Teagasc will be working in partnership with Galway County Council and with the support of FBD Insurance to stage Farming and Country Life 1916, what is claimed will be Ireland’s largest rural 1916 commemoration. The event will take place at the historic Mellows Campus, Athenry, Co Galway on Friday and Saturday 10 and 11 June.

Let’s not have a Dublin-centred 1916 commemoration

Speaking at the launch of the event, Prof Gerry Boyle, director of Teagasc, said: “This will be the most significant 1916 commemorative event to take place in rural Ireland. Let’s not have a Dublin-centred 1916 commemoration; this event will be very much focused on the local activities in and around Athenry and county Galway during the Rising.”

Liam Mellows, after whom the Teagasc Athenry Campus is named, was a leader in the volunteer movement in 1916. He led a team of over 500 volunteers who camped overnight in the farmyard of what was then called the Model Farm and run by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, before advancing on Galway.

The Farming and Rural Life 1916 event will be free to attend. Prof Boyle said that it will appeal to a wide audience from children to grandparents, urban and rural, farm families, schools, the diaspora and visitors to our country.

He said that he expects upward of 50,000 people to visit the two-day event, making it the largest 1916 commemoration to be hosted outside of Dublin.

Listen to an interview with Prof Boyle in our podcast below:

Military events and rural life

The event will reflect on an important part of life in rural Ireland at the beginning of the last century. It will provide high quality educational, authentic material and will accurately retell the story of local 1916 military events and farming and country life of the era.

It will explore all aspects of farming and country life in Ireland 100 years ago using interactive exhibits, dramatic re-enactments, lectures, and reconstructions while charting the farming and rural life major developments in the first half of the 20th century. The seven thematic villages include:

  • Ireland 1916 (The 1916 Rising)
  • Farm family and rural life
  • The land
  • Education and co-operation
  • Mechanisation of farming
  • Livestock
  • Sporting and cultural life
  • Event highlights
  • A large number of farming, rural, community and voluntary, local and national organisations will be participating in the event including IFA, GAA, National Ploughing Association, UCD and the ICA, the Museum of Country Life, the Agricultural Museum in Johnstown Castle, The GAA Museum, the Department of Folklore in UCD and with many local heritage and historical societies.

    Land ownership

    Prof Gearoid O’Tuathaigh of NUIG (photo, right) spoke at the launch about the importance of this historical event and the issues of land ownership in Ireland at the time of the 1916 Rising.

    He gave a historical context to farming and rural life in Ireland at the time into the thorny issue of the “land question”, which he believes has become an enduring topic of debate among Irish farmers right to this day. He explained how social issues of the time were calibrated in farmyard terms, many of which continue to be used up to the present.