Dublin Cattle Market: emergence of marts ends Prussia Street’s glory days

The Dublin Cattle Market was the premier sale centre for Irish livestock from the 1860s to the 1950s. However, it was closed up and gone by the early 1970s.

Although close to 5,000 cattle a week were sold through the Prussia Street facility on the capital’s north-side in the years after the Second World War – when the market effectively set the price paid for livestock at fairs around the country – its fortunes nosedived in the transformative period leading up to Ireland joining the EEC in the mid-1970s.

Indeed, as early as May 1964, the Irish Farmers Journal was warning that the market was in commercial danger and risked becoming an irrelevance in the livestock trade.

There are a number of reasons for its rapid decline and ultimate demise.

The beginning of the end

The establishment and expansion of both co-operative and private marts during the late 1950s and 1960s negatively impacted the number of animals sold through the Dublin Cattle Market, while the expansion of Ireland’s carcase beef industry in the 1960s resulted in fewer fat cattle being exported through Prussia Street for slaughter in Britain.

Moreover, efforts to retain the Dublin market were undermined by rising losses at the sale centre, and the absence of a strategic vision for the facility on the part of the Dublin Corporation.

However, the emergence of the co-operative mart movement – which was in essence a challenge to the existing power structure within the Irish cattle industry – was the most serious and pressing threat to the Dublin Cattle Market in the early 1960s.

Co-op movement

Since the second half of the 19th century, wealthy livestock graziers and shippers – the main patrons of the Dublin market – had controlled the Irish cattle industry.

This dominance was reflected in the fairs around the country, where dealers and traders, often acting for exporters or graziers, effectively controlled the sale and purchase price of livestock.

By the mid 1950s, however, farmers were determined to challenge the exporters’ dominance of the livestock trade by establishing farmer-owned livestock marts.

This process was driven by farm organisations such as the National Farmers’ Association, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) and the co-operative umbrella group, ICOS.

The marts were a more satisfactory means of selling livestock from the farmers’ perspective, because they offered greater transparency in bidding, open competition for stock and a guarantee of payment.

The popularity of the co-operative mart model among farmers was illustrated by their exponential growth.

Although there were just three farmer-owned co-operative mart societies operating in the country in 1956 – these were in Waterford, Kilkenny and Bunclody, Co Wexford – by 1970 this figure had increased to 61.

Some of these, including Cork Marts and Golden Vale Marts, had multiple sales centres.

The sustained growth of the mart movement was reflected in the sales figures received for the farmer-owned co-ops.

Livestock sales in these co-operative marts totalled over £7.6m in 1961. By 1969, they exceeded £46m.

The rise of the marts meant the end of the road for the fairs and this had profound implications for livestock dealers, traders and exporters. It was also a major blow to the Dublin Cattle Market.

Impact

The impact of the marts’ expansion on the fortunes of the Dublin market was two-fold – firstly, the new sales centres took cattle that would traditionally have been sold in the Prussia Street market, and secondly, the marts undermined the market’s status and standing as the premier livestock sale in the country.

British buyers soon found that they could just as easily purchase and ship cattle from rural marts as they could from the Dublin market.

Decline

As the number of cattle sold through the local mart network rose steadily, there was a corresponding decline in the Prussia Street trade.

By the late 1960s, cattle numbers offered each week in the Dublin market had fallen from the 5,000 head of the 1950s, to just 800 or so animals, and had dropped to 300-400 by the early 1970s.

Essentially, the Dublin market was now no more significant than regional marts such as Kilmallock, Kilkenny or Mitchelstown.

The absence of an agreed strategic vision for the cattle market on the part of the Dublin Corporation and the sales-masters also contributed to its eventual closure.

If the market was to survive the radical changes taking hold in the Irish livestock trading environment in the early 1960s, then it would have to compete with the emerging mart movement.

Unfortunately, Dublin Corporation’s commitment to, and enthusiasm for, the Dublin Cattle Market was steadily waning.

