Bantry tribute to historic farmers’ rights march
The 1966 march earned farmers the right to lead collective negotiations with the government.
The march was led by NFA president Rickard Deasy and, at last week’s commemoration, his son Ruadhri revealed how the NFA campaign planners fed false information which left the government ill-prepared to negotiate with 30,000 farmers arriving in Dublin.
Mr Deasy said his father and NFA general secretary Sean Healy deliberately fed misinformation to a media source close to agriculture minister Charles Haughey.
As a result, Mr Haughey was caught off-guard when farmers staged a three-week sit-in on the steps of his department.
Mr Deasy, a former IFA deputy president, said his father modeled the farmers’ rights march on protests in the US by Martin Luther King and by Mahatma Gandhi in India.
The planning included wielding discipline among the 30,000 NFA members present in Dublin to prevent any riotous behavior which would damage their cause.
At the commemoration in Bantry, the former NFA leader’s grandson, also called Rickard Deasy, joined current IFA president Joe Healy, carrying his grandfather’s trademark Basque beret, complete with a medal given to Deasy by Pope John XXIII to remind him to keep the farmers’ rights campaign peaceful.
Mr Healy told the gathering of hundreds in the square in Bantry that, in 1966, some 90,000 farmers earned less than £5 per week but their campaign won them the right to negotiate with the government and improve their incomes.
He said that fight continues for farmers 50 years on — with average farming income only €25,000 compared with the average industrial wage in the mid-€30,000s and the average public service wage at €47,000.
