'Hiring Fairs and Market Places' by May Blair, published by Appletree Press

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extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair.

COUNTY DOWN

In thrift and industry it has no superior. Although a large proportion of the inhabitants profit by the extensive employment of capital in the linen and other industries, there is no county in which a greater effort is made, intelligently, to secure satisfactory results from land cultivation.
from George Henry Bassett’s County Down One Hundred Years Ago, 1886

The industry and thriftiness found on farms in this part of the province in 1886 is still as evident in the County Down of today. In those far off days it was by far the greatest flax-growing county in Ulster. It grew more potatoes than any other county although only third in order of size. The county can also claim the first Ploughing Society which was set up in Bangor in 1816. This was followed by the formation of a number of farming societies, many hosting an annual show. Subscriptions for membership ranged from one shilling to one pound depending on the size of the applicant’s farm.
One of the more important towns from the farmer’s point of view was Newry which had markets and fairs as far back as 1613, when Arthur Bagenal was granted permission to hold a market every Thursday ‘with tolls and commodities’. Amongst other things he was to have a custom or toll of six gallons from every butt of wine (called sack) and three and a half gallons from every hogshead of wine sold. The patent also granted two fairs in the year, each to last three days; and at Greencastle (of which more later) a weekly market and one fair in the year. The town of Newry was destroyed in the rebellion of 1641 but soon recovered – due in no small measure to its port and its strategic position servicing the counties of Down, Louth and Armagh.
The town’s markets continued virtually uninterrupted over the years and were well supplied with brown linen, farm produce and fish, including oysters and other fish caught in Carlingford Lough. During those years the markets were held on the streets and the Market Square was filled with huckster’s stalls. The town had an important butter market which drew business from counties Armagh, Tyrone, Monaghan, Cavan, Down and Louth. Lord Kilmorey built a butter crane there in 1808. Threepence was charged for each cask weighed and twopence for each crock. A butter taster was appointed whose duty it was to taste the butter in each cask or crock and mark it according to its quality. Most of the butter was exported to Liverpool.
By this time three excellent coaches and the day and night mails passed through the town regularly together with several ‘cars’ each capable of carrying up to fourteen passengers. The mail coach made a twenty-minute stop in Newry for breakfast, during which time the horses were changed in readiness for the long haul to Dublin. The full journey took twelve hours. The town had the added advantage of being accessible by sea and canal and got another boost in the middle of the nineteenth century with the arrival of the railways.
By the end of the century there were five market places enclosed in various parts of the town. There was a market house (no doubt replacing an earlier one), several hotels, an assembly and news room and a bridewell (gaol). By then it had a population of around 16,000 and its fairs were held monthly. Its manufactories included three flax spinning mills, two linen weaving factories, an apron factory, five flour mills, two iron foundries, two mineral water factories, seven tanneries, stone polishing mills, coach-building, cabinet furniture making and salt works. These helped sustain regular markets which were by then held every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in King Street, Mary Street, Needham Street and Market Street. They encompassed the sale of grain, grass seed, pork, sheep, pigs, flax, hay, straw, potatoes, fruit, plants, hides, fowl, meat, eggs, butter and vegetables. The town was particularly noteworthy for its market in feeding stuffs, especially hay and straw. These found a ready market with the small farmers, who converged on the town from the surrounding mountain areas to buy fodder and bedding for their cattle. Hay was needed also for the town horses which pulled the vehicles of the bakers, tanners, coal merchants and undertakers to name but a few.
Almost as important to farmers were the quarterly hiring markets held ‘after the Scottish pattern’ in the Mill Street, Hill Street and North Street areas. Farmers arrived into the town in traps and carts putting their horses into yards at such places as the Victoria Hotel and Terry Murphy’s in Monaghan Street for the duration of the fair. Bargaining for labour was conducted on much the same lines as buying and selling cattle. Men and boys stood at the hay market in Hill Street or the old butter market. Women and girls usually congregated at the corner of Upper Mill Street. Nearly all were Roman Catholics but some parents preferred to send them to a Protestant house – firstly because no manual labouring work was done there on a Sunday and secondly because a Protestant farmer was more likely to send them to mass regularly. A Roman Catholic farmer would consider that once a month was enough for a servant.

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