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Peelers And Sheep
Ep 2: Prairie Fire
Season 1, Ep. 2
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This episode looks at the West of Ireland agrarian movement of the spring and early summer of 1920. That year saw a widespread popular mobilisation known as the cattle drives - crowds assembling to drive cattle and sheep off disputed land.
This movement was a major factor underpinning the land reform policies of the new Irish Free State - policies which lead to almost 20% of farmland being re-distributed. The episode takes in the story of the movement itself, as well as the social structure which it arose in reaction to.
Also examined is the response of the republican leadership, who put considerable effort into putting an end to the agrarian movement.
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3. Dáil Courts and Cattle Drives
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21:22||Season 2, Ep. 21923 saw a new Land Act, with greater focus on the re-distribution of land as well as the Agricultural Commission which informed policy for what was the major industry of the new Irish Free State. This episode is on debates on agrarian policy within the Irish labour movement, particularly within the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, the main union for agricultural employees, and looks at it from the bottom-up - foregrounding the words of local activists by drawing on branch resolutions, a survey of the branches, and a essay competition which ran in the pages of the union's newspaper. There was strong support for continuing compulsory tillage, but divergences of opinion around land division, collective ownership and cottage gardens. There will also be a quick look at the agrarian writings of James Connolly.1. Red Flag in Kilmallock
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06:47||Season 2, Ep. 0A taster of what is coming in future episodes on popular struggles as the British state slowly withdraws from much of Ireland and a new Irish Free State is established, a wave of workplace occupations and land conflicts resume in late spring & early summer 1922 - a Third Revolution - a new cycle of revolt pushing back against the limitations of the revolutionary outcomes.8. Ep 8: The Factory Farm and the Forest Frontier
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