Reshaping a Rural Society

Irish Jesuit Province

Reshaping a Rural SocietyAuthor(s): Brigid RedmondSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 64, No. 754 (Apr., 1936), pp. 259-268Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20513921 .

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259

Reshaping a Rural Society

BY BRI3GID REDMOND.

A N article in the October number of your magazine pleads for the establishment of right order in Irish social and economic spheres. It sounds like a " voice

crying in the wilderness," bewailing the state of " materialistic barbarism " that appears to have settled on the countryside. The writer suggests the formation of a Ministry of Arts to clear up the mess. The trouble is perhaps too complicated and deep rooted to allow of a speedy cure by means of any Government

Department. To be truly effective, social welfare orgamsations should not be imposed from above, but rather initiated and developed by the people themselves. The plain men and women of the country, inspired by the true spirit of Christianity and of Nationality, and expressing their love of God and country in action and self-sacrifice, must build up the future nation. They need, however, the wise leadership of disinterested, selfless men among them whose lives will shine like a lamp to the feet of

their fellows.

Louis J. Walsh in his book, " Old Friends," pays tribute to

some such men who helped to make the national movement dur

ing the past generation, quiet, sincere lovers of Ireland, the true salt of the nation.

First in his portrait gallery is Joseph Dolan of Ardee, " an

idealist who was always trying to make his dreams come true." A brilliant University man, he turned his back on professional fame and fortune and chose instead the road that led him back



260 THE IRISH MONTHLY

to a humdrum existence in a small country town. Here he worked among the people as one of themselves, instructing them in all the. ways of worthwhile progress. " He was a great demo crat, and the Ireland that he loved began from his own fireside and went up and down the streets of his own wee town." His patriotism was no mere abstraction but practical to the smallest details. " He put about ?80,000 into various Irish industrial and other enterprises out of very many of which there was no reasonable hope of his ever getting any return." The chair factory at Ardee is one monument to his self-sacrifice. As a St. Vincent de Paul social worker, he realised the ameliorative value of good housing, and the terraces of new houses built in his native town were erected largely as a result of his persistent importuining of Government Departments. He founded an archeological society in his native county, edited their journal and established a museum in connection therewith. He was the

mainstay of the Gaelic League in Louth and of the Irish summer schools at Omeath and Clogherhead. " He was a singularly holy

man and a grand example of an Irish Catholic layman, the pro duct of an Irish Catholic home and a great Catholic college. His political views were full of charity, alike for friend and opponent. He had that wide charity, that love for his fellows, that breadth of view and human interest and kindliness that the Saviour tried to inculcate in us by his example."

There is a sketch of a different type, no less noble, portrayed in Andy Dooey of Dunloy, " a ' full farmer ' and successful cattle dealer. While he neglected none of his duties, he was always trying to educate and help his neighbours and to advance their interests in every way. " In the pioneer days of the Gaelic League he gathered around him a group of country boys and girls in a thatched cottier's house to learn the language and absorb the new Nationalist doctrine of self reliance and self respect,



RESHAPING A RURAL SOCIETY 261

preached from the pages of The Leader and the United Irishman. Andy wrote songs embodying the national spirit for his pupils, somle of which might well be sung in rural halls to-day through out the country.

" He lived a life that those who love the limelight would deem obscure. He never had any selfish aim to pursue in public affairs.

He sought no material kudos. All he wanted to do was to be a good Catholic and a good Irishman, doing the good that God gave him to do, helping all around him, standing ever for the right, pouring his sweat into the fields he loved, rejoicing in his strong horses, his lowing herds and in his woolly flocks, and thanking God every hour of his life for all the beauty and peace around him, and for the supreme blessing that the old race and the old Faith still held on round ' oul' Dunloy '."

Through the efforts and example of such men the perfect nation is built. The true Nationalist, aiming at the reconstruction of a

Kingdom of God in Ireland begins with the effort to establish within himself the Kingdom of God and to develop all his talents of brain and character in the service of God and his country. A perfect nation is made up of perfect individuals, and it is only by unselfish labour, self reliance and self sacrifice we can hope to build up a nation that will not be unworthy of our heroic forbears whose endurance, nobility and self sacrifice unto death gave us the means of possessing a fuller and more abundant life.

Organisations striving for the cultural, social and economic welfare of rural society should seek the assistance of such patient, practical idealists as those described by L. J. Walsh.

