More on agricultural work in Ireland and Scotland, with permission. Maisie Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2010 2:25 PM Subject: Re: "Tattie Howking" - Ireland>Scotland, Potato Harvest SNIPPET: Interesting note from another lister: "There were strong connections between Sligo/ Mayo/ Leitrim /Donegal and Scotland largely because of agriculture in the early 19th century. Cattle boats sailed from Derry to Glasgow, convenient for all in the NW counties. Particularly important was "tattie howking."This was when squads of men and women came from Ireland to Scotland to assist in the potato harvest. They had the skills and generally received better payment because the industrial revolution hit Glasgow and central Scotland raising the standard of living above anything the tenant farmer could expect in North Leitrim. They organised it as follows: each big Scottish farmer would have an 'agent'- i.e., a local man in a village or town in Ireland who would be reponsible for getting together a 'squad' of locals, bringing them across to Scotland, getting them to the farm and generally keeping them in order. These squads generally slept in big communal barns, possibly travelled round three or four farms in a 2 or 3 month period and, being away from home and having a little money could become quite wild if not controlled. The agent had power over them because he could refuse to employ them the following year or could threaten to tell their families back home what they'd been up to! Most sent money home or saved their wages to see them through till the next year - some just had a wild old time! This system meant that people from the same villages tended to go to the same areas in Scotland- word of mouth being the major means of recruitment. It was a rough life and familiar faces must have helped. (Interestingly, Scottish schools, even in the cities, still get a week's holiday in October which English schools don't get. It's called a 'tattie howking' week, because formerly in the country areas, the authorities knew no children would be in school as they'd be required to help lift the tatties, or potatoes.) Gradually families would become familiar with the bit of Scotland they visited each year; working trips would lengthen and in the end some of the squad would not return at all. Some inter married with local Scots, but more started to get jobs in the industrial centres of Glasgow and Lanarkshire. Women found that going into service was easier than the life they had known back home - they would be paid for housework that was not as arduous as that they did for nothing in Leitrim just to keep the family and farm going. Men got jobs working on Glasgow trams as drivers or ticket men. As the industrial revolution turned Glasgow into a major city with shipbuilding and iron and Steel and coalmining there were more and more jobs. Many Irish worked on the Canal and railway building of the early 19th century - and following the canal or railway across Scotland brought them east to Edinburgh - which wasn't as industrialised as Glasgow but had a need for service industries. My own grandfather opened a grocery store which sold produce from the farm in Drumnafaughnan, sent across by boat via Belfast or Newry, with ingeniously designed crates that held eggs secure on the rail and boat journeys. Glasgow was an easy place to settle in for the emigrants because many Highlanders came down from the north of Scotland to the central belt to work and they had a similar background to the Irishmen - in agriculture and strong family life, and they Gaelic they spoke was close to the Irish spoken by the immigrants. So there it is - higher standard of living due to industrialisation, convenience of transport and a need for farm and, later, agricultural labourers. Hope that all makes some kind of sense!!! Sean McP." ---- Original Message ----- From: "Maisie Egger" <[email protected]> To: [email protected], [email protected], "IRELANDGENWEB" <[email protected]>, [email protected] Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2010 1:19:47 PM Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Fw: Farm Machinery/Uses -- Muckross Traditional Farms, Killarney, Co. Kerry - Trip to Ireland 2006 My 18th century forebears in the south of Scotland seem to have been mostly agricultural workers, and so I found this description of the lives of farm workers in Ireland enlightening as I am sure conditions were no different in Scotland. I spent only three weeks during the war---and it was enough---potato howking in Kirkcudbrightshire. Our school in Glasgow recruited us lassies for, I think, either 30/-d a week, or 30/-d for the three weeks! I can't remember now. It was very hard work, and when the rain turned the earth into clabber, it was much more difficult to pick the potatoes quickly enough out of the rills before the horse and digger came around again. It gave me great appreciation for the lot of farm workers, and maybe this is why I chose to work in an office. Maisie