[An updated version of this post can be found here.]
In the last post we looked at the 17th and 18th century and how much growing of hops was taking place in Ireland, especially in the middle years of the 1700s. Much of this was driven, or at least aided, by the Dublin Society in their efforts to establish home industries to replace imports. We also saw mentions of hop growing dwindle significantly as we headed towards the 19th century so let us take it from that point and see if there was a revival for that much misrepresented plant in this country.
1801 - There is a mention of duty to be
paid on importation of hops from Ireland into Great Britain in Steel's
Tables of the British Custom and Excise Duties published in that year and
also in a Parliamentary register the previous year which would lead us to believe
there was still some hop growing in the country or at least the potential to do
so.
1801 - A Mr. R. Smyth wrote to the
Dublin Society regarding his espalier-trained hops that he was growing on half
a rood (one eight of an acre) of his father's land in Kells Co. Meath, which he
used in his own ale - via Transactions of the Dublin Society, Volume 2, Part
1 1801
1806 - A London newspaper reports that
a duty of two-pence halfpenny per pound weight was resolved to be imposed on
Irish hops by a committee in the House of Commons in England, it was passed a
couple of weeks later. There are many other mentions of this bill too which
again would make you think there was some trade between Ireland and Britain,
unless they were just covering themselves in case there was a resurgence in the
growing of hops on this island.
1816 - The Dublin Society were offering
a premium of 1 shilling per barrel for beer brewed with Irish hops for private
use or sale.
1833 - A John Pendergast from Inistioge
in Kilkenny wrote to an English paper putting forth the idea of the landed
gentry starting hop farms in Ireland to give more work to those living on their
estates and to free said gentry 'from the enormous dead weight the
heretofore has existed upon their well-known beneficence.' (!) It was
reprinted a Dublin newspaper where the editor poured scorn on the idea that the
gentry of Ireland would be interested in such a plan. Mr. Pendergast also
suggested that an Irish acre would produce 26 cwt of hops at 7 pound 12
shillings per cwt. In response to the above letter 'a Kent Radical'
responded to say that there is an act of parliament which prohibits any one in
Ireland from owning a hop farm larger than a quarter or perhaps half an acre. I
cannot find any such legislation but maybe it is hidden somewhere or is combined
into some much older act I am unaware of that prevented Catholics from owning any more land
for crops that was necessary to feed themselves?
1835 - Under the headline ‘Irish
Hops’ a Belfast newspaper states that The Commission of Revenue Inquiry
recommended that Irish grown hops should pay a similar rate of duty as those
grown in England. (There are also mentions of duties on ‘Irish hops’ in
1843, 1845 and 1846 in various parliamentary records.) Once again this would
indicate that hops were possibly still being grown somewhere on the island and in enough
quantities to warrant discussion in parliament.
1849 - A report in an Irish newspaper
in April via The Globe of the vessel ‘Erin's Queen’ arriving in London from
Belfast with 18 packets of hops. Is this the first export of Irish hops to
England? Probably not but it is the first record I can find. It would certainly
have been going against the flow of hops coming the opposite direction so it
would seem to be a noteworthy occurrence.
1849 - An English newspaper report of
‘The Citizen’ arrived in the Thames in May from Dublin with 27 (20 quoted
elsewhere) pockets of hops from Ireland, which it appears was – unsurprisingly
- not a common occurrence.
1849 - A Mr. Samuel Burke of
Thomastown, Kilrush in Co. Clare sowed and acre and a half of hops. It was said
to be a novelty 'in that part of the country.’
1849 - An English newspaper carries a mention
under the title 'Irish Hops' of a vessel arriving in the Thames from Belfast in
October carrying 5 pockets of hops that states that they are 'the produce of
Ireland' and that 'this is the first arrival of this article from the
sister country' - but as we saw above there were earlier shipments.
1849 - A mention in a London
Newspaper in December of bales of hops arriving into England 'some time
since' from an Irish port and that this was 'of some interest' and
that there had been a further arrival of several bales on a ship called the ‘Cannaught[sic]
Ranger’ from Sligo and Derry, and this was the 'second importation of the
kind from the sister country' which again may be a little off the mark.
1850 - The vessel ‘Ranger’ arrived in
London from Belfast, Dublin and Waterford in February and 'brought some
packages of hops, as a portion of her cargo from the Irish metropolis, the
produce of that country.’
1850 - A small note in an English
newspaper in March that states - 'Irish Hops. Several additional
importations of hops from Ireland have recently been noted. Hitherto the
largest import has been eleven bales' so again we can see errors in
reporting based on what was mentioned above. A sign that we need to be wary of
what is reported in newspapers ...
1850 - Under the title 'Irish
Hops' in an English newspaper in August, 17 packages arrived in London from
Ireland.
Just a note on all these shipments. Although there are numerous mentions of these being Irish produced hops the doubting part of my brain thinks that maybe there were imported from elsewhere and passed of as Irish hops for financial reasons? I have no proof of this of course, but I think it may be worth considering, however unlikely it may be. For now I am taking it at face value that hops were being grown in Ireland and exported to England for use by breweries in that country – an interesting and I would image surprising turn of event to many of you!
