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The hiring fairs that sent children out to work for £2 a month

Cuimhneamh Social Media A school play is taking place up at the front is a woman with a hat, black coat and blue patterned scarf. In the background is children wearing a navy top and trousers, or a dress while sitting on a stage.Cuimhneamh Social Media
Hiring fairs - which, for nearly 200 years, were used to send children out to work - formed the basis of a play as part of a recent winter school

For nearly 200 years, hiring fairs were a reality of life for many poor families.

Children, some as young as nine, sent away for months on end to work on large farms for little pay.

In south Armagh, the main hiring fair was in Newtownhamilton but children from poor families were also hired from nearby Newry and Dundalk.

This practice continued until the 1940s, and it was during this latter period that folklorist Michael J Murphy campaigned against the fairs.

He also gathered the testimony of many of those who had been hired out and it is this work that formed the basis of the recent Michael J Murphy Winter School.

That event also featured a new drama, The Hiring Fair, which featured local children acting out the scenes.

School children standing next to each other with their teacher in the middle. To the left of the teacher is three female pupils with tied back hair wearing hoodies and one wearing a sports top. On the right of the teacher, who has long ginger hair and is wearing black, is two female students and a male, all are wearing a sip-up top and a body warmer.
Playwright Pauline Lynch with some of the children involved in The Hiring Fair

'Widespread practice'

According to historian Kevin Murphy, the hiring fairs practice was widespread.

"From this area there was hardly a household who didn't have someone hired at a hiring fair," he said.

"They were hired into the good land of course, which was in Down, north Armagh and as far as County Antrim – as far as Islandmagee and Templepatrick.

"Most children left school very early then. The families were big and they couldn't manage to feed them.

"The farms were small so you had a massive outflow of people."

The fairs took place in May and November. Those chosen left home for six months.

The work was often hard, the treatment mixed and the pay poor.

"They were marched up and down, the prospective employers felt their muscles, asked them if they could plough, if they could bake bread," Mr Murphy said.

"Then there was a bargaining situation and they got as low as £2 for six months.

"Gradually it went up, so that a young lad of 14 or 15 might be getting £5 or £6 for the six months but they got nothing at all if they left early."

Pauline Lynch with long ginger hair in a close-up shot staring at the camera. She wears a black top and has pink lipstick on. In the background is an office chair and desk with posters and a print on the wall.
A drama featuring testimonies was also prepared by Pauline Lynch

'My Nanny and Granda told me about it'

Michael J Murphy's work collected the experiences of those hired and the recent winter school continued in that spirit, collating as many photographs and testimonies from those who had been hired as possible.

It was those testimonies that formed the basis The Hiring Fair, a drama written by Pauline Lynch and featuring local young people.

"There were letters from the children to their parents and they were very honest," she said.

"I devised scenes around the information in the letters and it was lovely to involve the young people."

Some of those young people who took part in the play didn't just learn their lines, they also learned of family members who had been hired out.

Éabha, a Year 8 pupil at St Paul's High School in Bessbrook, was one of those involved.

"The play was about a man called Michael J Murphy and he was from Dromintee and that's where we are from," she said.

"So my Daddy was telling me his Granda Michael went to the hiring fair.

"It was very interesting learning about it. I'd be really scared if it was me."

Liam said his great grandfather was also hired out.

"His name was Pat Shelvin," he said.

"I only found out when I started this and my Nanny and Granda told me about it.

"I didn't know it was a thing - but it seems very cruel that they were sent out.

"I'd be very homesick and it would take time for me to acclimatise to the new area."

Grandad was 'one of the success stories'

Family photo A black and white archive photo of the late Owen Pyers attending a wedding. He is an elderly man with white hair. He is wearing a dark suit, white shirt, a striped tie and has a flower in his buttonhole.Family photo
Owen Pyers was 14 when he was hired to work on a farm in County Down

Among the child labourers who were sent to Newry Hiring Fair was the late Owen Pyers from the townland of Carrive, outside Forkhill in County Armagh.

He was just 14 when he was hired to work on a farm in Annaclone, County Down, more than 20 miles away from his family home.

"He is viewed as one of the success stories," his granddaughter Paula Pyers Magee told BBC News NI.

She explained that Owen and his young siblings were all sent to hiring fairs as children and they later ended up emigrating to the USA.

But Owen was the only one of his family to return.

Paula explained that her grandfather earned enough money in America to buy his own farm in Annaclone and built a house close to where he had worked as a boy.

He got married and raised five children in Annaclone, most of whom later set up their own homes on Owen's farmland.

"Grandad's hard work and vision provided homes for all of us," Paula said.

"Fate brought him home."

Paula was among the speakers who shared their relatives' stories at a forum in the Michael J Murphy Winter School in Mullaghbane.

She said the experiences of the child workers from the hiring fairs were "not talked about" for a long time but "are such an important part of our history".

The team behind the research project have been publishing families' testimonies on social media and they now hope to preserve their work in a book.