JOURNAL OF THE IRISH LABOUR HISTORY SOCIETY

A PASSAGE TO BRITAIN 29established the union to secure better wages and conditions and had withdrawn their labour fromEnglish farmers. The impact of their action was, however, minimised by the continuing migration ofIrish labourers. Not only were the Irish prepared to carry out the functions of the English labourers, butthey were prepared to accept a lower wage. To curtail this threat the union established a branch inIreland under the chairmanship of the west Cork land agitator, P.P. Johnstone.26There are a number of reasons for the'union's failure to become a force in Ireland and secure itsobjectives. It was more concerned with curtailing migration than in redressing the grievances of Irishagricultural labourers. No concrete attempt was made to improve migrants' conditions in England andScotland. As the union confined its operations to west Cork, where migration was primarily of aninternal nature, it failed to address the exodus to Britain from the main centres of Mayo, Roscommonand west Donegal.No unity in organisation is evident amongst the migrants in the 1880s, despite persistent complaintsof low wages and inadequate accommodation. In the nineteenth century the ganger was the onlyorganising force among the migrants, but he did little or nothing to protect their living standards orwages when in Britain. His concern lay in organising a sufficient labour force for the farmer. Z1 It proveddifficult, ifnot impossible, to secure unity of purpose from within the ranks of subsistence dwellers whoneeded money to pay their rent. With the decline in demand for migrants in the 1880s, the possibilityof organising to secure better conditions became more remote. The various agrarian organisations ofthe nineteenth century, including the Land League, failed to incorporate any of the migrants' grievancesinto their programme. Circumstances altered briefly, if dramatically, during the Great War, bringingabout a new demand for Irish migrant labour in Britain. Under the auspices of the United Irish League,the Migratory Labourers Union was established. Its main geographical base was in west Donegal, Errisand Achill. It was still not until the 1930s, that the demands for better wages and accommodationbecame enshrined in statutory law.28Due to their lack of organisation, the conditions and pri vations of the migrants both at home and inBritain were seldom highlighted in the nineteenth century. They did come to public notice duringperiods of acute distress and tragedy, such as in June 1894 when thirty-two Achill migrants weredrowned near Weslport harbour. The very nature of the migrants' livelihood made them morevulnerable to economic and agricultural change, depending on fluctuations in crops to a far greaterextent than any other sector. What is clear is that the less well off tenant farmers availed themselvesof seasonal migration as an escape route from distress or the failure of the potato crop in the same mannerthat their more prosperous counterparts used emigration. When the potato failure reached crisisproportions in 1882, with crop yields per acre of only 1.8 tons in Mayo, 1.9 in Donegal and 2.1 inRoscommon, there resulted a dramatic though temporary increase in the number of people going toBritain.29 It also corresponded with increases in emigration from these regions. On those occasionswhen a tenant obtained meal or seed potatoes on credit from shopkeepers or from the government duringperiods of distress, as in 1879-81 and the early 1890s, he found the only avenue open to him to repaythe loans was seasonal migration. It was under these circumstances that sharp increases in seasonalmigration occurred in the years immediately following those of great distress. 3DThe agricultural depression and changing structure of British agriculture in the last qUaJ1er of thecentury brought a terminal decline in seasonal migration. Machinery became more widespread and costeffective. Machines, such as the Dray's Hussey, cost only £25, against daily wages of £4 - £5. 31 Whilemachinery had been introduced into British agriculture in the 1850s, seasonal migration received a stayof execution because of the initial cost in purchasing the machines. However it was inevitable thatmechanisation would eventually result in seasonal demand being unable to sustain previous levels ofmigration. Only in 1884 did a government report officially acknowledge what had been realised forover a decade - that the introduction of machinery was a primary catalyst in the demise of migrantdemand.Seasonal migration was an inherent feature of the social and economic structure of the west of