The Randlestown Experiments

Saved tobacco from Randlestown estate

These are some dried tobacco leaves kept for 80 years by Brigid Reilly, a former maid in Randlestown House. They are dried and brittle now, but according to Brigid have kept their distinctive smell even after all this time.

The Weekender 28/08/1993

Saved tobacco from Randlestown estate
The Weekender 28/08/1993

Saved tobacco from Randlestown estate

The Weekender 28/08/1993

Enlarge image

The Randlestown experiments were the object of much curiosity from the other landowners. The employment of a government departmental advisor – a Kentuckian, Mr. Keller, in 1905 - prepared the way for an expansion of the experiments. The period 1904 to 1913 saw twenty persons in seven countries licensed to grow tobacco.

While Everard committed himself to growing twenty acres on his estate, he also canvassed for growers for ten acres among his tenants, offering a Ł20-an-acre profit to any of his tenants willing to grow the crop. A reluctance on the part of his own tenants to take up such a lucrative offer may have some foundation in the perception of Everard as an 'innovator' or 'inventor', or in fact that the Randlestown estate was at that time (1903) affected by the Land Acts and further sales were imminent.

An initial cautious reception of neighbours and tenants quickly gave way to a more ready acceptance as Everard carried the initial cost of providing barns for saving and curing the crop and marketing the final produce. The crop's success in poor soil conditions led to increased interest, and growers noticed that the whole farm of the tobacco grower was in better condition than that of the farmer who did not grow tobacco.

The labour intensity of the crop is lost perhaps in the grim statistics of 748.5 hours manual labour required per acre, yet it is readily brought to life by the memories of estate workers recalled in the Weekender newspaper in August 1993 that "forty or fifty women could be called in to cover each plant with a handful of grass at the slightest danger of frost".

Gallery

John Brown, Randlestown estate

This is a photograph of John Brown. He was a stockman at Randlestown during the last years of tobacco production. He started work in 1927. He remembered when nearly every farm within a five mile radius of the estate had a tobacco shed. He also remembered John Nevin, the man in charge of tobacco production on the estate: “tobacco growing was nearly a religion with him, he’d talk to you about nothing else.”

John Brown, Randlestown estate -

Brigid Reilly, Randlestown estate

This is a photograph of Brigid Reilly who worked as a maid in Randlestown House from 1914 to 1916. She remembered how her brother, George, a coachman on the estate, collected 15 or 16 women from Navan on a long cart every morning at 8 o’clock. They worked in the fields until 6 o’clock every evening. “I remember them singing as they were going off to the fields. It was hard enough work for women, there was a lot of stooping in it.”

Brigid Reilly, Randlestown estate -

Previous - Revival of Tobacco Growing in Meath