NOTE – This section is being reorganised at present. Finished soon 🙂
Until the time of the industrial revolution, rural society in Ireland was very stratified, as in most other parts of the British Isles, consisting of:
- A small number of rich landowners (sometimes, but not always, members of the aristocracy) who owned estates of up to 10,000 acres or even more.
- A few well-off professionals such as doctors, lawyers, land agents and clergymen.
- Artisans such as shoemakers, blacksmiths, weavers, tailors and dressmakers.
- A small but growing merchant class.
- The vast majority who were small tenant farmers, labourers or servants.
For all but the most comfortably off, travel was over short distances only, and only to buy and sell, and most working-class people married someone from within a few miles of their home. Agriculture or the trade in agricultural products was the primary occupation of almost everyone.
Among the occupations of those who are recorded as having lived in the Poyntzpass area during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, are the following:
- Craftsmen – weaver, shoemaker, blacksmith, miller, carpenter, baker, farrier, tailor, dressmaker
- Shopkeepers – draper, grocer, butcher, greengrocer
- Services – hotelier, postman, pub landlord, barmaid/man, housekeeper, maid, cook, policeman
- Railway workers – stationmaster, signalman, track maintenance
- Canal workers – lockkeeper, lighterman, maintenance worker
- Agriculture – farmer, farm labourer
- Professionals – solicitor, bank clerk/manager, doctor, nurse, land agent, auctioneer, minister of religion, schoolteacher
- Dealers/merchants – in cattle, horses, butter, eggs, linen, sheep, wool
This is not a complete list!
==>> Agriculture
==>> Mills & Millers
Commerce & Industry
According to the 1830 OSMI for Co Armagh, in Poyntzpass there were nine spirit dealers, four lodging-house keepers, three apothecaries, three shoemakers, two grocers, two tailors, two haberdashers, one baker, one reed-maker, one nail-maker, one hardware shop, one painter and glazier, one dispensary and one blacksmith.
The number of spirit dealers, compared to other trades, is astonishing.
Fairs & Markets
The topic of fairs and markets in the area is covered comprehensively in Frank Watters’ article “Acton and Poyntzpass Fairs”, BIF Vol 10, 2009.
The original patent to hold a fair in the area seems to have been issued to Sir Toby Poyntz on 4th Feb 1685, for three three-day fairs per year. Although it uses the name “Poyntzpass” it is most likely that the fair location was Acton village. As we mentioned earlier, A T Stewart had obtained the right to hold a fair in Acton and later moved it to Poyntzpass.
The earliest newspaper reference to a fair or market in the village comes from the Belfast News-Letter of February 1784.
“A monthly linen market is now being held at Points-pass, near Acton, in the County of Armagh, most commodiously situate in the centre of a good manufacture of yard-wide linens of the set of 10, 12, 14 and 16 hundreds, the first market on Saturday, the 7th day of February, and on the first Saturday of each month following. The above fair will be very convenient for the attendance of linen merchants in consequence of its being held the day after the Moy Fair.”
At that time, the village probably still only consisted of a few scattered houses, but it was also at the very centre of a large cluster of cottage-based weavers.
One Of The Largest Fairs
The earliest newspaper reference I have found to a cattle market in Poyntzpass appeared as an advert in the Belfast Commercial Chronicle of 4th January 1806.
In time, Poyntzpass fair became one of the most successful livestock markets in Ulster, held on the first Saturday of every month (as the earlier linen markets had been) with buyers regularly coming from England and Scotland. With the opening of the railway in the 1850s and railway sidings just a few hundred yards away, cattle could be quickly sent to Belfast for overnight export to Great Britain.
At one time, the village had its own Market House[7], where goods could be stored in advance of the fair and stored again until the next fair if they were unsold.
The importance of Poyntzpass’s fair is emphasised by this parliamentary question asked on 20th April 1896 by Edward McHugh, MP for Armagh South.
“I beg to ask…the Postmaster General…whether he is aware of the great inconvenience frequently experienced by gentlemen from England and Scotland, visiting the fair of Poyntzpass, in not having letters with instructions and bank drafts delivered them in time for the transaction of business, owing to delay caused by non-delivery…letters from England…arriving in Newry at 7:00 o’clock in the morning are not delivered until 8:00 o’clock the following morning.”
