Edition Bobbett1. Texts by Elizabeth F. Bobbett: 1.1.3. Correspondence, Letters to newspapers

1940 Elizabeth Bobbett: Letter to the Farmers’ Gazette, 27.07.1940

National Defence1

The item in our National Defence that will count most is our food supply. This falls to the lot of the farmers of the country and they have responded a hundred per cent to the call for increased tillage and production, and indeed without any guarantee of prices that will meet the cost of production.

As a farmer I resent the statements made by Mr. William Davin, TD, at a recruiting meeting in Clara, as reported in the Press, viz.: “The response from rural areas was not all that it should be. Farmers and farmers’ sons were in the forefront of every fight for the nation’s welfare, and it was not right that they should hang back now.” I would like to remind Mr. Davin and the public generally that were it not for the sacrifices borne by the farmers and their wives and families by fighting the five years of the Economic War, our country would not have the neutrality it holds so far to-day. No other section of the community contributed their share in fighting the Economic War, rather did they take the chance to enrich themselves.

The farmer loves his native land more than any other citizen and he will not be found wanting when necessary, but at the present moment when they are endeavouring to secure the nation’s food supply, instead of receiving some assistance they are being harassed by visits from the sheriff’s officers accompanied by members of the Garda, who will seize their remaining few stock if the farmer cannot beg or borrow the money to appease their demands. I know of one case where the farmer was visited by the sheriff’s officer in the afternoon and that night his two sons, being members of the Local Security Force, were called out to patrol the roads.

1 - The same text was published in the Westmeath Independent, 27.09.1940 and, partially, in the Irish Independent, 25.07.1940.