That perennial topic of Irish conversation, the weather, had a direct effect in the past on politics and economics through its impact on agriculture. Newspapers at this time of year in the late 19th century carried regular reports on the harvest: this editorial from 1903 indicates the extent of the weather’s influence on current affairs.
MORE THAN usual interest is taken this year in the prospects of the harvest. In an agricultural country like Ireland all classes of the population are concerned with the fate of the farmers, on whose prosperity their own in large measure depends. The welfare of the shopkeepers, bankers, and railway shareholders is intimately connected with that of the men directly dependent upon the land. If agriculture suffers all the allied industries suffer with it.
Consequently, the reports from the various districts published in our own and other journals are eagerly scanned by townsmen who at other times of the year take but a casual interest in rural affairs. In the present year there is additional cause for the interest evinced by all classes in the state of the crops. . . . Ireland has a special cause for anxiety in view of the Land Act which has just become law. What would be the effect of a bad harvest upon the prospects for land transfer? Would it make the tenants, in view of the difficulty which some of them would find in paying their rents at the next gale-day, anxious to purchase their holdings in order to secure the immediate reduction in their annual payments which purchase will give them? Or would it, on the other hand, tend to make them hold back on the plea that in a bad year their landlords will often make them a voluntary reduction, or at least give them time to make their payments, whereas the State must have the full amount of the purchase instalment on the due date?
In the special circumstances of the case it is more than usually necessary to be cautious in framing an estimate of the probable quality of the harvest. That it cannot be a really good one must, we fear, be taken for granted. The continuous wet weather of the last two months has had a most prejudicial effect upon nearly all classes of crops. On the other hand it would be a mistake to assume that all is lost already. There have been some redeeming features about the present summer. For one thing, it started well, with the result that many of the crops, potatoes in particular, were well advanced before the bad weather came, and were in better condition to resist its effects than if the sowing and “shooting” periods had been equally unfortunate.
Then, although we have had a super-abundance of rain, it has not been absolutely continuous. Between the showers and storms there have been spells of sunshine, brief enough, it is true, but sufficient to prevent growth from being absolutely arrested . . . In these circumstances it is absurd to compare 1903, as some of the correspondents of our contemporaries do, to 1879. That bleak and disastrous year was bad from first to last, and had none of the redeeming features of the present summer. Not only was there continuous heavy rain, but throughout the summer the sky was overcast with a leaden pall, depressing alike to man and beast, and fatal to the growth of vegetation. Whatever may be the weather of the present month it cannot reduce the harvest to the level of 1879, and a succession of fine, bright, breezy days such as last Saturday and Sunday, would repair much of the damage that has been done, though nothing, we fear, would suffice to make it good all round.