Tandragee also had a thriving market. On 15th June 1842, a large public meeting was held there to protest at a proposed new weekly market to be held in Portadown each Wednesday, and the threat that would pose to Tandragee’s own weekly Wednesday market. Those attending in support of the protest included Col Close, Peter Quinn and Crozier Christy.
On 10th November 1877, an advert appeared in newspapers stating:
“POYNTZPASS. NEW MARKET.
The above market will be held every Friday and will be open for the Sale of Grass Seed, Oats, Fowls, Butter, and Eggs. Every encouragement will be given to Buyers and Sellers.”
An item in the Newry Telegraph in 1897 referred to Poyntzpass fair as the largest, or one of the two largest, in Ulster at the time.
The last ever street market was held in Poyntzpass was in 1955. Poyntzpass Livestock Sales was established in Railway Street by Billy Corbett and Wilfie McFadden in 1961. It too finally closed in June 2004.
Child Labour – And Injuries
In every occupation and trade in the 1800s and earlier, child labour[9] was common, and safety precautions almost unknown. Mills were more dangerous than most. In 1824, the Belfast Commercial Chronicle reported:
“…on Wednesday 24th December…two little girls, daughters of John Moodey, had each an arm taken in by the rollers, belonging to Mr Crosier’s[10] flax mill, near Pointz Pass. The larger girl’s arm was considerably injured, while that of the younger escaped almost unhurt.”
John Moody was a farmer, on whose land the 12th D&AFS ploughing match was held in 1833. He farmed about 70 acres in Lisraw, a large farm for the time.
In September 1851, a six-year-old boy, James Patton, died in an identical accident when he was caught in the rollers of John Bennet’s scutch mill. On 18th October 1858, that mill was largely destroyed by a fire started by a discarded match. It was uninsured.
The sale particulars of William Fivey’s Lisnabrague estate in 1850 state:
“On the lands of Lisnabreague there is a capital Mill of the best modern construction, with an excellent supply of water, and capable of Grinding at the rate of 13 Tons of Grain within the 24 hours. This Mill with [lime] Kilns and formation of the Dams, Reservoirs, and Mill Races, lately cost the Proprietor a very large sum of money, and if properly attended to, could, at small expense and trouble, be made to produce £400 per annum.”
Blacksmiths
Every village needed a blacksmith……. Dymphna Murphys BIF article[11] lists many of the former blacksmiths in the village and surrounding area.
C20 – Trainors, Edmund Loughlin….
Individual Stories
Winnie Jemphry, Wool Dealer
Winnie Jemphry lived on Railway Street with her husband Jim, an accountant, in the 1900s. During the years of the Great Depression, they ran several businesses but gradually shed them all except for the wool business, at which Winnie excelled.
Winnie bought wool in many parts of Northern Ireland and in some nearer parts of the Republic. She had good connections with the wool trade in Bradford and could sell there directly. This cut out a middleman and allowed her to offer a halfpenny more per pound of wool than any competing buyer. By 1939, she had become the biggest wool buyer in Northern Ireland!
She once told her nephew John Clarke that she never went to a farm to buy wool without succeeding. John was sceptical and asked her if she just bid more until the farmer agreed to sell the wool to her?
“No. I had one price. It would have ruined my reputation if I paid farmers different prices. No farmer would have forgiven me for paying him less than his neighbour.”
“Did they all want to sell?”
“No, some didn’t.”
“So how did you persuade them to sell?”
“I just kept talking till they changed their mind.”!
[6] See “The Stranger in County Armagh” by Joe Canning, BIF Vol 5, 1991
[7] See “Market Houses of County Armagh” by Brian McElherron, BIF Vol 14, 2017
[8] See “The Windmill Stump”, John Campbell, BIF Vol 10, 2009 and
“Mavemacullen – The River Cusher And its Mills” by Harry O’Hare, BIF Vol 2, 1988.
[9] This continued in some forms right up until the 1960s, when the autumn half-term school holiday was known colloquially as ‘potato picking holiday’; it was two weeks long and timed to coincide with the potato harvest. A tractor-drawn harvester brought the potatoes to the surface, and children were employed in the fields to gather these into large wicker baskets.
[10] Probably a misprint for Crothers.
[11] See “Local Gates and Gatemakers” by Dymphna Murphy, BIF Vol 1, 1987