The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was an agricultural association in Ireland which advocated, and helped to organise, agricultural cooperativism , including mutual credit facilities. From its establishment by Sir Horace Plunkett in 1894, it quickly became an important element of the Irish economy and laid the foundations of the successful Irish dairy industry.
31-596: The Irish Homestead was the weekly publication of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS). It was founded in 1895 by Horace Plunkett . The aim of the paper was to publicise and propagate the objectives of the IAOS, which set up dairy co-operative societies and co-operative banks, and introduced co-operation among Irish farmers by proving the benefits obtainable through more economical and efficient management. Its headquarters were initially in
62-450: A Unionist MP in the House of Commons while Lord Monteagle was initially a Liberal Unionist member of the House of Lords . Together with other members of the society, such as George William Russell and W. B. Yeats , Plunkett and Lord Monteagle came to believe that Home Rule was the only way to keep Ireland united, which was one of the main motivations behind the founding of the IAOS. As such,
93-728: A democratically elected committee upon which "the best businessmen in the community" sat, whether "landlord or tenant, Protestant or Roman Catholic, Unionist or Nationalist". IAOS activists believed that the application of cooperative principles offered a solution to problems of rural life and addressed social anxieties prevalent in the Irish countryside. The agricultural cooperative was a relatively new idea to Ireland, but by 1894 there were already numerous examples of cooperatives operating, especially in south-west Ireland. The first creamery co-op had been established in Dromcolliher in 1889, while Plunkett
124-506: A more productive business-like approach to farming in Ireland, taking account of Scandinavian models of co-operation. In addition, he saw co-operativism as an answer to the growing conflict between Roman Catholic and Protestant rural communities. As Plunkett recalled in his 1908 pamphlet The Rural Life Problem of the United States : Our message to Irish farmers was that they must imitate
155-410: A specific region. It relied upon this small number of staff to communicate the official views of the movement to the grassroots membership. The IAOS attracted numerous notable employees and members, including Thomas Westropp Bennett , George William Russell ("AE"), Denis O'Donnell , Henry A. Wallace and Francis O'Brien, father of Conor Cruise O'Brien . With the advice and financial support of IAOS,
186-483: The Gaelic revival took hold earliest. In 1902, the then-President of the IAOS, Lord Monteagle, stated in his annual report that Conradh na Gaeilge meetings and Irish Republican Brotherhood events were increasingly taking place in cooperative halls. In County Kerry , Lord Monteagle's daughter, Mary Spring Rice , regularly used meetings of the local IAOS to promote nationalist politics. Nationalist leaders were keen to make
217-735: The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society , which serves and promotes commercial co-operative businesses and enterprise across multiple sections of the Irish economy. The IAOS advocated the move from consumer co-operation to the promotion of creameries, leading to conflict with the British Co-operative Union , which had helped to finance some of the early propagandising in Ireland. Some members felt that Plunkett and his followers were neglecting consumer cooperation. Relations between British and Irish co-operators remained strained, reaching breaking point in 1895 when
248-723: The Society of United Irishwomen was formed in 1910. In 1935, the Society of the United Irishwomen changed its name to the Irish Countrywomen's Association (ICA). Several of the largest businesses in Ireland, including Aryzta , Glanbia and Kerry Group , trace their roots to the cooperative farming activity initiated and supported by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. Today, the society continues as
279-758: The land and labour movement in the south. His 1901 book Ireland and the Empire was an attack on the Irish agrarian system . From 1902 to 1903 he was a key Ulster farmer representative at the Dublin " Land Conference " which resulted in the passing of the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 . This defused the Protestant tenant farmers' revolt. Russell continued to represent Tyrone South in Parliament. In 1906 , supported by Lindsay Crawford and his Independent Orange Order while at
310-649: The DATI was taken over Sir Thomas Russell, 1st Baronet . The success of the movement was outlined as follows by Plunkett in his book Ireland in the New Century : By the autumn of this year (1903) considerably over eight hundred societies had been established, and the number is ever growing; of these 360 were dairy, and 140 agricultural societies, nearly 200 agricultural banks, 50 home industries societies, 40 poultry societies, while there were 40 others with miscellaneous objects. The membership may be estimated—I am writing towards
341-477: The IAOS building in Dublin , 84 Merrion Square. The newspaper's first editor was Thomas A. Finlay , followed by T. P. Gill and H. F. Norman. In 1905, George William Russell became editor. A major contributor of articles and essays was Susan L. Mitchell , who became assistant editor. It was the first publication to publish James Joyce , with his short story " The Sisters " in 1904. It ceased publication in 1918, but
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#1732854622978372-452: The IAOS had organised over three hundred agricultural banks, which provided capital to farmers and acted as depositories for the joint credit and profit of the cooperatives. While chiefly concerning itself with agricultural activity, it also aided the Irish flax industry and various other home industry societies. The society built or purchased meeting halls in many rural Irish communities to act as focal points for cooperative activity. By 1914,
403-503: The IAOS included Plunkett's personal friends Thomas A. Finlay and Thomas Spring Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon , whose Mount Trenchard House home provided an early venue for meetings. Plunkett and the other founders were motivated by a desire to "regenerate" Irish farmers materially and morally. Plunkett had witnessed at first-hand the success of agricultural cooperatives in the United States of America , and desired to establish
434-532: The Irish temperance movement and became well known as an anti-alcohol campaigner and proprietor of a Temperance Hotel in Dublin . He unsuccessfully contested Preston in 1885 as a Liberal . However, he opposed William Ewart Gladstone 's Home Rule policy and was elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as a Liberal Unionist in 1886 for South Tyrone . He served between 1895 and 1900 as Parliamentary Secretary to
465-565: The Local Government Board in the Unionist administration of Lord Salisbury . However, Russell's views on Home Rule underwent a change around the turn of the century and he gradually became a critic of Unionist policies in Ireland. From 1900 put himself at the head of the Farmers and Labourers Union , an Ulster tenant-farmer protest movement demanding compulsory land purchase, similar to
