady who was deeply distressed at the hardship suffered by the inhabitants of one of the Aran Islands, where she had spent a very pleasant summer holiday. She besought me to beseech the Minister to do what he could to provide them with a tolerable harbour and make it possible for a sick person to reach hospital facilities from that particular island without the danger of dying on the way through unsatisfactory harbour and boat accommodation. I am sure the Minister has that problem in mind, but I would like him to realise that that suggestion emanated from a Northern Ireland citizen who loves that particular part of the country. I think nobody would rejoice more than the people of Northern Ireland if we could make the conditions of life of these people more attractive and guarantee the permanence of their language and their civilisation.
In general, my grievance—not exactly grievance—but my attitude to this Bill is that I think its conception is too narrow; it is not sufficiently ambitious and not illuminated by the flame of the desire to revive the ancient civilisation and to make it worthwhile, even from the most modern 20th century point of view. There is too much of the procedure and I might almost say of the mentality characteristic of establishing a factory in a back street of Dublin.
The Bill refers to industrial undertakings in the Gaeltacht. Industrial undertakings are only one of the many things that are concerned in a process of genuine economic development of an area. I do not want us to think in terms merely of narrow industrial enterprise but in terms of a genuine economic expansion in the area as a whole, with all the social and cultural corollaries that will follow from success. There is too much admiration for the spirit of private individual and even individualist enterprise, which is all very well and has its place in our economic life, but somehow it has not had a very civilising influence and is not likely to have such influence, especially when it is a question of depressed areas or people with little economic strength and suffering from a low standard of living.
There is a danger that if you allow or encourage private individualist enterprise to run riot among a people who are so poverty stricken as these are, you will reproduce the conditions of early 19th-century industrialism in England, where the workers will be, perhaps, employed but nevertheless exploited; in fact, there are Irish writers who are extremely doubtful whether the ideal of private profit-making and private enterprise and all the rest is a genuine Gaelic ideal at all.
May I quote, in that connection, from a book that I had the temerity to publish a few months ago, in which I stated, on page 164:—
"James Connolly wrote a book called Labour in Irish History, the main contention of which was that ‘capitalist’ ideas about the sanctity of private property and the right to private profit-making are in fact a foreign import which came with the Conquest, and are alien to the Gaelic mind. The communal cultivation of land was a characteristic feature of the old Gaelic social order, and ultimately ownership belonged to no individual but to the clan or sect.
"Dr. E.E. Evans, of Queen's University, Belfast, in his book Irish Heritage finds traces of former communal land tenures in the ‘rundale’ system, and in the clusters of ‘clachans’ of peasant houses which are still found in parts of Donegal and Connaught. The completely isolated farms of to-day are, in his view, a comparatively modern innovation. The ‘townlands’ which still survive originally contained such clusters of houses, referred to as ‘towns.’‘These self-sufficing communities were held together by blood ties and by the exchange of services under the Irish open-field or “rundale” system of cultivation.’ If James Connolly and Dr. Evans are right it would appear that an important part of the Conquest still remains to be undone. For the ‘foreign’ idea of the sanctity of private property, in land and other means of production, appears to have penetrated deeply into the Irish mind.”
I throw that out for what it is worth, but whatever institutions we encourage the development of, I should like them to be genuine Irish institutions and not too much influenced by modern ideas in which individualist enterprise plays such a part.
There is in the Bill itself, though not necessarily in the administration of it when it becomes an Act, no reference to the importance of considering industrial propositions with reference to the general economic conditions of the locality, and it contains no reference to the desirability of creating what we might call a co-operative commonwealth, that is, a social order reflecting the spirit of the old Gaelic civilisation. I do not know whether the House is familiar with the term "gombeen man", but the "gombeen man" is, or was—and here I speak in ignorance of the present situation in the Gaeltacht and that is one of the reasons I regret that I have not had an opportunity of refreshing my contacts with that part of the country before making this speech—the dominant feature in the economic life of the Gaeltacht. If there still are such people, and that kind of person is the only influential person in these depressed or undeveloped areas, there is a danger that they will be the people who will profit by the financial lubrication which this Bill proposes, and that the general population will profit little or nothing in consequence, even if a few industries are established here and there.
