The "Dawn of the Practical": Horace Plunkett and the Cooperative Movement

The name of Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett (1854–1932) is unlikely to be found in any catalog of Irish heroes; he is more likely to be portrayed as a prominent "might-have-been," consigned to a forgotten corner of Irish history.¹ Like some of them, he may arguably be considered "that intractable thing, an unyielding moderate"—a species to which Irish history has not necessarily been kind.² Superficially, it is inaccurate to say he is forgotten. Most educated Irish persons can correctly identify him as the founder of the cooperative movement in Ireland, and the organizations he founded—among them the Irish Cooperative Organisation Society (ICOS) and the Plunkett Foundation—are still going concerns, although both face the perennial problem of inadequate funding.³ Yet Plunkett's contribution to the creation of the modern Irish state remains relatively unrecognized. He is no more heralded today than when he felt compelled to quit his country and enter self-imposed exile in England in 1923, after the burning and destruction of his home near Dublin by IRA irregulars.

Although the cooperative movement was Plunkett's life work, his restless energy involved him on many fronts. Over the four decades that encompassed the Irish Revival, the Home Rule debates, the Anglo-Irish and civil wars, and the consolidation of the Irish Free State, Plunkett—in addition to his work on behalf of the cooperative movement—also chaired the "Recess Committee" that led to the creation of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI); served for a quarter century on the Congested Districts Board (CDB); chaired the Irish Convention (1917–18) that sought to deliver a solution to the Irish Question; was deeply engaged in the creation of the "Country Life Commission" in the United States; sat for seven years as an MP at Westminster; worked behind the scenes on Britain's behalf to bring the United States into World War I; and managed a variety of personal investments and commercial interests.

His involvement in party politics was a significant distraction from his reforming work in the cooperative movement. As a lukewarm Unionist, his independence alienated party leaders, while earning him no political capital among nationalists. Indeed, his lack of a political "home" made him an object of considerable suspicion, misunderstanding, and often derision. Nominally a Protestant, Plunkett in fact had little use for any organized religion. He failed, most conspicuously in Ireland in the New Century (1904), to negotiate the minefield of religious sensitivities in Ireland; his criticism of both religious traditions in Ireland undermined his own influence and that of his cooperative movement.

An inveterate capitalist, Plunkett was an unlikely campaigner for a movement for agricultural reform based upon the principles of cooperative organization. It is little wonder that his motives were, and remain, so widely misunderstood. Many of Plunkett's nationalist contemporaries believed that his cooperative movement was merely an instrument of constructive Unionism. But such an assessment minimizes the very core of his agenda: a consistently cohesive and practical program of socioeconomic reform. In addition to seeking to apply cooperative ideas and ideals to rural development, Plunkett also focused on widespread practical education, the adoption of new technologies and business methods, linkages with such cultural organizations as the Gaelic League and the GAA, and the development of a commercial ethos within what Plunkett called "the national character." Although Plunkett's program was only partially implemented, it represented a holistic, organic, practical template for the social and economic regeneration of Ireland.

Plunkett's famous slogan of "Better Farming, Better Business, Better Living" both encapsulated his broad program of "practical idealism" and added a social dimension to the cooperative movement. In recognizing that economic development should represent the quality of life of a people, rather than just a narrow measure of productivity like Gross National Product, Plunkett anticipated modern developmental economics. With the help of George Russell (1867–1935), Plunkett's movement also evinced a nondenominational spiritual dimension that complemented and supported the material program of cooperation and economic development. Plunkett emphasized two factors integral to the achievement of...