Stirring times over as sugar trade sours

SUGAR processing was one of the early industries started by William T Cosgrave and his Agriculture Minister Paddy Hogan in the government of the new Irish Free State in 1926.

It was later expanded, developed and nationalised by Éamon de Valera and Seán Lemass after Fianna Fáil came to power and became a remarkably successful partnership of farmers, factory workers and the State.

The Carlow plant, now facing closure, was opened in 1926, following a strong lobbying campaign by local people to establish a sugar beet industry in the heart of one of the country’s intensive tillage growing areas.