THE BACON CURING INDUSTRY. 241 



THE BACON CURING INDUSTRY, 



In the records that have been handed down to us there is abundant 

 evidence that the pig has always formed an important element in Ireland's 

 domestic economy, whether roaming in herds in the forest of the Chieftain 

 or acting as a savings bank for the cottager. But it was only in more 

 modern times that the Irish pig succeeded in making himself so universally 

 known in the form of the now celebrated Irish mild cured breakfast bacon. 

 Much labour and money had to be expended on him before this was accom- 

 plished. The old Irish hog was so ill shaped that we doubt if all the skill 

 and accumulated experience of our present-day curers could succeed in 

 turning him into marketable bacon. There is nothing to show when the 

 first efforts were made to improve him, yet we think we are safe in saying 

 that little was done in this direction until early in the last century. After 

 that the owners of large estates seem to have occasionally imported some 

 specimens of the improved breeds from England for the use of their tenants. 

 However, any good that was accomplished practically disappeared again 

 owing to the strained relations that arose over the land question. The 

 boar-keepers then having no means of securing new blood continued to 

 breed from their own stock, and deterioration in shape and quality followed 

 as a result of in-and-in breeding. This neglect, although not universal, was 

 pretty general, particularly in the West of Ireland. In Leinster and Ulster 

 there was a fairly continuous importation of improved English breeds by 

 private individuals. The effect of this must have been felt outside these 

 provinces, as Irish swine, except in remote districts, began to lose their 

 resemblance to the greyhound for which they had formerly been so remark- 

 able. 



A very interesting statistical review of the Irish Bacon and Provision 

 trade was made in the year i860 by the then Solicitor-General for Ireland, 

 in a paper which he read before the Social Science Congress that met in 

 Dublin in that year. As many parts of this paper have an historical interest 

 and will further help to throw light on the present position of the bacon- 

 curing industry, discussed in this article, several excerpts from it are here 

 inserted. 



" During the Peninsular War Ireland possessed a great trade in curing 

 beef and pork. Cork, Waterford, Limerick, and Dublin, all afforded 

 their quota of beef to the English navy. Upon the proclamation of peace 

 this trade fell off greatly, and the introduction of steam navigation, in 

 1825, tended still further to diminish the trade, for thus a ready market 

 was opened in England for the live animal. Again, the repeal of the laws 

 prohibiting the import of foreign cattle and provisions still further affected 

 this trade, or so much of it as was left, and thus the supplying of beef has 

 passed into foreign hands. Live animals and bacon now form the staple 

 article of the Irish provision trade. The existence of this trade appeared 

 to be perilled by the potato failure. Previously to it many cottier tenants, 



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