Michael O’Hanlon
In the late 19th century, hiring fairs were held in more than eighty towns in Ulster. Thousands of young people went to them looking for work, yet there is very little documentation on either the fairs or the hiring system. In this book, O’Hanlon has presented a largely oral history of hiring in the North West. His account is unsentimental, yet shows the drama of the human relationships involved. He describes the oppression and hardships suffered by many farm servants, yet warns us quite correctly against judging the system simply from the point of view of our own values.
