CHAPTER XXIII. 

 MIGRATION OF IRISH LABOUR. 



WE have already alluded to the subject of the periodic 

 migration of Irish labour to certam parts of England 

 and Scotland ; but as the matter is one of appreciable 

 interest in connection with the general question of the 

 Irish peasantry, it will be desirable to extract and 

 reproduce here some of the detailed information given 

 in the Board of Trade Report, which says : 



" A large number of men and also a good many women 

 go every year from Ireland to work on farms in certain 

 counties in England and Scotland. The Department of 

 Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland estimate 

 that about 7o|- per cent, of the migratory labourers are 

 small landowners, the majority of these landowners coming 

 from the province of Connaught. Some of the men start 

 as early as February, and take part in the ordinary work 

 on farms, not returning till late in the autumn ; but the 

 majority do not start until June. They find employment 

 during the summer and autumn at hoeing, haymaking, 

 harvesting and taking up potatoes and roots, and on dairy 

 farms in parts of Cheshire they are engaged at milking. 

 In that county Irishmen begin to come in February, and 

 some stay until November or even December. When 

 engaged in England upon ordinary farm work, such as 

 thinning turnips and potato lifting, they are frequently 

 employed at piecework ; and in parts of Lincolnshire, 

 Cambridgeshire, and Warwickshire they undertake harvest 

 by piecework. But in the northern counties they are 

 generally engaged by the week or month, and in some 

 districts they are hired at ' hiring fairs held specially for 

 the hay and corn harvest.' In addition to cash wages, 

 they are frequently found sleeping accommodation in 

 barns. They generally find their own food, which chiefly 

 consists of bread, potatoes, porridge, tea and milk, and 

 sometimes bacon, but not infrequently their^ employers 



