Ireland’s Transformation

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17804, 31 August 1929, Page 14 (Supplement)

Ireland’s Transformation

Sir Cecil Phillips writes In the London Daily Mail from Galway;— Peasant life In Southern Ireland Is undergoing a remarkable transformation. Remote farms and hamlets have suddenly been brought into oloser contact with the outside world. This social > and eoonomlo revolution—for it Is nothing less—is the result of good / roads and a wide network of motor transport.

It has come about within the last two years. Omnibuses now tap districts whioh were formerly miles from the nearest railway. Cottagers can motor to the nearest market town as easily «s they feed the pigs. The Free State has spent upwards of £5,000,000 sinoe 1923 in reconstructing 1800 miles of national highways and 6000 miles of trunk and link roads. You can travel to-day at a steady 40 miles an hour between'Dublln and Limerick, Galway or Belfast, piloted by a comple’te system of signposts, mileage indicators, and safety signals. No other country in Europe has a better system of communications or one more efficiently maintained.

and events. Newspapers reach many areas on the day of publication, where formerly they were not delivered until one or two dyas later. There are cottage facing the wild Atlantic that now receive before bedtime the morning’s paper. The increasing sale of newspapers in districts where the local weekly was hut little known is further proof of the deeper interest displayed .by the inhabitants in happenings beyond thenlonely parish.!, \ Their standard of living is changing too. They want better things and more comforts, so far as they are able to afford them. The young men are no longer content to bo married off, after much bargaining by their parents, to a bride with a fortune of, say, £25 and a cow, and settle down docilely to humdrum life on a little patch of land. I am told that the “ marriage market ” is a declining institution. More matches are being made by the young people themselves.

Naturally the omnibus has flourished' and multiplied almost beyond belief.'

Dublin-Qalway in 5 Hours. To-day you can go from Dublin to Galway in less than live hours, and to Limerick in a little over four. Heavy coaches of the Pullman type maintain four to five services a day in each direction. Nearer points arc served more frequently. The railways are beginning to feel tlie effect of this competition. They have asked the Government for protection, and the answer has been a heavy tax on omnibuses. Still they flourish. The result of this invasion has been twofold. New suburbs, made possible by the improved transportation facilities, have grown up around the larger towns, and the peasants in the more remote districts have been brought out of their little world. In fact, it might be said that the old peasant type is doomed to extinction because of this new contact with the 20th century. They have better shops at their disposal, belter schools for their children, and wider knowledge of people

Better Dressed Women. The women want better clothes. The girls show a 'tendency to imitate their sisters of the towns. While motoring in County Clare this week I passed a wooden cart filled with milkcans and driven by a young girl. Her shawl had fallen away from her bobbed head, she was wearing stockings of artificial silk and smoking a cigarette with evident enjoyment. She may not be a universal type, hut undoubtedly she is a symptom. The economic effect of the change is no less significant. Local tradesmen have been hard hit by the motoromnibus. No longer do their customers have to depend upon a meagre stock of poor articles in the general store—they wait for the omnibus and go into the nearest large town. £2,500,000 Creameries. Another economic factor in the

£5,000,000 Spent on Good Roads in Six Years. Peasants

in Touch with the World

changing country districts is the cooperative creamery. There are now 162 of these Government-run organisations dotted about at “ strategic ” centres for the systematic collection of milk, butter and eggs. Fifty were opened recently in areas where hitherto farmers have had to depend solely on the profits of barley and cattle food. They are now able to go in for dairying, and thereby raise their standard of living. . Mr Hogan, the youthful Minister of Agriculture (lie was formerly a solicitor), has done much to improve the status of the people on the land. The Irish Association of Creameries, which \vas formed under his supervision to market Free State products in foreign ” countries, showed a turnover during the first 12 months of two and a-half millions sterling. Its creameries handle from 120,000 to 130,000 gallons of milk daily. The Irish egg owes its rehabilitation to Mr Hogan. It fell Into disrepute after the war, owing to the get-rich-quick-anyway tendency of certain over-prosperous shippers. Now, all eggs, butter and livestock exported from the Free State must reach the standard fixed by law, and supervision is very strict. Youth Shows the Way. In other ways the development of the country districts is very marked. Hotels have been repaired and refurnished, in some cases even rebuilt, in anticipation of the increased tourist trade. Villages formerly dependent upon oil or candles are now lit by electricity. The telephone service is being extended to remote places. Village lads are going in for sport . There is a strong and popular effort to rc-in-Irocluce the old Celtic games. Yet football holds its own. Youth is showing the way to a new life.