1852 - A reference in the proceedings
of the now ‘Royal’ Dublin Society regarding an exhibition mentions a donation
of a ‘specimen of Irish-grown hops’ donated by a John L. Tute of Blackrock amongst
other agricultural specimens.
1855 - A newspaper mention that an
experiment to grow hops in Ballyteigue, Wexford by a John Stafford was
successful - the reporter sounded quite surprised!
1865 - 'Hop Growing at Kingstown
[Dún Laoghaire] - A fine specimen of this useful creeper may now be seen in
front of the residence of Captain Wilcox, Royal Terrace. It is very strange
that hops are not more generally nurtured in Ireland' according to the Catholic
Telegraph newspaper.
1867 - Thomas Bromwich a hop grower at
Temple Farm near Alton in Hampshire was advertising hop plants for sale in an
Irish paper under the headline, 'Hops, Hops, for Ireland.'
1867 - A newspaper mentions a successful
attempt was made to grow hops in Ireland with the hope that there might be a
larger scale experiment in the near future. No further information is given.
1872-1873 - A chart published in Thom's Directory of Ireland shows
no acreage for hops in these years. Similar charts towards the end of the 19th
century show similar results, although there is no way of being 100% positive
that the information was being recorded correctly. It also possible and probable
that it was on such a small scale, perhaps just for a breweries own use that it
would be unregistered.
Pre 1900? - There is a reference to hops being grown extensively on Whiddy Island in Cork in the schools collection on the Dúchas website but no dates unfortunately so I’m assuming the period to be in the 19th century given the tone of the mention.
So by one
standard this was an unexciting century for Irish hops and towards the end it
appears that we had forgotten that we grew hops here at all! Once again the middle
part of the century is the most interesting, as attested by those shipments of
Irish hops to England. It would be nice to think that those were used in
English ales – and I presume they probably were. I wonder is there any records
in London or elsewhere of ale brewed with Irish hops?
Somehow I doubt it…
As you
can see there is quite a bit of conjecture and assumption in this based on the
various newspaper reports, so as ever we need to be wary enough on what we read
into those articles. Having said that there are certainly enough mentions to
suggest a continuity of hop growing in the country even if it appears to
dwindle at times to sparse comments.
Still, at least we appear to have been a hop exporting country – however briefly – at one time…
The last part of this trilogy will focus on the 20th century, which is a very interesting and busy time for hop growing in Ireland!
Liam
P.S. I have purposely omitted the actual sources of exact newspaper mentions as there are quite a few and it was pain-staking research, but if anyone needs them please email or DM me and I’ll send you on the details.
Newspaper image © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk from whom I have received permission to display here).
5 comments:
I discovered recently there's a Hop Island in Cork harbour. I can't seem to find an explanation of its name, though. Possibly the only place in the country named after the hop plant?
Oh interesting, I had a quick look and could find a reference to it being called after a French Huguenot that had land on the island and taught dance so they called it 'Hop' island after him ... but that was in a 19th century book so it's a good way removed from that time - will have a better look later. It was also called Red Island and Island Roe (Rua?)...
Cheers, another rabbit hole to explore!
This one with literal rabbit holes.
A quick Google has not revealed detailed stats on Irish beer production either side of the Famine, other than generalities about it being badly hit and then recovering pretty quickly, driven by Guinness' success in the export market.
But it's not surprising that Irish hops became available for export at a time when any grain was presumably being diverted from beer to desperately-needed food.
Jacques Lagueux
To:
beerfoodtravel@gmail.com
Fri., Dec. 10 at 1:19 p.m.
Hi Liam,
First off, please forgive my English writings, I'm French Canadian ;-). While doing research on ancient hops, I came accross:
The History of Hop Growing in Ireland - Part 1: The 17th & 18th Century``
To make a long story short, Initiating myself to hops and brewing, I came in contact with information on a lost and abandoned village in Québec, Canada that was colonized by an Isrish settlers. Here are a links refering to the historical beginings:
http://laurentian.quebecheritageweb.com/article/shrewsbury-vanished-village
https://morrison13750.tripod.com/
The first clues of this abandoned village were mentionned to me by my father in law whom had read a novel in which there was some hystorical information about an old village where the community was in majority Irish. It also mentionned that some members of this community made beer and sold it illegally. Most interestingly, this was done while the government alcohol prohibition act was enforced.
My father in law Whom lives not to far off Shrewsbury, also told me that one of the lake's resident near his country house (some 20-25 years ago) took his compoass and went out in the forest to find to this village and therefore find the hops these settlers were growing. Lucky him!! He did find some and brought some back, grew it and brewed.
All of this really cought my highest attention and acted upon it! I went and met this resident's descendants on the lake. They still had the hops growing wild on there property (It was not producing fruits anymore) and gave me permission to take some root cuttings. Well, guess what? With my background expertise in horticulture, I got these old vines to produce again. The fragrance of the cones was very potent and produced a supridingly good IPA. These hop vines are some of the oldest vines in Canada (from the information found about Shrewsbury, I estimate this unknown variety to be approximately 180 years old).
YES! Irish hops has made it's way to Canada and in times of commercial conflicts with UK ;-)
Hope you will find all of this very stimulating to read.
Finally and if by any chance you have an idea on the possible variety of this hop, I would be more than happy to here from you.
Best regards,
Jack
Post a Comment