Big 50 for Leinster Marts

When Leinster Marts in Kilcullen holds a special sale tomorrow, Wednesday 4 October, it will be marking the 50th anniversary of a phoenix, writes Brian Byrne.

The mart, originally established in the 1950s and subsequently sold, had closed during the early part of the next decade. A group of local farmers in the Kilcullen and mid-Kildare area decided to set up a cooperative to revive it. With the help of Carlow-based Leinster Co-op Marts, the initiative got under way in 1967, with the first share registered to Michael Keogh of Naas on December 21.

By the end of March of the following year, there were in excess of 250 shareholders registered, most of them farmers from Kilcullen, Naas, Calverstown, and as far as Rathangan. Many of the local names will still resonate in agricultural circles in the area today, including Tom Carter, Andy Cullen, Dick Jeffers, John Dardis, and Kilcullen livestock dealer Jim Byrne (below) then of Liffey View, who still has strong memories of the time.

Quite a number of local business people signed up in support too, mostly with a £25 subscription, but others went in at £50 and even £100 as Jim Byrne had done. Among the business shareholders were Kilcullen publicans James J Byrne and Joe McTernan. Mart Day was a significant one for their businesses, and it made sense to help the enterprise get back on its feet. Brendan Dowling, who operated a petrol station, and other businesses in Kilcullen with customer bases bedded in agricultural supply also signed up as shareholders.

"A lot of people came along with the idea, though there were some who it was hard to get to pony up," says Jim Byrne, who retired from the livestock dealing business in 2000, but still keeps an interest in what's going on in the trade.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, up to 25,000 head of cattle a year were sold through Leinster Marts in Kilcullen. There was a mart also in Athy, and other competing marts were set up separately in Naas and Maynooth during the time. But as Jim Byrne remarks wryly, the cattle business then was 'like it always has been, up and down like a yo-yo'. There was a particular slump around 1976, when the price of a typical beast went from £350 to as low as £51, in the early autumn. "I remember I was buying in Roscrea for John Flood of Newhall, and when I opened a bid at £50 and got them for £51.50, auctioneer Bobby Brennan said, at Lot 50, it was the first bid he had received on the day."

Bobby Brennan was well known on the marts circuit, including Kilcullen. "He was always dressed to kill, with a coloured kerchief on his suit." Other characters among the buyers and sellers included Ken Lyons, a member of the Lyons of Kill of motorbike fame. "At one stage Ken had a herd of Friesians, which nobody wanted, for ages. When he finally got them sold, he came down with me to Borris and bought around the same number again, of Friesians. No lesson learned."

Other names among those who were regulars at Kilcullen included PJ Foley, Charley Keatley, Tim Houlihan, Morgan Ferris and Billy Lakes. "Billy was buying for Purcells, and John Hanlon was another big buyer. There were a lot of live exports to England, and there would be 'trains' of lorries crossing the country towards Dublin from the various marts. Michael and Noel Cuddy were the big shippers to England from Dublin, every week. They were well known for rugby too."

At the time of the resurrection of the mart in Kilcullen, there were mixed views on the idea. Opposition mainly came from dealers at traditional fairs buying down the country, because the secretive nature of fairs meant they could buy at their own price. "I asked my father, Tim, once why he thought the Kilcullen Mart was so important, and he said it was because you would always get a bid at a mart, whether it was what you wanted or not. I had recently come back from a fair in Naas with no bid at all, and had to bring the cattle home."

The marts were also a way of getting an accurate valuation on stock, because it was open bidding. Unlike the fairs, where the trading was one to one and nobody ever said what they had got, or paid, in a transaction.

"The mart also meant that, even if you sold at less than you wanted, you had money to meet the bills. At that time you could be getting letters from the bank every week, saying you were overdrawn. And I remember my mother praying coming up to rates time that we'd have enough money to pay them."

Kilcullen Mart is the only one left in Kildare now, and is managed by Jimmy Walsh of Leinster Co-op Marts. Because of changes in the way the livestock business is run, and more stringent regulation, the annual throughput is now less than half what it was at the enterprise's peak. "But we're doing well," he says.

He notes the social role which marts still play, offering an opportunity to farmers to meet up once a week, especially those of an older generation who remember the hustle and bustle of the business when it was done through fairs. Jim Byrne remembers that too, especially when he was part of the committee of the Kilcullen co-op. "We'd have meetings every month, and there used to be another farmers' meeting in Lawlors of Naas which I also attended."

At the various marts he and his fellow dealers attended, mostly in the Leinster area, there was both competition and camaraderie. Half a century on for Kilcullen Mart, both are still there. The anniversary sale on 4 October will bring back a lot of those memories and many of the surviving people, and there will be special trophies, and the auction of a donated bullock with proceeds going to the County Kildare Hospice on the Curragh.

This article was first published in The Kildare Nationalist.