Aims of first co-op organisers ‘still relevant today’

THE ideals of those who founded the country’s co-ops are still relevant today as the dairy industry faces major challenges.

Speakers made the claim when a plaque commemorating Robert A Anderson, who spent over 40 years promoting co-operation among the rural communities of Ireland, was unveiled at Mount Corbett House, Churchtown, Co Cork.

Mr Anderson was born in 1860 at Mount Corbett, now the home of racehorse trainer Jim Culloty and his wife Susie, and he was chosen by Horace Plunkett in 1889 to become Ireland’s first co-op organiser.

It was the wish of the late Billy Nagle of Buttevant, a past president of the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS), that Anderson should be commemorated in his native Churchtown.

The plaque was unveiled by Mr Nagle’s widow Mairead in a ceremony involving ICOS and the Churchtown Village Renewal Trust.

ICOS director general John Tyrrell said Anderson, who died on Christmas Day 1942, while not as well known as Plunkett, had played a significant role in establishing the co-ops in Ireland.

He travelled the country by train, sidecar, horseback and bicycle, holding meetings promoting agricultural co-operation in all kinds of buildings before all manner of suspicious and sometimes hostile audiences.

Tyrrell said Anderson recalled that in one month he slept in 30 different places, sometimes on the seat of a night train with no covering but his overcoat and no pillow but his wallet of papers.

The co-ops today are very successful and indigenous businesses that play an important role in the country’s economy and in rural areas and will continue to do so in the future. The aim of their founders was to improve living standards and livelihoods,” Tyrrell said.

“I hope we are big enough to be able to follow in their footsteps and to leave the co-operative movement in a stronger and better place for the members in the future.”