Edition Bobbett2. Speeches and statements by Elizabeth F. Bobbett

1937 Limerick, Farmers’ Meetings

Source: Irish Independent, 05.11.1937

One of the most interesting and vital figures that this movement has thrown up is that of Miss Elizabeth Bobbett, of Kilbride, County Wicklow, a direct descendant of Bartholomew Teeling, who has worked untiringly for the past five years for the farmers of County Wicklow. Her fellow farmers declare that but for her energy and unselfish activity they could never have been brought together in the wholehearted way they have now come.

For Miss Elizabeth Bobbett is herself a working farmer, living with her mother on their farm at Springfield, Kilbride, and when she spoke at the meeting I attended in Rathdrum, displayed as much knowledge about the running of a farm as any of the men. She declared that she was one of the many women on farms that had always had to work from twelve to sixteen hours a day. “I used to employ six men on the farm; now I have only three, and next week I must let two go, as I can’t pay them any longer,” she said. “I cannot set the land for fear of seizures, and therefore it is idle and crops going to waste. It is sinful.”