'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 FERMANAGH

Lisnaskea and Maguiresbridge were Plantation towns and started off with three fairs at that time. By 1835 both had a dozen or more which continued throughout that century and into the next. The markets in both places were said to be ‘tolerably’ supplied with butchers’ meat, pork, butter, yarn, eggs and poultry; also thread, linen and great quantities of grain which went either to Belfast or neighbouring mills in the parish of Galloon. Eggs were bartered by the women in the grocers’ shops in exchange for tea and sugar. Grocers then sold them on to dealers at three ha’pence or tuppence a dozen. The dealers sold some in Dublin and exported the rest to Liverpool. Butter was exported through Belfast, Newry and Dublin. Flax went north, particularly to Antrim, Down and Armagh, where the homeweaving industry survived longer than in the other counties.
Maguiresbridge had great horse fairs, the most notable being that of 17 January each year. Wednesday was market day and the first one in each month was Fair Day. In addition the old fairs of 17 January, 20 May and 19 November (granted by patent from Queen Anne in 1706) continued alongside the normal monthly fairs. Maguiresbridge marked the Fermanagh end of the Clogher Valley Railway which linked up with the Great Northern system, giving the people of the area access to wider horizons (Belfast, Greenore, Dublin etc.). It carried passengers, but the main function of the tram, as it was initially called, was agricultural as it was used in the transport of horses, timber, milk, meal and farm produce (also coal) but mainly in the movement of cattle and sheep to and from fairs. Local people sometimes referred to it as the ‘black pig’.
Lisnaskea was the ancient capital of Fermanagh in the Maguire era, but was destroyed by them in 1641 when under the ownership of the Balfours, a Plantation family from Fife. The main buildings in both towns (market house, corn market, dispensary, etc. for which credit must go to the Earls of Erne) date from the early nineteenth century. Lisnaskea had one of the several workhouses in Fermanagh. There were others at Irvinestown and Enniskillen. The general market day was Saturday and the market for flax, pork, and fowl was held on Wednesday. The Wednesday nearest the twentieth of the month was Fair Day. Hiring took place at the fairs of May and November and are remembered here by Paddy Cassidy:

The men and women lined up and you sort of had to bid for your man. One man that I know of – he was a small wee man, an’ bein’ a small man the farmer asked him what he could do. He asked him could he shear corn. An’ he said he could cut forty stooks a day! Now there’s twelve sheaves in a stook. So listening to the old men, any man that could cut twenty stooks, he was worth his money. But this wee man said he could cut forty! But at May Day you see, you couldn’t contradict it. There’d be no call. You’d have to keep him ’til September to know whether he could cut it or not. But they were always good at naming people in the country. After that they called him ‘Forty Stooks’. He always held his head up high and before that they called him ‘Pat the Man’. He worked at the last with Mr Watt up at the workhouse.

There were at a time three other fairs in this corner of Fermanagh. They were held at Newtownbutler, Magheraveely and Roslea. Newtownbutler got its name from Sir Stephen Butler, who bought it from the original Planter. Like most of its neighbours it was razed to the ground in 1641 but rose again to be the scene of the battle of Newtownbutler which took place near Crom Castle in 1689. It had five fairs in the early days but these almost faded out altogether in the nineteenth century. They revived in the twentieth century to be held on the first Tuesday in each month along with a regular weekly market. The May Fair survived throughout the lean years and was renowned as an excellent cow fair. There is little doubt that hiring took place on that day too. A steady stream of emigrants (mainly Protestants) left for the United States around this time.

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