Any impartial observer of rural psychology does not doubt that there is urgent need of a regeneration. One is naturally depressed by the evidences of " materialistic barbarism " on every side. There are the impoverished country towns, lying




stagnant in a morass of listlessness and lassitude, strangled by their own petty jealousies and meannesses; there is the dull, self-sufficient agricultural population, " Working to eat and eat ing to work." The idols of youth are mainly cinema " stars,"

motor speed champions, and the gods of the turf and racecourse. The songs they whistle and sing about the streets and fields are jazz tunes and music-hall melodies. The idols of middle age are

money, commercial success, physical comfort and public applause. Their energies are concentrated on the acquisition of more land, the consolidation of their holdings, " adding the halfpence to the pence " until they " have dried the marrow from the bone."

They have no communal life, such a life as would naturally create interests for those who share it. The origins of this bourgeois, materialistic mentality must be sought in the foreign system of economics and of education which, for such a long period, moulded our life and informed our mind. The tradition of a capitalistic economic system founded on usury and mass production dominated by the Imperialistic policy of keeping our people in a backward agricultural condition still stultifies the national life. That tradition bred the Gaimbeen man and his type continues to hold sway in a countryside which has not yet discovered an adequate way of realising the co-operative gospel. Our educational system, planned by an urbanised, industrialised people of alien religion and mentality, the offspring of the materialistic ideals of nineteenth century English philosophers, aimed at destroying the wellsprings of Gaelic culture, severing the folk mentality from consciousness of continuity with their own past, drying up the sources of living life, for mind and heart. Their efforts bear fruit to-day in the blossoming of the bourgeois ethos expressed in dull self-sufficiency, intense individualism, lowered life values.




The shaping of a social order founded on the Christian Gospel

denmands the evolution of an economic order based on the same principles. If this economic order be constructed by men who 6

put first things first," inspired by the truth that " the life is more than the meat and the body more than the raiment," the social order will be sound. Francis MacManus laments the absence in our countryside of " villages and towns crowded with makers of things, artists and poets, song makers, playwrights, actors, painters, scuilptors, story tellers; with men of active mind, contemplatives of all kinds; with men who take delight in the powers and the world that God has given them." If we are to achieve this Utopia we must have an economic organism into

which all these craftsmen and artists fit and which will give them facilities for the development of their talents, a market for con sumption of their produiets and a directing spirit which will inform all their activities with Christian ideals. Francis

MacManus optimistically opines that " life can be put into Irish

affairs by organisations not concerned with economic revival." " Irish affairs," that is, I assume, our cultural and social life,

can be heightened only by means of an intense economic revival dominated and controlled by Christian principles. You cannot grow figs from thistles and it would be foolish to expect the fruits of a Christian social order from a society based on outworn

economic principles. Our present economic system which aimns at building a nation self-contained in essentials, is a good founda

tion on which to construct a Christian social order. Given the wholehearted co-operation of every individual in

the State this economic policy should achieve a moderately high

standard of prosperity, at the same time assuring the condi

tions of a more perfect Christian social order. Farming, organised co-operatively, based on community of administration

but not on common ownership, using the most expert methods



264 THE IRISIH MONTHLY

of production and of marketing, would effect a speedy change not only in the standard of living, but also in the mentality of the people. A rural system based on such an experiment as the Belgian Boerenbund, encouraged by the State, would weed out exploiters and usurers and " open opportunities to all industrious

men. " The Boerenbund was founded by the Abbe Mellaerts who

launched his first co-operative guild at Goor in 1886, and, in 1890, the Boerenbond. This movement saved Belgium from the disastrous effects of the agricultural crisis created in the last decade of the nineteenth century by the competition from new countries overseas. The Boerenbund is a central organisation link ing up the guilds of farmers in every parish and commune. There

are special sections for women and for the youth of both sexes. The Central Committee at Louvain has a department; for co-operative buying and selling of agricultural produce, and undertakes to execute the orders of the local guilds. They have a central bank, formed by the federation of the local banks, modelled on the Raffeisen system. They have another section for insurance. T'hey undertake expenmental farms, research stations, provide staff and equipment for undertaking contracts for land clearance, drainage, irrigation, building and electrifica tion. They do all that a vast commercial organisation could do, but they do not work for profit. Their publicity bureau defends agricultural interest in the Press, and representations are made to the Government concerning the incidence of taxes and the

modification of laws considered harmful to the farmer. The legal service enables the farmers to submit to arbitration disputes among themselves and thus avoid expensive litigation. In con junction with the Minister of Agriculture, they founded twenty advanced schools of agriculture and fifty-one schools for girls. The wives and daughters of members are also combined in




federated groups for social and educational activities. The Government prefers to act through the Boerenbund rather than independently of it, and has always taken a sympathetic interest in its work, but this is because the organisation has proved its efficiency. The Society has done more than forwarding the

material interests of its members. Their aim is " to work for the religious, social and agricultural welfare of its members, and to

watch over their material interests." The work is at once religious, social and professional, and the association represents a complete organisation of the agricultural community. " It is a living example of the Catholic ideal of the co-operative organisa tion of economic life."