496-572: The Manchester-based Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) established creameries in Ireland in competition with Irish co-operatives. The CWS, as the central wholesaling body of the British retail co-operative movement, already had economic interests in Ireland, including butter-buying agencies, and the move to set up creameries seemed a logical extension of its own business activities. Charges of imperialism were levelled at
527-533: The Wholesale Society by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. The CWS was a large and wealthy organisation which posed a serious threat to the Irish movement. It could buy up creameries and equip and run them at no expense to the local milk-producing farmers, though the IAOS feared that the longer-term effect would be a loss of control and economic dependency. Particularly worrying for Irish co-operators were indications that some farmers were prepared to take
558-674: The affairs of farmers, and ended DATI's help for the society. He rejoined the Liberal Party and stood as a Liberal candidate at the general election in January 1910 , when he lost his seat to the Unionist Andrew Horner . Russell does not appear to have contested the December 1910 general election , but in 1911 he won a by-election in Tyrone North , a seat he held until the constituency
589-412: The affiliated societies. The IAOS was dependent on the subscription fees of its member cooperatives and donations from philanthropic individuals. It quickly gained support across Ireland, and the number of cooperative organisations flourished. The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI), a government department also founded by Plunkett, in 1899, provided assistance to the movement until
620-439: The connection between the IAOS's mission of "saving Irish country life" and the goals of Irish nationalism. Sir Thomas Russell, 1st Baronet Sir Thomas Wallace Russell, 1st Baronet MP PC (Ire) (28 February 1841 – 2 May 1920), was an Irish politician and agrarian agitator. Born at Cupar , Fife , Scotland , he moved to County Tyrone at the age of eighteen. He was secretary and parliamentary agent of
651-650: The end of the Society's statistical year—at about 80,000, representing some 400,000 persons. The combined trade turnover of these societies during the present year will reach approximately £2,000,000, a figure the meaning of which can only be appreciated when it is remembered that the great majority of the associated farmers are in so small a way of business that in England they would hardly be classed as farmers at all. By 1908, there were 881 cooperatives in Ireland with an annual turnover of £3.3 million. These cooperatives represented 85,939 individual members, mostly farmers. By 1910,
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#1732854622978682-590: The leadership of the IAOS was closely involved in the political activities of the Irish Dominion League . This political group sought to prevent the partition of Ireland , but also believed that the Irish should organise themselves to take control of their domestic policy, a principle very much inline with the IAOS's beliefs. The IAOS became linked to Irish nationalist activity during the early twentieth century. The society's meeting halls provided venues for rural nationalists to meet and discuss politics, while
713-450: The methods of their Continental competitors, who were defeating them in their own markets simply by superior organisation. After five years of individual propagandism, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society was formed in 1894 to meet the demand for instruction as to the formation and the working of cooperative societies, a demand to which it was beyond the means of the few pioneers to respond. The new rural enterprises were administered by
744-461: The philosophy of self-help and unity promoted by the society appealed to many in the nationalist cause. The society had always focused on the social, as well as the economic, benefits of cooperative principles, and as such IAOS associations came to indirectly mould notions of Irish nationhood and identity. The co-operative movement offered a unique analysis of the Irish Question in stark contrast to
775-410: The political debate. It re-framed the 'Irish Question' as social and economic in nature and identified the condition of rural life as the integral component. Its emphasis on rural reform as the most urgent priority contrasted with the priorities of the British government, which was largely concerned with constitutional affairs. The rural communities which formed the basis of IAOS membership were also where
806-577: The same acknowledging his debt to Catholic tenant farmers, he was re-elected as an "Independent Unionist", one of several candidates referred to as " Russellite Unionist ". Russell was vice-president of the Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI), in which capacity he displaced Horace Plunkett as head of the Department in 1907. He disapproved of Plunkett's cooperative Irish Agricultural Organisation Society involving itself in
837-452: The short-term view, preferring to entrust the development of the milk-processing industry to outside interests. The CWS also had political links to the Liberal Party through their joint commitment to free trade , while the IAOS was concerned with protecting Irish farmers against the effects of free trade. The founders of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society were largely moderate unionists with landholdings in Ireland. Plunkett sat as
868-500: The society had over 100,000 members. In 1908 donors to the society bought a large house in central Dublin , 84 Merrion Square, for Plunkett, and this became the headquarters of the IAOS, being named 'The Plunkett House'. It also housed the headquarters of the Irish Homestead , a weekly journal which publicised the work and practice of the society. In 1907, the IAOS employed eight organisers, seven men and one woman, each allocated
899-567: Was afterwards revived in October 1921. In 1923 it was amalgamated with the Irish Statesman , and in this format it continued, under the editorship of George William Russell , until 1930. Irish Agricultural Organisation Society Although officially apolitical, the IAOS became associated with the Irish Home Rule movement and Irish nationalist activity from the early 20th century. It
930-455: Was involved in setting up the second in Ballyhahill in 1891. The IAOS sought to provide an overarching organisational structure for these small cooperatives, providing farming advice, business expertise and financial assistance when necessary. The policies of the IAOS were guided by a committee of twenty-four members, one-half of whom were elected by individual subscribers and the other half by
961-586: Was later reorganised, and renamed as the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society Limited , a body which continues to operate in Ireland . The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was founded in 1894 by Sir Horace Plunkett, an Anglo-Irish politician with a keen interest in agriculture and rural affairs. He had established a cooperative on his family estate at Dunsany as early as 1878. Other key figures involved in setting up