ABSTRACT
While most historical studies of modernity focus upon its urban iterations, this chapter proposes an analytical shift to an investigation of the countryside, with a particular focus on Irish agriculture in transnational perspective. Rural Ireland underwent massive transformation in the nineteenth century, as it experienced famine, emigration, and land reform alongside the challenges caused by deeper integration into a global marketplace. Rural reformers viewed the dissemination of the co-operative model of ownership over agricultural businesses as the most effective way to counter the challenges experienced by farmers as they sought to remain economically competitive. The resulting transnational exchange of ideas, expertise, and finance occurred extensively between groups of co-operators. This chapter shows how informal networks of progressive and cosmopolitan practitioners helped promote the co-operative modernisation of agriculture in Ireland and beyond. The Irish co-operative emerged as one of the world’s foremost agricultural development movements in the early twentieth century, under the leadership of Horace Plunkett. Although a controversial figure in Ireland, Plunkett was recognised as an economic intellectual heavyweight overseas and a de facto leader of rural co-operators throughout the Euro-American world. The chapter focuses on the transatlantic connections cultivated by Plunkett as he promoted co-operative principles abroad and translated new forms of agrarian knowledge back into an Irish context.