I do not know whether the House has ever heard of the Templecrone Co-operative Society or heard of the name of Paddy Gallagher. I should like to put on the records of the House some information about that achievement in South-West Donegal which, I think, ought to be in the knowledge of every serious citizen of Ireland, because the methods pursued by Paddy Gallagher and the achievement he made seem to me to be the most hopeful feature of this whole business, and to point the way to the possibility of success of an industrial progress, not only from the point of view of its economic feasibility but from the point of view of its social and cultural attractions.
If Senators want to know the bare facts about the present position of the Templecrone Co-operative Society, I refer them to page 54 of the Report of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society for the year ending 31st December, 1950, where they will find that the society was founded in 1906; has a share capital of £1,243; a membership of 1,260 persons; a loan capital of £45,466; and a total trade turnover of £184,476 in that year. That is not bad going for a society like that. That society came into existence long before there was any question of the establishment of the Electricity Supply Board, but that did not deter the society from going ahead with industrial development. In fact, the society itself proceeded to create its own power station and its own power station still maintains a permitted existence supplying electric current in that immediate neighbourhood. If Senators will look at the annual report of the Electricity Supply Board, they will find on page 43 that the Templecrone Co-operative Society supplies 151 customers; charges them 8d. per unit, which compares favourably with the other surviving power concerns; and sold, in the relevant year, 9,480 units.
At page 326 of My Story in which Paddy Gallagher himself wrote the story of his own life, you will find these words:—
"I would like to put on record that the Templecrone Co-operative Society never asked for any favour from any British or Irish Government; never wronged man, woman or child; never oppressed any of our debtors; issued only two processes since it was started in 1906 and settled both of them. I am indeed pleased that I am still its President and Manager. Our sales turnover last financial year ending 30th September, 1945, was £154,440.
£ |
s. |
d. |
|
Paid Interest on Share Capital |
87 |
14 |
0 |
Dividends on Members' Purchases at 2/- in the £ |
3,755 |
16 |
11 |
Interest on Deposits |
605 |
13 |
1 |
Wages |
10,985 |
4 |
8 |
Our investments exceeded our deposits by |
16,917 |
12 |
3 |
That is a serious and important industrial achievement which ought to give us heart and courage with reference to the possibility of doing similar things in other parts of the Gaeltacht areas. But, 40 odd years ago, if the "gombeen men" had had their way in the Templecrone neighbourhood, that society would have been strangled at birth. May I quote in illustration of that fact certain other episodes in the early and stormy history of that society? It began by Paddy Gallagher deciding that it would be a good idea for the farmers to combine in order to buy the eggs of members and send them to the markets beyond Ireland and elsewhere at a better price than the local merchants were paying for eggs and an equally good idea to sell groceries and other household goods at a lower price than the local "gombeen men" were in the habit of charging their customers. His first experience of packing eggs was not very encouraging because he packed them all wrong and the first consignment was completely smashed, so he applied for information as to how to go about it and was told that he could learn from Mr. Barr, manager of a poultry society at Castlerock, County Derry. He says:—
"Off I went, arrived at the store, met Mr. Barr, and started packing eggs. The second day I was there Mr. Barr closed an hour earlier than usual. He told me that he had to attend an Orange meeting. He gave me a fright. With an Orangeman training me, how could I have luck....
The following Sunday after Mass, a man spoke to me outside the chapel door and asked me how I liked Castlerock."
Then he went on to say that Mr. Barr was not too bad and—
"This is a great place for Orangemen, some good, some bad, just like ourselves; but Mr. Barr is one of the best you ever met."
Then when Paddy the Cope came home,—
"I told them I had been with an Orangeman. My mother blessed herself and said, ‘Paddy, why did you not come home at once? God help you. I was afraid something would happen to you. I think there is something unlucky about the Cope.'"
That only leads up to what he wants to tell about efforts to smash the new society—
"They started a little co-operative on their own. They joined together in a traders' association. Their committee sent out a circular to all traders to organise in order to crush illegitimate trading."
They did their utmost to put the new society out of existence. Needless to say, however, they were circumvented by the enterprise of Paddy the Cope and the loyalty of his associates. However, they did other things, they put him in jail under an Act of Edward III as being a dangerous character likely to cause a breach of the peace. However, that particular incarceration did not last very long. That was the time that Father Finlay got busy on his behalf. Sureties for good behaviour were required but because he would not go bail under Statute 34 of Edward II, Chapter I, he was imprisoned and when he came out of jail he received a regular ovation.