End of an era

Minutes from corporation meetings in the 1960s are replete with complaints about traffic congestion in the vicinity of the market because of all the cattle trucks.

There were similar complaints regarding the moving of cattle through the streets of the city, and the consequent mess from cow dung.

Falling revenues accentuated the corporation’s dissatisfaction with the market.

Lower numbers at the Dublin Cattle Market’s sales meant reduced levies on livestock sales.

The market’s losses – which were borne by the Dublin Corporation – increased significantly during the 1960s. Losses totalled more than £11,000 in 1963, but had reached £22,000 by 1970, and exceeded £39,000 by 1972.

The lack of a long-term plan for the cattle market on the part of the Dublin Corporation certainly contributed to its inexorable decline from the mid-1960s.

Attempts were made to restructure and even relocate the market’s operations, but these efforts were undermined by legal challenges or by the lobbying power of various vested interests – or a combination of both.

Eventually, following a review of the market’s organisation and control in 1967-1968, the Dublin Corporation indicated that no further capital expenditure could be justified on the Prussia Street facility.

The writing was now on the wall for the Dublin Cattle Market – it was earmarked for closure.

The sales-masters bitterly resented the Corporation’s failure to invest in the market and legally opposed moves by the local authority to close the facility.

Ironically, however, they also consistently opposed any increase in the levies by the Corporation during the 1960s.

The sales-masters’ efforts to keep the Dublin Cattle Market open went all the way to the Supreme Court – but eventually failed.

The last 325 cattle were traded at Prussia Street on 9 May 9 1973.

Reflecting on the market’s closure, Joe Barry – whose family were sales-masters – said the Prussia Street facility was “invaluable for its time” but it was an “archaic way of doing business.”

“The whole way [the market] operated was for another era,” Barry maintained.

That era finally ended in 1973.

Dublin market hit by surge in beef exports

The unprecedented expansion in the Irish meat processing industry in the mid-1960s was a serious blow to the Dublin Cattle Market.

Under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement of 1965, Ireland committed to exporting at least 638,000 store cattle to Britain every year, with British subsidies, or deficiency payments, being paid on the animals.

Significantly, however, support payments were also extended to include 25,000t of Irish prime carcase beef exports to Britain.

This was a major concession on the part of the British government, as it was the first time that UK exchequer supports were paid on Irish processed beef.

Charles Haughey, the then Minister for Agriculture, took advantage of the British concession by offering subsidies on all Irish prime beef exports to the UK, in addition to the 25,000t which qualified for the deficiency payments.

Irish beef exports trebled in just three years as a consequence of the increased supports.

Exports

While overall beef exports totalled 55,000t in 1965, this figure rose to almost 150,000t by 1967.

Moreover, beef exports to Britain experienced the most profound growth yet, increasing from 28,000t to 100,000t between 1965 and 1970.

Irish and UK support payments to the beef processors totalled £10m between 1966 and 1970.

This prompted the Store Cattle Study Group report to observe that the growth in beef exports during this period was thanks to an “open-ended support system” from the Irish Government.

The increased supports for the beef processors had a negative impact on the Dublin Cattle Market, however. Exporters and English buyers could not compete for fat cattle against the factory agents.

Stiffer competition resulted in higher prices and this made Irish cattle less attractive for the English buyers. As a consequence, the numbers coming to Dublin declined steadily.

The numbers of fat cattle exported also collapsed in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement.

Fat cattle exports totalled nearly 200,000 head in 1966, but fell to just 16,000 two years later.

Animals that would formerly have been shipped and slaughtered in Birkenhead or Liverpool were now being processed at home in Ireland.

The loss of the fat cattle trade was a devastating blow for the Dublin Cattle Market. It had been one of the pillars of the sale.

This article is based on Declan O’Brien’s recent publication ‘The Dublin Cattle Market’s decline, 1955-73’. It is available from Four Courts Press.