FROM THE ARCHIVES:Wives and daughters of farmers took to the streets as part of a long-running battle between the National Farmers' Association and the Fianna Fáil government in 1967 over farm incomes that saw 42 men jailed. Mary Maher accompanied them as gardaí prevented them from approaching the Dáil.
The NFA women had one brief brush with danger yesterday at the corner of Upper Mount street and Merrion Square, when a militant group from Kildare swarmed about a pale green Ford Consul and forced it to a stop.
The mood was ripe for belligerent action. The nearly 2,000 wives, daughters and relatives of NFA men had been thwarted in their march to the Dáil, and what had been as decorous as a pilgrimage to Knock became suddenly as angry and resentful as a riot crowd.
The moment passed quickly. Though the women had ignored requests from the gardaí to move aside, they reluctantly backed off when one of their leaders, wearing a demure navy straw hat, stepped up to the car’s fender and silently waved them on. There were jeers and catcalls: “I don’t know who she is, she’s not one of us,” and “why should she get through, we didn’t!” and much hilarious laughter.
“Good woman, Mrs Baxter!” someone shouted at the stout grey-haired matron who had originally sat on the bonnet. “She’s had two in jail,” someone explained, and Mrs Baxter, still laughing merrily, said: “I hope she’s raging” and looked back at the driver, who had by now burst into tears. She drove off, her car now plastered with NFA stickers. The child in the back seat continued to sleep through it all.
The women never quite simmered down again, but they maintained order through the liveliness of an hour’s speeches and cheers, breaking into whoops of laughter and goading outcries when it was announced that Mr PJ Lenihan, father of the Minister for Justice, was in the crowd.
They interrupted the speakers frequently, ready with shouts of support and boos or cheers as indicated; but it was obvious by 4.30pm that most were willing to consider the day moderately successful and retire to tea.
Their spirit was obvious from the start, when they gathered at 2.30pm in Herbert street. Some were still hastily printing up placards, and one woman approached an onlooker with a request for a bit of paper. “We only decided to come up last night, and haven’t made our signs yet,” she explained. She had come with seven others in a mini-bus from Ballymahon, Co Longford.
A mother of seven, she said the family had not been able to afford a car since last March, and that their income had decreased by one-third in the last two years. They paid £400 in rates for 70 acres. “It’s the wrong people who are in jail,” she said. “The Government should be in.”
Mrs Frank Sherlock of Crossakell, Co Meath, led the procession with her daughters, Marina (6) and Rita (7). They carried a placard reading: “We feel bitter, We feel sad, What is home Without our dad.”
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