Edition Bobbett2. Speeches and statements by Elizabeth F. Bobbett

1939 Dublin, Meeting of the Women’s Social and Progressive League

Source: Irish Press, 10.03.1939

Miss Elizabeth Bobbett, chief organiser of the Farmers’ Party for County Wicklow, addressed the Women’s Social and Progressive League last night as “a daughter of the land.” “Rural life under normal conditions,” she said, “can be almost Paradise on earth. But under present conditions it is hell upon earth, and the heart-breaking part of it is that it is not of our own making. We have been crippled during the past seven years - for six years because of an economic war, and for the past year because of weather conditions the worst within the memory of many farmers for over forty years. The result of all this is that our yards are empty and our pantry likewise. The farmer is over-worked and under-nourished, and it will take a lot to rebuild the industry. Even the imposition of Summer Time is a cruel hardship on us: it must be abolished”.

To keep the people on the land, said Miss Bobbett, it was necessary to apply such reliefs as full compensation to the farmers for losses they incurred through the economic war, complete de-rating of agricultural land and farm buildings, and the suspension of land annuities and collection of arrears for a number of years.