'Keep it up. Don't give in. We didn't give in' Leitrim farmer who protested sixty years ago

'Don't give up', was the message from a Leitrim farmer this week who joined in protests 60 years ago that resulted in him and others being incarcerated for ten days. 

He was part of the 1966 Irish Farmers' Rights Campaign- a landmark protest led by the National Farmers' Association (NFA) to demand better income supports and negotiation rights. Thousands farmers converged on Dublin after a 217-mile march from Bantry, Cork, starting in October 1966, followed by a 20-day sit-in protest on the steps of the Department of Agriculture. 

John Ward from Annaduff had a clear messages to protestors when he spoke to the Leitrim Observer. "Keep it up. Don't give in. We didn't give in. We did the jail-time and did everything that to be done. I'm am advising those protesting now to stick their heels in. They brought up in the army tanks today. Why don't the farmers bring in the slurry tankers? They broke the law on one side so why don't we break it on the other?"

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He told us: "In 1966, there was a farmers' protest; there were 45,000 people in Dublin that day who walked from all corners of Ireland, including myself; I walked from Carrick to Dublin. There were 12 people picked to hand a letter into Charlie Haughey who was Minister for Agriculture at the time. He hadn't time to meet them so they said they'd wait until he did have time and the stayed for 21 days on the streets outside government buildings." 

He said following a shuffling of roles within government, Neil Blaney became Minister for Agriculture, who "at least met them but very little came of it. So they escalated the protest after that and picketed rate collectors in the various regions. Naul in Leitrim was the first place in Ireland where farmers were arrested for picketing. We were still making no headway. We were holding tractor demonstrations constantly in the various towns but getting nowhere so we decided to escalate and blocked all the bridges - Rooskey, Tarmon, Lanesborough - every bridge in the place."

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He continued: "News spread and people started using the by-roads and back roads so people came with chainsaws and cut down trees. There were a couple of hundred tractors in Rooskey that day and we had it in such a way there were only three tractors that were the main blockades and if an ambulance came, we could move those three tractors in less than five minutes. There was only one occasion when an ambulance came and we let it through immediately because we heard it coming."

He said that a number of farmers were arrested and sent to Mountjoy after a court case. "We were fined £5 or three months in prison. I was one of the three who were first to be arrested here in Leitrim and brought to Mountjoy. The RDS was going strong at the time and it was boycotted on the first day so the RDS paid our fines so after about ten days, we got out."

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He said that the protestors received considerable support from the public at the time. "After we were jailed, every three weeks, farmers were being arrested. "That went on all summer up until the month of July. The co-operation we got from people at the time was unbelievable. We were doing drainage here at home at the time and when I came back after the 10 days in prison, the drainage was done - that will show you the co-operation there was."