DOMESTIC ECONOMY AND RURAL 

 INDUSTRIES 



I. Domestic Economy 



Domestic economy — cookery, laundry work, housekeeping, dress- 

 making — plays an important part in the revival of agriculture in 

 Ireland, and so it is entitled to a place in this Report. It plays an 

 important part, because the revival of agriculture to a greater 

 extent than the casual reader is able to realise, is based on character, 

 and character is developed in the home more than anywhere else. 

 If there be carelessness and waste in the home there will be careless- 

 ness and waste in the fields. Successful farming will be out of the 

 question. The revival will stop. If there be thrift and economy in 

 the home, there will be thrift and economy in the fields, and the 

 revival will go on. Thus, domestic economy forms part of the 

 foundation on which the new movement in Ireland is built. 



The Department, realising this, has sent abroad the itinerant 

 instructor to teach domestic economy as well as agriculture, with 

 strict injunctions not to teach domestic economy applicable to the 

 mansions of the great, but domestic economy applicable to the 

 homes of the poor. The object is not even, in the first instance at 

 any rate, to train the young women of Ireland for domestic service 

 in the big houses of the country, but to train them to be thrifty, 

 economical, resourceful housewives, capable of cooking simple and 

 wholesome food without waste, and of making the farmhouses of 

 Ireland models of cleanliness and confort, fit nurseries for the future 

 farmers of Ireland. For those who desire more information than the 

 itinerant instructor can give, there are residential schools of domestic 

 economy throughout the country. We had an opportunity of visit- 

 ing a school which embraces both domestic and rural economy in 

 its curriculum, the one now occupying the old Dillon mansion, near 

 Castlerea. The girls are taught cookery, laundry work, housekeep- 

 ing of the simplest and most serviceable kind. They are instructed 

 in carpet-weaving, lace-making, crochet, and embroidery ; they 

 attend to the poultry and the cows ; they work the garden ; they 

 are taught, in fact, all that it is necessary for them to know, to play 

 a woman's part in making the small farms of Ireland pay. For 

 those who want to prosecute their studies still further, there is the 

 Irish Training School of Domestic Economy in Dublin. This 

 school was established and managed by the Royal Irish Association 

 for promoting the training and the employment of women. It was 

 taken over by the Department of Agriculture in 1903, and is now 

 under its control. There is also the Munster Institute, Cork, 

 devoted exclusively to the teaching of women. The subjects 

 taught include both domestic and rural economy. 



