Features
Spirit and stamina
When Pat Flanagan herded cattle on a 5,000 acre estate, he spent a good part of his days on horseback, riding through the herd and checking the condition of animals. You could be forgiven for thinking Australia or Argentina maybe, but Pat worked for most of his life on the Rockingham Estate in Boyle, Co. Roscommon.
Rockingham has a long and well documented history. In medieval times the lands of the MacGreevys of Moylurg, it was granted to Sir John King by Queen Elizabeth during the Cromwellian period and amounted to over 20,000 acres at the time. The King-Harman family held the land up to the death of Sir Cecil King-Harman when it was inherited by Thomas Stafford who married Sir Cecil's daughter. That was the beginning of the association with the Flanagan family that saw three generations employed at Rockingham. "My grandfather and Stafford were reared together and were school friends in Elphin," Pat explains. "While Stafford went to practice medicine my grandfather went farming. Stafford never forgot their association and years later he asked my grandfather to manage the estate." This was no easy task as a bill had to be passed in the House of Commons - the first of its kind - permitting a Catholic to manage the estate. Of course, Thomas Stafford knew the calibre of the man he was hiring. "He was a great judge of cattle and horses," Pat says.
Model farm
Pat took me on a tour of the farmyard to show me what had once been a hive of industry. He continues "Water was pumped from a spring to supply the yard and houses. The Steward and some employees lived in the farmyard. It had good animal housing, hay sheds, a weighbridge for cattle and a yard for silage." Despite hard economic times and plenty of hard work, Pat enjoyed his years at Rockingham.
"We had three big shoots in the year and two gamekeepers were employed," Pat says. "Pheasants were reared for release and many of the English gentry were invited over to shoot." These invitations had an ulterior motive. "They would buy the cattle produced on the estate and they were shipped abroad. They went out by train from Boyle to England and from Collooney to Scotland."
Pat's uncle Jim brought him to work on the estate but they didn't get on and he decided to emigrate to London in the mid nineteen thirties as an innocent twenty-year old. The only useful advice he got on leaving came from British soldiers employed at Rockingham who advised him to avoid women of ill repute!
His first job was in a bar and this was a culture shock to Pat who never drank alcohol in his life. He found it very lonely and later moved to a job in a hotel in north London. There he had a chance meeting with Lord Ha Ha, Stephen Joyce, who used to frequent the hotel.
Two of his sisters and a brother joined him in London and he found jobs for them as well. His brother ended up enlisting in the army while drunk and later found himself in Dunkirk. He spent three years as a prisoner of war in Poland, and even though he managed to escape once, he was recaptured but eventually was freed and came home. After almost two years Pat came back to Roscommon and was taken on as a worker at Rockingham by his father.
New era
Everything changed when Rockingham House burnt down in the 1950's and the estate was put up for sale. Poor economic circumstances meant that there were few buyers. Pat would have liked to buy the estate but the banks wouldn't give him a hearing. A local committee was set up in Boyle and the then Minister for Agriculture, Erskine Childers, was invited to meet the group. He and Pat adjourned to a separate room for talks. "Childers had a pipe and tobacco I had a pipe," he jokes. "There was so much smoke coming out from under the door, people thought the room was on fire."
The Land Commission eventually bought the estate and gave grazing rights to many of the farmers in the locality. This was good news for Pat because he and another local man, John Boyd, were employed as herders on the estate. He showed me his record book from 1961 when almost 1,000 cattle were kept on the estate. "Farmers would pay a grazing fee and records were kept through herd and tag numbers. They were the best seven years of my life," he says. "You were meeting people all the time."
Eventually, the Land Commission divided the land among local farmers and Pat got fifty-one acres. "Its good land around here," says Pat. "The Jesuits were here hundreds of years ago and they picked only the best of land." Part of the estate became Lough Key Forest Park, one of the most scenic and widely used state parks in the country.
Good organic market
Dealing in cattle was always Pat's thing and the photographs on his wall are testimony to the quality of the stock he produced over the years.
Never one to stand still, he attended a meeting on organic farming in Boyle twelve years ago and decided straight away to convert. "To tell the truth I decided there was money in it and I knew the system would suit me," he says. He buys in cattle in March and sells again in October/November. "I like to rest the land for the winter and it's easy to fatten cattle once you have good grass."
At first he found a ready market in Northern Ireland where stock were bought for the UK market but the campaign for British beef meant those markets were lost. Now he sells locally without much bother. He is very happy with his contacts in the organic world and finds organic people helpful and good.
It's in the genes
Pat is the fittest ninety-three year old you could meet and he goes swimming three times a week to the pool in Carrick-on-Shannon. "I started swimming in Australia when I went out to visit my daughters and I kept it up," he says. He puts his longevity down to the genes he inherited from his mother who lived to ninety-six. Beyond that however, is the hardiness that people of his generation exemplify, a strength and resilience that is lost to later generations. "We had hard times in the old days," he says. "If people were cute they did well but you had to avoid the drink. My great grandfather drove cattle to the fair in Ballinasloe. That took days with a horse cart of hay for feed. The men slept under the trees at night. He brought cattle from Ballina through Tubbercurry where they had to rest for a few days. It was a different time."
He raised his own family in tough times but managed to put them through college from where they went on to successful professional careers. He relies on his grandson, Dr. Kevin Flanagan, to do most of his cattle buying for him. "He is as good a judge of cattle as you will get, better a lot than me," he insists.
After several hours of talking I'm beginning to wilt but enough anecdotes and stories come flowing from Pat to fill a book. I leave in the sunshine, happy in the knowledge that I have met one of life's true gentlemen.
Woulderful to see him still active
Long may he continue to enjoy all that he does and set us all an example of how we should try to live our lives.
Loved the article and the handsome man in the armchair.
Thank you,
Thanks.