Activity
The IAOS was dependent on the subscription fees of its member cooperatives and donations from philanthropic individuals. It quickly gained support across Ireland, and the number of cooperative organisations flourished. The Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI), a government department also founded by Plunkett, in 1899, provided assistance to the movement until the DATI was taken over Sir Thomas Russell, 1st Baronet.
The success of the movement was outlined as follows by Plunkett in his book Ireland in the New Century:
"By the autumn of this year (1903) considerably over eight hundred societies had been established, and the number is ever growing; of these 360 were dairy, and 140 agricultural societies, nearly 200 agricultural banks, 50 home industries societies, 40 poultry societies, while there were 40 others with miscellaneous objects. The membership may be estimated—I am writing towards the end of the Society's statistical year—at about 80,000, representing some 400,000 persons. The combined trade turnover of these societies during the present year will reach approximately £2,000,000, a figure the meaning of which can only be appreciated when it is remembered that the great majority of the associated farmers are in so small a way of business that in England they would hardly be classed as farmers at all."
By 1908, there were 881 cooperatives in Ireland with an annual turnover of £3.3 million.[12] These cooperatives represented 85,939 individual members, mostly farmers.[13] By 1910, the IAOS had organised over three hundred agricultural banks, which provided capital to farmers and acted as depositories for the joint credit and profit of the cooperatives.[14] While chiefly concerning itself with agricultural activity, it also aided the Irish flax industry and various other home industry societies.[15] The society built or purchased meeting halls in many rural Irish communities to act as focal points for cooperative activity. By 1914, the society had over 100,000 members.[16]
In 1908 donors to the society bought a large house in central Dublin, 84 Merrion Square, for Plunkett, and this became the headquarters of the IAOS, being named 'The Plunkett House'.[17] It also housed the headquarters of the Irish Homestead, a weekly journal which publicised the work and practice of the society.[18] In 1907, the IAOS employed eight organisers, seven men and one woman, each allocated a specific region.[19] It relied upon this small number of staff to communicate the official views of the movement to the grassroots membership. The IAOS attracted numerous notable employees and members, including Thomas Westropp Bennett, George William Russell ("AE"), Denis O'Donnell, Henry A. Wallace and Francis O'Brien, father of Conor Cruise O'Brien. With the advice and financial support of IAOS, the Society of United Irishwomen was formed in 1910. In 1935, the Society of the United Irishwomen changed its name to the Irish Countrywomen's Association (ICA).
Several of the largest businesses in Ireland, including Aryzta, Glanbia and Kerry Group, trace their roots to the cooperative farming activity initiated and supported by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society.[20] Today, the society continues as the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society, which serves and promotes commercial co-operative businesses and enterprise across multiple sections of the Irish economy.
Conflict with the British movement
The IAOS advocated the move from consumer co-operation to the promotion of creameries, leading to conflict with the British Co-operative Union, which had helped to finance some of the early propagandising in Ireland.[21] Some members felt that Plunkett and his followers were neglecting consumer cooperation. Relations between British and Irish co-operators remained strained, reaching breaking point in 1895 when the Manchester-based Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) established creameries in Ireland in competition with Irish co-operatives. The CWS, as the central wholesaling body of the British retail co-operative movement, already had economic interests in Ireland, including butter-buying agencies, and the move to set up creameries seemed a logical extension of its own business activities. Charges of imperialism were levelled at the Wholesale Society by the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society.[22] The CWS was a large and wealthy organisation which posed a serious threat to the Irish movement. It could buy up creameries and equip and run them at no expense to the local milk-producing farmers, though the IAOS feared that the longer-term effect would be a loss of control and economic dependency. Particularly worrying for Irish co-operators were indications that some farmers were prepared to take the short-term view, preferring to entrust the development of the milk-processing industry to outside interests. The CWS also had political links to the Liberal Party through their joint commitment to free trade, while the IAOS was concerned with protecting Irish farmers against the effects of free trade.
