From archives: Castlebar Hat Factory workers make their way across Belgium
PART TWO
By Tom Gillespie
EIGHTY-four years ago this month - June 1939 - a group of 21 workers employed at Castlebar Hat Factory embarked on a trip to Belgium to learn the craft of hat making.
In a special article in The Connaught Telegraph they wrote: Back in Victoria Station we took our seats on the boat train for the Continent. It was certainly a magnificent train; the third class compartments were much more comfortable than the first class at home.
On the way down to Dover great interest was taken in the network of high cane sticks and the extensive tillage; it’s a great country for hops and other crops, and they are all trying to put on the growing of vines in the open - very successfully, I believe.
As we arrived at the boat all passports were scrutinised by the British authorities before embarking. We pulled out from Dover on a perfectly smooth sea at 12.30 p.m., and seeing England from the outside, the cliffs of Dover looked a poor sight compared to our last glimpse of Ireland. The cliffs of chalk may have a great history to tell, but beauty they have none. Yet to many a war-worn soldier in the Great War they were beauty par excellence - the first sight of home and peace.
As it was time for lunch we sat down to a five-course repast on board. It certainly was fine; they did things remarkable well on the Ostend boats.
Out on deck chairs afterwards, we enjoyed the wonderful hot sun, and it took four hours to reach Ostend. For an hour before landing we looked to the long stretch of Belgian coast, with its four-storey houses built all the way on the seafront.
Shortly we pulled in on Ostend’s hardy seashore, noted all over the world for its beautiful beach.
Once more we were on land, to be accosted again for passports by the Belgian authorities. I explained to the official that I had a party of 21, and, having seen one or two passengers, he said: “Oh, these are the new Irish passports. You have eliminated the King of England from them.”
I said: “Yes, but it took a long time to do it.” Then he remarked: “Your leader De Valera, is a very brilliant man.” With the foregoing remark he allowed all the remainder to pass through without examining the remainder of the passports. I took this as a great compliment to our new passports and to our country.
We took the Continental Express, which goes right through Belgium, Germany and Russia, and a fast mover it was, doing 60 and 70 miles an hour without a shake across Belgium.
The party was amazed at the intensive tillage. There wasn’t a foot left in any field but produced its crop.
Mile after mile it was the same, and on making enquiries I was told that the farmers had no protection from foreign competition and in no case had they a guaranteed price for any crop.
As a matter of fact, Holland, their next-door neighbour, is a strong competitor on the Belgian market with their farm crops, and have a free market in competition with local farmers.
I thought that it was unreasonably hard on the Belgian farmers to have to face world competition at the present time (1939), when prices were never so low in history; but such is life, and they seem to manage, as their little houses look neat and, to outward appearances, the folk seem most prosperous and happy.
Their wheat crops caused great surprise to the boys, it was so far advanced. It had shot up and must be five or six weeks ahead to our crop; but then one of the boys remarked that the oats were no better than in Ireland.
In general, the Belgians must be marvellous farmers as not a wall was to be seen and no headlands - all was tilled; and in every field the whole family, men and women, boys and girls, were all at the hoe.
We raced along and got into Ghent where factory chimneys were to be seen at once. This is a great textile centre and also a great district for flowers, where a wonderful flower show is held later in the year, and they aim at knocking out Holland in the production of bulbs.
We roll along to Brussels, the heart-pulse of the nation, having a million inhabitants, with its parliament of Deputies and Senators, about 300 in all. They say they have far too many for eight million people; and if that be true we must be well overloaded.
Out we pulled from the capital having a feeling that there is a wealth in this great little country, with its vast network of train tracks, some for steam trains, some for electric, and some for underground tube trains. There must be a score of platforms.
It struck me what a great advantage to Dublin it would be if we had one central station, like Brussels, in the heart of the city; and I could not help reminding myself that England sent across to Ireland all her wastrels and to get rid of them and gave them big jobs to carve up and run the country in any old way they liked so long as they did not see or hear of them any more.
Hence the scattered, antiquated out-of-date railway system in Ireland today (1939).
But I’m afraid I am digressing. On we go to Liege, the first place the Germans were held up in the Great War, when the brave little soldiers of Belgium made a lone stand against the usual arrogance of the big bully.
Liege has coal mines and all sorts of factories. It is a thriving town, and recently a canal half-a-mile wide was cut through all the way to the sea at Antwerp. It serves a dual purpose - it is now (1939) a strong line of defence and acts as cheap navigation for conveyor manufactured goods to the sea.
This tremendous undertaking cost several million pounds. It took courage and initiative to build up any country.