Where there’s muck, there’s money

By Justin McCarthy, Butcher, Main Street, Bantry.

"Fair day was the first Friday of the month. You see, you had the pig fair on Thursday, then you had the cattle and sheep fair on Friday. Then you had a big sheep fair in September, the first Friday, and then again in October.

Depending on the time of year you could have anything up to a thousand cattle there, and maybe five or six hundred sheep. But on the Thursday the farmers brought in the pigs in horses and crates. This would be the young pigs now-I'd say generally you'd have 50 or 60 crates of pigs.

On Thursday evening a lot of cattle would come in, because people had to swim cattle in from Whiddy, and they had to walk cattle as far away as the top of Borlin, from Kilcrohane, from Durrus, and out Colomane area. The only person with a truck would be a buyer.

The farmers had a long road to walk. I walked cattle myself from Goleen and from the Glengarriff fairs. It was a tough job because in those days the fences weren't all that great, and cattle would be breaking in as you came along the road, and you had to gather them out of the field and get them on the road again. 'Twas no fun.

'Twas a big day for the town. I suppose there'd be, on a big day now, on a September sheep fair, you could have the bones of a couple of thousand people there. And they all ate a bite. You see they were out all night, it could be terrible bad weather, wet to their skin and just let the clothes dry on them. Go in and have a bite to eat.

In the fall of the year when cattle would come out in numbers the cattle fairs would be busier than the spring of the year when there wouldn't be much there. In actual fact a big day was May Day - all the farmers would come to town on May Day. There'd be quite a lot of cattle showing on May Day. That would be the first of the cattle coming out. Well then of course the September fair was a very big day, because in those days you could have thousands of sheep on the Square. And buyers would come from as far away as Dundalk, Mayo, Galway… they'd buy the lambs here, they'd take them and put them on after grass above, where they'd be after cutting corn, and they'd fatten them up.

Bantry House owned the Square, and my grandfather had the Square leased from Bantry house for Fair Days. And he would charge every farmer coming in a toll on his cattle. And he'd employ men around the town… in the "Customs Gap", where the Boston Bar is now above, the road going up to Scart Road. The men used to stand there taking "customs", they used to call it. Because thery'd catch the farmers coming down there, coming down Chapel Street. And there'd be another one out the top of Chapel Street, one on Glengarriff Road, there'd be another one at the top of Church Street, and there'd be one down on the Quay, and there'd would be one down by the railway (near the old pier). And all the cattle going to the railway having been sold on the Square, they'd be charged a tariff also. It was usually sixpence (six old pence); I suppose sixpence was a lot of money in those days.

The usual saying when a buyer had cattle bought from the farmer was: "Sold again, take him down to the Mallow Man". This man was from Mallow; he was an employee of CIE. He was the man who would board the cattle on the train. A very good man at his job. You had to give him a little backhander also-we won't call them backhanders, we'll call them tips-otherwise, you wouldn't get the attention that you should get. He used to make a lot of money in tips

No, the people of the town didn't mind the mess left after the Fair, because the Council always swept up the place afterwards. You know what they say, where there's muck there's money. That's putting it very mildly. But now you see you can't have any fairs with all the new regulations governing cattle. You couldn't stand any cattle below in Bantry Square, but you can stand sheep there.

And yes, the marts finished the fairs. But I'll tell you something, I'd say a lot of farmers regret the down fall of the fairs. There's another thing in it you see - when you're selling in the marts the tax man has an account of all your movements, whereas when they sold in Bantry fair it was a different ball game altogether. Nobody knew what was happening - the tax man couldn't keep going around after all the farmers."

Boxing The Cattle

By Jack Sheehan, Farmer & Local Historian, Ardahill, Kilcrohane.

"They left on a Thursday driving the cattle to Bantry fair, I did it myself. Drive the cattle in, and they were put up into a field back of the railway that was belonged to Crowley, the fellow of the Square, Crowley's field. They were left there until next morning, fair morning, when they'd go up to the field and the cattle were collected and brought down to the Square for sale. Some started about 11 o'clock at night and gave the night on the road, driving. That was a common thing.

After the sale the cattle were marked on the back with scissors, they cut the mark on the back. They were all taken by train at that time, and there's where you met the fellows you had to pay "customs" to. There had to be someone there to mind the cattle, and if you gave him a bribe he'd put your cattle in before the others. Putting the cattle into the train, "boxing the cattle", they called it. You had a ticket, and you'd take a ticket to him and he'd mark it. The buyer wouldn't pay unless your ticket was marked.

Out by the Abbey, if you were taking home the cattle that you took and didn't sell you didn't have to pay. But if you came in and bought, that animal was marked, they were looking for the marks, you had to pay another sixpence. For ease, anyway, you paid and that was that. Sixpence an animal, and cows then were making about seven or eight pounds."