Ceremonies commemorate Cork founder of co-operative movement

ONE of the key founders of the Irish co-operative movement was commemorated this week with ceremonies in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, where he is buried, and in Churchtown, north Cork, where he was born 150 years ago.

Robert Andrew Anderson (1860-1942) was the first person to work with Sir Horace Plunkett on his mission of organising and promoting the co-operative benefits of better farming, better business and better living.

He was elected president of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, now ICOS, in 1933 and was also a former managing director of the Irish Agricultural Wholesale Society (IAWS).