IRISH FREE STATE: Kilkenny Cows

The great herd of cattle that flowed along the Irish roads into cat-famed Kilkenny last week was no ordinary market-day job. For weeks Irish farmers have fought off government collectors come to get the annuity tax. Last week the tax collectors seized the delinquents’ cows. A cordon of police accompanied the herd. Mad as Kilkenny cats, the farmers went ahead, felling trees across the road and cutting telephone and telegraph wires. Patiently cows, collectors and police plodded over all obstructions into Kilkenny (known to its own citizens as Cill Cainnig). A sullen mob of farmers watched as an auctioneer sold the herd to a stranger.

Behind this strange market-day climax lay a typical Irish quarrel. Following the treaty setting up the Irish Free State, an agreement was made whereby owners of great Irish estates were to be reimbursed for their land by the British Government, which in turn was to receive annuities collected by the Irish Government. The Government of Eamon de Valera refused two-and-a-half years ago to send this money to Britain, but kept collecting half of it to pay government expenses. Free State farmers, however, far from grateful for having their payments halved, refused to see why they should pay even that half. Last week’s cattle sale was de Valera’s way of getting it.