The association of " Muintir na Tire," founded by Rev. J. Hayes, may be the nucleus of a movement which will accomplish as much for Irish rural life as the Boerenbund has done for Belgium. The primary object of the association, composed of farmers and farm labourers, is to organise with the assistance of the parochial clergy the rural population of each parish for the purpose of co-operative production and marketing. Such an economic order would, by changing the individualistic for the co-operative spirit, achieve a transformation of our social life as well. Groups co-operating for material welfare would co-operate for religious, educational and social purposes. Parishes and towns would vie with each other to provide the best vocational schools, libraries, concert halls and theatres for their local area, to display the most perfect exhibition of rural arts and crafts, to own the

most beautifully planned towns, the most finely cultured gardens and orchards. The villages, towns and countryside would be populated with all those types of which F. MacManus speaks, " artists, craftsmen "-people delight in using the powers God gave them.

Organised women cotuld give a tremendous impetus towards



266 THE IR?ISH MONTHLY

the realisation of this rural Utopia. The Women's Institute have helped materially to transform rural England during the past decade. Arising out of the need for women's work on the land occasioned by the scarcity of food supplies during the European war, they were at first subsidised by the Board of Agriculture, but by 1921 every county had its self-supporting federation. They have special committees for handicrafts, agriculture, dancing and music, rural and domestic science, hygiene and welfare.

A similar type of Irish organisation is the Irish Country women's Association, the successor of the United Irishwomen's Association. Members in country districts form guilds where they meet for handicraft work. Handicrafts include glove

making, toys, basket work, quilt and rug making. They organise lectures and demonstrations in home crafts, nursing, hygiene. The guilds are allotted stalls at agricultural shows for the exhibi tion and sale of work. They also have a stall at the Royal Dublin Society's Spring Show. They held a summer school camp at Duffearrig, near Courtown Harbour, where lessons in physical drill and glove making were given. Town associates co-operate with the guilds and with their central oouncil. Their most interesting experiment is the development of the Fethard basketry made from rushes grown in the district.

The Women's Industrial Development Organisation is a women's organisation founded " to advise and facilitate the pur chase of Irish goods, to encourage the investment of Irish capital in Irish industrial concerns, preferably those which are in Irish ownership; to encourage only such Irish industries as conform to proper trade union wages and conditions for their workers." To effect their aims they have set up an information bureau, pre pared lists of Irish goods and shoppers lists, which they undertake to supply to retailers. Besides promoting the purchase of Irish




goods, branches aim at the revival of native arts and crafts in districts where they formerly flourished and encouraging the formation of new types of home crafts. One small country branch formed under their auspices in County Wicklow succeeded, after three months' work, in furnishing a stall at the Wicklow Exhibi tion of Arts and Crafts with products of their skill in embroidery, rug and rope mat making. The association organises dress parades of Irish goods at the Royal Dublin Society's Spring Show. By concentration on propaganda for the purchase of Irish-made goods, by insisting on the adoption of improved standards in the quality of products and better methods of marketing, the organisation will assist materially in the solution of the problem of marketing the products of Irish cottage industries.

The Irish women's associations lack as yet the support accorded to the English women's institutes by their Board of

Agriculture and by other educational bodies. The work of the W.I.D.A. and kindred associations should at least be recognised

by County Committees of Agriculture and Vocational Education Committees as an integral part of their own task, the improve ment of rural social and economic life, and should receive the

fullest measure of support and co-operation from these bodies. The defect of most rural organisations as of most county com

mittees is that they tend to wrork in rigidly exclusive departments without any attempt at co-operation with similar types of activity. The same criticism, with reservations, might be applied to the G.A.A., which promotes native games, the Gaelic League, which

still heroically struggles in country districts to further the use of our native language, and to county Feiseanna committees which try to encourage native music, song and the language. It cannot

be doubted that these groups would gain by co-ordinating their activities, where possible.

The institution of rural community councils, which would




bring together for mutual benefit paid officials of the county councils and voluntary workers might help in the task of co-ordinating different forms of rural social and educational work. The establishment of such a body as the Boerenbund would more effectively link together all the organised activities for the pro motion of rural welfare, which at present are scattered and functioning separately, with consequent wastage of effort and

money.



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Reshaping a Rural Society