My
‘association’ with Muintir na Tíre goes back to early 2013. A long fascination
with the workings of rural communities led me to undertake some research on the
formation of the Ráthcairn Gaeltacht in Co Meath for a magazine article. That
research took me on something of an unexpected journey from Meath to England
and back. An organisation of English
agrarians named the Catholic Land Movement had kept a watchful eye on
developments in Ráthcairn, believing that the blueprint for this engineered
community of small farmers could be adopted in England to suit their rural
utopian ambitions.
Their interest in Irish rural
affairs was not limited to the embryonic Ráthcairn project, however. Enamoured with the efforts of Canon Hayes and
Muintir na Tíre in the area of rural community development, they viewed Muintir
as an inspiration and kindred spirit. Examining many contemporary newspapers I
discovered a speech by Catholic Land Movement leader Harold Robbins at a
Muintir ‘Rural Week’ in 1938 which emphasised, as he saw it, the connections
between the rural mission of his organisation and that of Muintir. Hailing ‘the
genius of our common philosophy’, he argued that there were now widely
scattered groups across the globe in an almost identical struggle against the
excesses of industrial capitalism.[1]
This one sentence brought forth so many questions, and ultimately changed the
course of my academic research. Firstly,
who were these groups engaged in an identical struggle? What was the struggle?
And what role did Muintir na Tíre play in it all? This formed the basis of my MA thesis and
subsequent PhD studies.
Completely new to Muintir, I was unsure where to go
next. Several conversations with people in NUIG, particularly Dr Tony Varley
provided some invaluable leads, for which I am still extremely grateful. One of these conversations led me to Mr Tom
Fitzgerald, Muintir na Tíre member and one-time secretary to the movement’s
leader, John Hayes. Over the course of a long conversation with Mr Fitzgerald,
in which we spoke about Canon Hayes, the origins of the movement and its place
in Irish society, Tom told me about the Muintir archives which were at that time
stored in the old gaol house in Tipperary town. I was kindly invited to come
down and explore them and use what would be helpful in my research.
At the time I knew so little of Muintir that I would
not have known where to begin with such a resource, therefore I respectfully
and temporarily declined. I was, however informed a couple of years later that
the Hardiman Library had acquired the Muintir collection. I kept a keen eye on
developments there. The collection was
now in the best hands and would be properly archived for researchers to
explore.
My opportunity to finally explore this fantastic
resource came once I had been accepted onto the PhD programme in Queen’s
University in 2018. Indeed, I believe it was the possibility of using this
relatively untapped resource which helped in my application. My research
proposal was to investigate the international relationships Muintir na Tíre
developed under John Hayes. The first
trip to the newly archived Muintir collection came in February of 2019. Upon consulting the online catalogue I became
aware of one important thing. I was correct not to take up Tom Fitzgerald on
his kind offer as I would have been completely lost in such an expansive
collection.
The NUIG Muintir na Tíre collection is breath-taking.
It is only in person that one can get a sense of just how extensive, and
valuable this resource is. Helped, of course by the expert advice of the
library archivists, my Muintir archive journey began with Canon Hayes himself. Hayes’s section of the archive contains
enough for a PhD publication on its own. Collections of papers, speeches and
correspondences provide a fascinating insight into the man who founded the
movement and show the international impact he made. There is, however, much, much more. Financial
records, minutes, correspondences, rural week materials, the Muintir Film and
Credit societies, as well as plentiful files on other key Muintir figures
provides a goldmine of information for current and future social and economic
historians. There are many potential
PhD’s and publications to come from this impressive archive.
Even in our uncertain present, where access to
archives is limited, there is much to explore.
The Hardiman library have digitised a wealth of Muintir publications
such as the monthly Landmark newspaper and the annual Rural Ireland
publication. These resources have personally proved invaluable in these
lockdown months. Articles on Muintir
guilds and regional activities appear alongside works by international
contributors, showing that while the organisation was primarily concerned with
the welfare of rural Irish society, they kept members abreast of international
affairs, ensuring they had an informed society with a keen eye on global rural
developments.
The Muintir na Tíre archive at the Hardiman Library is hugely important
and tells us much about Irish society in the twentieth century. One hopes that
once a corner is turned and some semblance of normality returns, that the
materials contained within can be used again to their full potential, which
should keep researchers busy for years, if not decades to come.
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