fairs and markets

fairs and markets reflect different patterns of economic activity. A market relies on a settled pattern of trade with an urban infrastructure and a volume of exchange sufficient to maintain its regular, usually weekly, occurrence. A fair by contrast is seasonal, needs little by way of infrastructure, and is often highly specialized. Within the context of the Irish economic structure fairs were more prominent than markets. Early Irish literature records the existence of a number of fairs, such as that at Tara (held up to 1800) or that at Glendalough, which were often associated with major political events or religious sites. Throughout the Middle Ages there were smaller fairs associated with parochial centres which were held on the patronal feast day. The tradition of holding fairs on the saints' feast days and on one or two of the following days existed by the 16th century, when evidence for such events becomes clearer and merchants from the Pale travelled to the larger fairs in Gaelic Ireland, and continued into the 19th century.

With the spread of royal authority in the late 16th and early 17th centuries landowners began to take out royal grants of rights to hold markets and fairs, which allowed them to charge tolls. In 1684 503 fairs were recorded as operating, almost half in the more commercialized eastern province of Leinster. By the 1770s over 3,000 fairs were operational but just over a quarter were located in Leinster, reflecting both wider commercialization and the growing importance of regional economies. Many of these fairs grew up by custom and in 1852 37 per cent of all fairs were operating without patents. The first half of the 19th century saw a contraction in the number of fairs, with only 1,297 being recorded in 1852. By 1890 this had contracted yet further to 793.

Fairs were, in the main, seasonal events. Most centres had two or more fairs a year, each of which fulfilled different roles, although over the 19th century smaller centres came to have fewer fairs, most being concentrated in the larger towns. Most important were the livestock fairs, many of which developed in the 18th century with the increased specialization of cattle rearing and dairying, the best known being that at Ballinasloe. These occurred in May and June for the setting of animals for fattening and in October and November for slaughter. Hiring fairs were important in the north‐west of the country.

Over the 19th century attempts were made to regulate fairs, which were often seen as unruly and sometimes riotous. The most famous of these times of carnival, Donnybrook fair in Dublin, was suppressed in 1867. A series of enactments, beginning with the 1847 Markets and Fairs Clause Act and followed by the Local Government Acts of 1872 and 1898, regulated fairs more carefully. By abolishing tolls and regulating weights and measures this legislation removed some of the most common sources of friction.

In contrast to fairs, markets reflect a more established pattern of economic activity. Settler landlords in the early 17th century, anticipating a significant growth in the economy, took out grants for over 500 markets. However, the attraction of cheap land in the surrounding countryside made it difficult to establish market towns, and most markets remained small or disappeared altogether. The development of a more internally specialized regional economy created a greater need for market towns from the late 17th century and inland markets grew at the expense of port towns. This was complemented by the expansion of road building in the late 18th and early 19th centuries which linked market towns into a trading network. From the early 18th century, meanwhile, improving landlords began to see the growth of markets as an important part of the improvement of their estates. They invested heavily in the infrastructure required, building market houses and laying out market squares as part of the replanning of their estate towns.

Bibliography

O'Flanagan, P. , ‘Markets and Fairs in Ireland, 1600–1800: An Index of Regional Growth’, Journal of Historical Geography, 11 (1983)

Raymond Gillespie