DOI Artikel:
Watson, Mervyn: Common Irish plough types and tillage techniques
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49002#0091
COMMON IRISH PLOUGH TYPES AND
TILLAGE TECHNIQUES
By
Mervyn Watson
Irish agriculture during the latter part of the
eighteenth, and first half of the nineteenth
centuries was much maligned. When com-
pared with Scotland and England, Ireland
was thought, ‘destined to remain ... behind
the sister kingdoms, in agricultural pursuits’
(Lambert X). Contemporary observers de-
cried Irish agricultural practices as backward
and exhaustive. Locally made implements
were condemned as primitive and inefficient.
Irish plough types were criticised as ‘rude in
... form and defective in ... execution’
(Townsend 190). In this article, using
documentary evidence and surviving speci-
mens, I will discuss the ‘common’ Irish
ploughs of the period, the variety of types,
the type of tillage executed by them and their
efficiency as tillage implements, with par-
ticular reference to the improved Scotch
swing plough.
Common Plough Types
Eighteenth and nineteenth century agricul-
turalists when describing Irish plough types
often used the term ‘common’. This implied
that the implements were unscientific in de-
sign, crude in construction and of a general
type. The stereotyped notion of Irish plough
design of the period is typified by Doyle’s
description in 1844:
The share is like a large wedge; the coulter comes
before the point of the share sometimes, and
sometimes stands above it; the earth-board is a
thing never thought of, but a stick (a hedge-stake
or any thing) is fastened from the right side of the
heel of the share, and extends to the hind part of
the plough; this is intended to turn the furrow,
which it sometimes performs, sometimes not; so
that a field ploughed with this machine looks as if
a drove of swine had been moiling it (i.e. churn-
ing it up) (Doyle 437).
Although available data is sketchy and often
derisory, close examination of the material
suggests that there was a wider range of Irish
plough types in use during the period than
implied by Doyle. The agriculturalist Archer
noted, ‘there are such a variety of ploughs in
use, that there are no two counties but what
vary in some degree in their construction’
(Archer 38).
The simplest form of plough of the period
appears to have been of an ard type, and was
said by the landlord John Hamilton to have
been used on his estate at St. Ernan’s, Co.
Donegal. He described it as a ‘crooked stick
with a second one grafted into it, to give two
handles, and the point of the stick armed
with a bit of iron’ (Hamilton 47). Recent
research has uncovered evidence which sug-
gests that such plough types survived in Co.
Fermanagh until the early part of this cen-
tury (Bell 32-33).
Old Irish Long Beamed Ploughs
Whilst a plough design often varies in minor
constructional details from ploughmaker to
ploughmaker, the type of work which it
executes and the tillage system in which it is
TILLAGE TECHNIQUES
By
Mervyn Watson
Irish agriculture during the latter part of the
eighteenth, and first half of the nineteenth
centuries was much maligned. When com-
pared with Scotland and England, Ireland
was thought, ‘destined to remain ... behind
the sister kingdoms, in agricultural pursuits’
(Lambert X). Contemporary observers de-
cried Irish agricultural practices as backward
and exhaustive. Locally made implements
were condemned as primitive and inefficient.
Irish plough types were criticised as ‘rude in
... form and defective in ... execution’
(Townsend 190). In this article, using
documentary evidence and surviving speci-
mens, I will discuss the ‘common’ Irish
ploughs of the period, the variety of types,
the type of tillage executed by them and their
efficiency as tillage implements, with par-
ticular reference to the improved Scotch
swing plough.
Common Plough Types
Eighteenth and nineteenth century agricul-
turalists when describing Irish plough types
often used the term ‘common’. This implied
that the implements were unscientific in de-
sign, crude in construction and of a general
type. The stereotyped notion of Irish plough
design of the period is typified by Doyle’s
description in 1844:
The share is like a large wedge; the coulter comes
before the point of the share sometimes, and
sometimes stands above it; the earth-board is a
thing never thought of, but a stick (a hedge-stake
or any thing) is fastened from the right side of the
heel of the share, and extends to the hind part of
the plough; this is intended to turn the furrow,
which it sometimes performs, sometimes not; so
that a field ploughed with this machine looks as if
a drove of swine had been moiling it (i.e. churn-
ing it up) (Doyle 437).
Although available data is sketchy and often
derisory, close examination of the material
suggests that there was a wider range of Irish
plough types in use during the period than
implied by Doyle. The agriculturalist Archer
noted, ‘there are such a variety of ploughs in
use, that there are no two counties but what
vary in some degree in their construction’
(Archer 38).
The simplest form of plough of the period
appears to have been of an ard type, and was
said by the landlord John Hamilton to have
been used on his estate at St. Ernan’s, Co.
Donegal. He described it as a ‘crooked stick
with a second one grafted into it, to give two
handles, and the point of the stick armed
with a bit of iron’ (Hamilton 47). Recent
research has uncovered evidence which sug-
gests that such plough types survived in Co.
Fermanagh until the early part of this cen-
tury (Bell 32-33).
Old Irish Long Beamed Ploughs
Whilst a plough design often varies in minor
constructional details from ploughmaker to
ploughmaker, the type of work which it
executes and the tillage system in which it is