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County Louth Archaeological and History Society
People and the Land: Farming Life in Nineteenth Century Ireland by Jonathan BellReview by: John McCullenJournal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1992), p.457Published by: County Louth Archaeological and History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27729734 .
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Reviews 457
PEOPLE AND THE LAND: FARMING LIFE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY IRELAND. By Jonathan Bell. Pp vi +
102. Belfast: Friar's Bush Press. 1992. Paperback ?5.99 stg. Side by side with the Famine of the 1840s and the evictions and land tenure battles of the nineteenth century, millions of
Irish people worked on farms, lowland and mountain, in order to survive and emigrate or prosper. For the vast majority,
planting the potatoes, harvesting the oats or flax, or bringing the pigs to the market, was far more earth-shattering than the
activities of Queen Vicortia or the speeches of parliamentarians. This everyday life of rural Ireland is captured in a compilation of contemporary photographs, line drawings and paintings which show the history and development of farming during the last
century. The book illustrates living conditions, the farming landscape, cultivation and harvesting techniques, machinery, new
livestock breeds, fair days and market scenes, the diversity of rural conditions and the many occupations associated with
agriculture. Photographs and drawings vary from family groups: men, women and children undertaking such varied tasks as
setting potatoes, harvesting flax, to cattle, sheep, pigs and ducks at market. For his pictures, the author wanders all over Ireland
and its offshore islands with many from areas of interest to County Louth readers, like the apple orchards of Co Armagh, seaweed beds in Carlingford Lough and the horse fair in Dundalk. The ongoing struggle between the improvers and the
traditionalists is dealt with in a very objective fashion throughout the book.
People and the land is overall a charming little book, full of powerful and haunting images which will outlive many a
textbook overloaded with words and I would heartily recommend it to any reader or researcher who wishes to understand their recent past, and be vastly entertained while doing so. Whether you are nine or ninety years old it will captivate you.
John McCullen
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