Well, look who warned farmers about the risks of a ‘dole mentality’

By Ryle Dwyer

Joe Walsh was careful not to make the same mistake this week, but the farmers savaged him anyway. One of the spokesmen for the current crop of protesting farmers was Ruaidhri Deasy, whose late father, Rickard, led the 1966 protest, as president of the NFA. Unlike the lines of tractors this week, however, Rickard Deasy and his colleagues walked the 210 miles from Bantry to Dublin, where they were joined on October 19, 1966, for a protest rally outside Leinster House by as many as 30,000 farmers who had walked from other centres around the country.

The Government derided the protesters as well-heeled, affluent ranchers the kind of people who normally supported Fine Gael. As now, many people then were worried about a downturn in the economy in the midst of a massive boom.