IRISH-IN-UK-L Archives

From: "Jean R." <>
Subject: [Irish-in-UK] "Tattie Howking" - Ireland> Scotland, Potato Harvest
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2007 09:38:41 -0700

SNIPPET: Interesting note from a lister: "There were strong connections
between Sligo/ Mayo/ Leitrim /Donegal and Scotland largely because of
agriculture in the early 19th century. Cattle boats sailed from Derry to
Glasgow, convenient for all in the NW counties. Particularly important was
"tattie howking". This was when
squads of men and women came from Ireland to Scotland to assist in the
potato harvest. They had the skills and generally received better payment
because the industrial revolution hit Glasgow and central Scotland raising
the standard of living above anything the tenant farmer could expect in
North Leitrim. They organised it as follows: each big Scottish farmer would
have an 'agent'- i.e., a local man in a village or town in Ireland who would
be reponsible for getting together a 'squad' of locals, bringing them across
to Scotland, getting them to the farm and generally keeping them in order.
These squads generally slept in big communal barns, possibly travelled round
three or four farms in a 2 or 3 month period and, being away from home and
having a little money could become quite wild if not controlled. The agent
had power over them because he could refuse to employ them the following
year or could
threaten to tell their families back home what they'd been up to! Most sent
money home or saved their wages to see them through till the next year -
some just had a wild old time! This system meant that people from the same
villages tended to go to the same areas in Scotland- word of mouth being the
major means of
recruitment. It was a rough life and familiar faces must have helped.
(Interestingly, Scottish schools, even in the cities, still get a week's
holiday in October which English schools don't get. It's called a 'tattie
howking' week,
because formerly in the country areas, the authorities knew no children
would be in school as they'd be required to help lift the tatties, or
potatoes.) Gradually families would become familiar with the bit of Scotland
they visited each year; working trips would lengthen and in the end some of
the squad would not return at all. Some inter married with local Scots, but
more started to get jobs in the industrial centres of Glasgow and
Lanarkshire. Women found that going into service was easier than the life
they had known back home - they would be paid for housework that was not as
arduous as that they did for nothing in Leitrim just to keep the family and
farm going. Men got jobs working on Glasgow trams as drivers or ticket men.
As the industrial revolution turned Glasgow into a major city with
shipbuilding and iron and Steel and coalmining there were more and more
jobs. Many Irish worked on the Canal and railway building of the early 19th
century - and following the canal or railway across Scotland brought them
east to Edinburgh - which wasn't as industrialised as Glasgow but had a need
for service industries. My own grandfather opened a grocery store which sold
produce from the farm in Drumnafaughnan, sent across by boat via Belfast or
Newry, with ingeniously designed crates that held eggs secure on the rail
and boat journeys. Glasgow was an easy place to settle in for the emigrants
because many Highlanders came down from the north of Scotland to the central
belt to work and they had a similar background to the Irishmen - in
agriculture and strong family life, and they Gaelic they spoke was close to
the Irish spoken by the immigrants. So there it is - higher standard of
living due to industrialisation, convenience of transport and a need for
farm and, later, agricultural labourers. Hope that all makes some kind of
sense!!! Sean McP."

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• [Irish-in-UK] "Tattie Howking" - Ireland> Scotland, Potato Harvest by "Jean R." <>