One of the most striking photographs of life in the Irish countryside - to this observer anyway - is by the great photographer of yesterday R. J. Welch, showing two blackclad women each wielding a spade on a sloping field of lazy-beds. In the background are a couple of branchy thorntrees, untouched, of course. You don't shift what might be a fairy tree. The same may be seen in many parts of Ireland - even since the EEC, as it was, came in.
Anyway, the point about the two women in this context is in their spades. It's hard to see just what the shape of the blades is, so an article in the current Ireland of the Wel- comes which contains an article on a spade mill in Templepatrick, Co Antrim, is relevant. (It uses this photograph, small.) The waterpowered spade factory or mill in Templepatrick, founded in 1719 by a journeyman spademaker called William George Patterson, was one of many which sprang up at the time. The plough was probably beyond many of the spudplanters and anyway their holdings in many cases would be so small.
The lazy-bed style of planting still shows up on hillsides long grassed over, especially in evening light. The article by Leslie Gilmore, "Call a Spade a Spade", tells us that the demand in the 18th century went far beyond the capacity of local blacksmiths to supply enough specialised spades, so spade mills appeared. After the Famine, with its deaths and emigration, many spade mills closed, but even in 1862 there were one or two in every Irish county. Believe it or not, there are 171 known types of spade in this country.
The loy and the gowl-gob are mentioned - the latter a specialised spade for paring off the top layer of sods to make a roof, or when opening a turf bog. The last Patterson died in 1990, but the National Trust saved the mill from disappearing by getting support from private, Government and European funding. Colin Dawson, an engineer who had worked with the Pattersons, got the job of running the mill. (The Pattersons carried all their knowledge in their heads.) A spade is not just a spade. The illustrations show examples ranging from your average, slightly wedgedshaped spade to long, slender, blades with a lift and sometimes tapering. The shaft (ash) is always straight, not curved "as in an English spade".
In 19th-century Ireland, it is said, each family member consumed 8 lbs of potatoes daily and a labourer could manage 14 lbs at a sitting. Visitors buy much of the present production. Make a novel Christmas present.