IN 1831 what may have been the first native-run socialist commune in the world came into existence in Ralahine, Newmarket on Fergus. A subsequent play, The Ralahine Experiment was written by Margaretta Darcy and John Arden well over 40 years ago, and there are plans to revive it, with an initial workshop taking place this weekend.
Mary Grogan is a local historian and she explained how the commune came into being on John Scott Vandeleur’s land in Ralahine.
The era was one of change in agriculture, with disenchantment turning to violence at times.
“People between zero and five acres were likely to be evicted from their holding and made destitute because of the change over from tillage to pasture,” she said.
“That was the tendency after the Napoleonic Wars. It was the tillers really that were evicted and they started to form associations, The Ribbonmen, the Whiteboys, all of those were attacking, and turning up the sod on land belonging to the gentry.
“There were three episodes of it [in the Ralahine area] before the commune began and the climax came with the killing of the agent of John Scott Vandeleur, Daniel Hastings.
“He had overturned a bucket of water that the men were using to sate their thirst when they were working in the fields. They plotted and murdered him.
“The landlord was frightened and Vandeleur went to live in Limerick.”
However Vandeleur had heard of a proposed system where landlords could lease land that tentants themselves could manage, with a view to eventually owning it themselves, and he felt that might be a positive route to take.
“In 1823 Vandeleur had attended a lecture by Robert Owen in the Rotunda in Dublin where there was an alternative plan for the agricultural labourers, and that consisted of a landlord leasing them so much land, that they would manage themselves,” said Ms Grogan.
And eventually that property could be purchased by the members, and that’s where the word socialism comes in.”
“Vandeleur signed up to that and Edward Craig from Manchester came to start it up. There was terrible resentment at the beginning, because people thought he was coming to replace Hasting, they thought that he was bringing in people from England, a kind of a plantation in Ralahine.
“He said no, and he convinced the leader of them, a man called Liam Frawley, that he was on their side.
“They bought in after initial doubts, when they were told they wouldn’t be getting money, they’d be getting labour notes that could be cashed in for coin of the realm, through the landlord Vandeleur.”
It was a dramatic success for a couple of years, but a personal weakness of Vandeleur saw it collapse.
“Vandeleur was given to gambling and he gambled not alone the estate but their IOUs in Dublin in 1833. The commune had thrived for two and a half years but in 1833 when they were waiting to cash in their notes the word came that he was bankrupt and wasn’t able to guarantee money to them. Craig paid out of his own resources, he sold his house and all his furniture,” she said.
Conor Madden is a local actor and he said he had been amazed to hear about what had happened at that time.
“I live in Ralahine and I was chatting to Mary about various things, about the Limerick Soviet in 1919, and she came out with this, that there was a play about Ralahine. We managed to get copies of it, Mary went to see the archives and get copies of the script so she has been instrumental in it,” he said.
The workshop will be at 2pm on Saturday in the Hall in Newmarket and all are welcome with no previous acting experience required.
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.