Internationalism and the Sugar Industry in Ireland

The friendly attitude of Belgian diplomats and businessmen to the emerging Irish Free State arguably led to the successful founding of the sugar industry in the 1920s. The Carlow factory was the first state-owned to be built in 1926, and the second last to close in 2004. Most investment came from continental sources, and all the scientists, technologists, engineers and foremen came from abroad, either permanently or for ‘the Campaign’, until such a time as Irish personnel were trained. The foundation sod for three of the four Irish factories was turned by Eamonn De Valera, and the strong partnership of Church and State at the time ensured that all new factories also received a blessing.

From the beginning, sugar production in Ireland was promoted as a form of national self-sufficiency, though it relations with places overseas were embedded even before its ownership by the State: Irish citizens were transported as slaves to sugar cane fields in Barbados after Cromwell’s sacking of Drogheda in 1650; in 1768 Irish slaves plan a failed rebellion in Montserrat on St. Patrick’s Day; and in 1856, the Irish sugar industry inspired and helped the Mormons set up same in the USA. The songs of the Germans and Czechoslovakians became very popular in the 1930s in Irish sugar factory towns, and forty years later no Irish sugar social would end without a rendering of Deutschland Uber Aller or Cikanka.