Newport Creamery Case Study

The trade turnover for the Newport creamery in 1918 was reported at a substantial sum of £34,765. At the Nenagh Quarter Session of the County Court in October, in efforts to recoup the endured losses a claim was lodged by the society for £20,000. The magistrate awarded £12,339 in damages, which also included interest at six percent for the duration of one and a half years on the value of the stock destroyed. Furthermore, an additional fifteen percent was awarded for the increase in the price of the replacement machinery. Although the amount awarded hitherto was a proportional increase on other the County Court settlements, there is little doubt that the impact of the closure of this budding endeavour would have hit the local community extremely …show more content…
The antagonistic rhetoric in the public domain pertaining to the ‘state of affairs in Ireland’, was intensified through attempts made by the British Military to justify their actions in Newport. Despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, the Military set forth a wholly fabricated account of what happened. The explanation proffered was essentially surreptitious rational, principle manufactured to make the excessive violence palatable for the British public. Correspondingly, the calculatedly opaque position being adopted by both the British Government and Military was extremely significant. Not only did it fuel a growing schism in Westminster concerning the tactics being deployed in Ireland, their obtuse attitude towards the burning of Newport creamery and the destruction of a further thirty-five creameries over a nine-month period in 1920, greatly accelerated the veracious inertia of both Sir Horace Plunkett and Ӕ, among others. As a consequence, much public attention befell upon the destruction of the creameries in the Munster region. Accordingly, due in part to this horrendous crime committed by the British Military in Newport County Tipperary, sharp focus would be levied upon the terror tactics being bestowed upon large sections of the Irish …show more content…
In the early hours of the morning on the 24 July 1920, the ‘most up-to-date creamery’, belonging to the Garryspillane Co-operative Society, was set upon by the Forces of the Crown. According to testimony gathered from local residents, a ‘raiding party’ constituted by ‘Black and Tans’, was observed ‘setting the place ablaze’. The attack rendered useless ‘most of the valuable machinery’, of which much had only been installed within the past two years. Moreover, a state of the art ‘refrigeration plant’, at a cost of between £700 and £1000, ‘was left a mass of warped