Till or go to jail: when Irish farmers were forced to grow crops

Analysis: the compulsory tillage scheme during the Second World War proved a deeply unpopular policy with Irish farmers

By Bryce Evans, Liverpool Hope University

With the war in Ukraine compromising global wheat and fertiliser supplies, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has set up an emergency supplies team and met with Irish farming bodies to discuss food and animal feed security. Such measures have evoked memory of emergency controls on the agricultural sector during the Second World War.

News that farmers would be encouraged to plant more crops drew a sharp response from Irish Farmers Association (IFA) president Tim Cullinan, who urged "leniency". He said "it would be very unwise of the Government to make any decisions on this before fully engaging with farmers...Irish farming is very different than it was in the 1940s. What was done then may not be the solution today."

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From RTÉ News, Minister for Agriculture to discuss food and fodder security with farming groups

Why has the prospect of the state urging increased tillage drawn immediate comparison with a policy enacted 80 years ago? And is Irish agriculture now facing similar challenges to those presented by supply disruption during the last great European war?

"What was done" in the 1940s was the Compulsory Tillage scheme, a high point of post-independence state interventionism implemented between 1940 and 1948 by then-Minister James Ryan. As the IFA president's recent comments show, it proved a deeply unpopular policy which remains embedded in the collective memory of Irish farming because of its authoritarian aspects.

Like now, the Government wanted Irish farmers to cultivate wheat and other cereal crops rather than using their land for dairy or other purposes to cope with supply problems caused by European war. The Department of Agriculture duly sent inspectors to nearly every farm in the state to assess the quality of the holding and issue a quota of how much of the land was to be put under tillage, based upon the size and quality of the farm.

From RTÉ Radio 1's History Show, Dr Bryce Evans on Ireland during the Second World War

More sinister, however, was a threat issued by Ryan before the harvest of 1940: any farmer who did not fulfil his quota would have his land seized by the state. This threat to dispossess belied the cosy ruralism of the de Valeran rural idyll, with the 'cosy homesteads’ and ‘happy maidens’ of the Taoiseach's famous St Patrick’s Day speech of 1943 replaced by government inspectors and bailiffs. Given the history of evictions and land agitation in the 19th century, these controls proved contentious, aggravated by quotas which escalated annually.

The measures were ‘state instruction at the point of a bayonet’, according to a senator of the time. In line with its general approach during the Emergency, the government refused to consult farming bodies and preferred an approach which merged diktats with emotional blackmail. The blunt instruction ‘Till or Go to Jail’ was repeated across the local and national press. This was usually accompanied by pleas from religious and political leaders that farmers prevent starvation, and images of children above the words ‘They Depend on You’.

But many farmers did not comply. As an editorial in the Irish Times mused, ‘farmers are notorious anarchists’ and unlikely to comply when faced with state compulsion. As predicted, there were many accounts of inspectors physically attacked or chased off farms. Resistance was most robust in traditional grazing counties, with the highest documented non-compliance in Meath and Westmeath.

From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Prof Paul Rouse from UCD on the last time Ireland introduced a compulsory tillage scheme

Between 1941 and 1945 - when the scheme was at its most draconian - the state responded to a fairly widespread dissidence by confiscating some 7,365 acres. This figure may appear relatively small at first glance, but is thrown into relief by the fact that around 60% of Irish farms at the time were under 30 acres, and often much less.

Many evicted farmers were old and infirm, while others argued, quite reasonably, that they simply did not possess the modern productive aids such as fertilisers, lime, pesticides, other chemicals and - crucially - tractors required to meet the quotas. Leading ministers were unsympathetic, however, with Minister for Supplies Seán Lemass urging ‘the elimination of incompetent or lazy farmers’.

Little wonder, then, that the compulsory tillage policies of the 1940s deepened the divide between town and country. It also heightened the resentment of farming communities at what they perceived as the big stick wielded from Merrion Street. It led to the emergence of farmers’ party Clann na Talmhan and continues to stick in the craw for farmers' bodies to this day.

From RTÉ Archives, a 1997 episode of True Lives features volunteers and farmers talking about the harvest emergency of 1946, when thousands of volunteers joined with the nations's farmers to help salvage the harvest.

On the one hand, the IFA's Cullinan is right to point to how different the sector is today. Irish farms are now larger (80 acres on average), mechanised, much better capitalised and much better integrated within the agri-food sector and an export economy bolstered by EU membership.

But as the conflict in Ukraine continues, the uncomfortable parallels with the Second World War are starting to emerge, exemplified by Cullinan’s mention of the 1940s in the first place. In common with every other European nation, Ireland is suffering serious shortages of supplies due to wartime disruption. Of these, wheat and fertilisers present the most significant risk to food security. And once again, the state’s desire for increased tillage is coming up against reluctance from within the sector.

While the characterisation of Ireland’s farmers as ‘notorious anarchists’ is very much outdated, popular memory of state officiousness and popular resistance in the 1940s has lingered on. It surely underlies the IFA’s plea for government "leniency" this time around.

Prof Bryce Evans is Professor of Modern World History at Liverpool Hope University

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

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