It was a great lunch that we had at O'Keefe's in Tavares, Fl. It was great seeing everyone that came and we're sorry for missing the people that were doing vacations. We discussed new products to look for in the coming 2009. You know, there is a serious shortage of Belleek outlets here in Central Florida. I have found many new pieces of Belleek available on QVC and there are also exclusive pieces carried by such catalog stores as Cashs, Shannon, and Creative Irish Gifts. By the way, QVC replaced their Rose of Tralee 24 hour show with three Irish Festival segments aired on the 29^th of August. They will also have a Belleek special on September 9^th at 9:00am. Bob and I have purchased many pieces from them and of course the Belleek pottery website as well. Bob talked about his visit with Fergus Cleary and members of the design department at the Pottery. Plans are in the works for "The Prisoner of Love" to be made for 2009.

I hope all our Florida members did really well during Tropical Storm Fay. Hopefully all your collections made it safely and in good condition. Some of our members were in high wind and flood areas. Bob and I will have the Jan. meeting at our house. See you then and Happy Belleeking.

Vicki Pearce, President

Secretary/Treasurer’s Report

First of all I forgot my camera so there will not be many pictures. The July meeting of the Sunshine Chapter, BCIS, was held at O’Keefe’s Irish Pub and Restaurant in Tavares on July 26, 2008. I think the gasoline prices had an effect on attendance. Eleven members of the chapter converged on the restaurant to share their love of Belleek Parian china. We had very good meals as always and the meeting got started about 1:30. Vicki made the chapter aware of the popularity of the Figure of Erin and that there are only 2 pieces of the original 20 left for sale at the pottery. She also told us that Fergus Cleary, Chief Designer for Belleek, is, by popular demand, looking into reissuing the 18 inch “Prisoner of Love” statue as a limited edition.

Judy Hayes will look into a place for our October 18^th meeting.

Some of the members made comment that they were not being made aware of when the latest “Belleek” newsletter is being made available on the Belleek Website. I contacted Katrina at the pottery and she is taking care of several of the membership’s matters. We discussed the latest “Belleek” newsletter and passed out copies to those who do not have internet access. The meeting ended about 1:30.

In the treasury, we have $734.81.

Bob Pearce

The October meeting:

Four Green Fields, in Tampa, said there would be no problem. They don't have a meeting room but they will set an area aside like we had at the last meeting. Lunches start at $6.95/$7.95 - fish and chips w/ salad etc. is $10.95. Directions will be sent out around the 13^th of September.

I found the following information on Belleek and early Irish life on the internet and thought it might enlighten many of us on the hardships endured by our Irish ancestors.

The following, paraphrased for readability, is found in Lewis's "Topographical Dictionary of Ireland", Vol. A-G, p.202 (1837):

Belleek, a parish, in the barony of Lurg, County of Fermanagh lies three miles east of Ballyshannon. It was erected into a parish in 1792 by disuniting 36 townlands from the parish of Templecarn. The land is principally a mountain extensively uncultivated open land covered with herbage and low shrubs, but that which is under tillage is of very superior quality. The state of agriculture, though very backward, is gradually improving. There is a large tract of bog and abundance of limestone in the area. The seats are Castle Caldwell, the residence of J.C. Bloomfield, Esq., and Maghramena, the home of W. Johnston, Esq. The village (of Belleek) consists of 27 houses. The church, a neat plain edifice, was erected in 1790, diocese of Clogher. There are schools at Belleek and Tullynabehogue, partly supported by the rector. At Castle Caldwell there is a school supported by Mrs. Bloomfield. In these schools are about 60 boys and 80 girls. There are also three pay schools, in which are about 180 boys and 70 girls and a Sunday school. (There are some ruins of the old church on the shore of Lough Keenaghan as are those of an abbey; and there are the remains of several Danish forts in the parish.)

The Earls of Erne and other prominent families controlled the politics, large land holdings, and social and economic life of Ireland in the 18th and 19th century. Their lands and titles had been received in reward for service to William of Orange and the "protestant ascendancy".

Irish Society was dominated by an agricultural economy. In general, four classes of people occupied the soil of Ireland. At the top of the scale were the landlords, about five percent of the population. Of these, one-fifth controlled eighty percent of the arable land. The landlords included the London Companies and their undertakers. Another "landlord" was Trinity College, Dublin, the trustees of which held extensive lands as a source of revenue.

Below the landlords were the leaseholders, who held the land in perpetuity. These people, comprising about 2.5 percent of the population, belonged to the "established" Church of Ireland, were part of the "Ascendancy", did not engage in tilling the soil, and generally occupied grazing land.

Under the leaseholders, or directly under the landlords, were one or more "freeholders" or middlemen, who might hold their lands for terms such as "three lives or 31 years, whichever came first". Leases in general in Ireland at this time were of four main types:

(1) Leases for three lives renewable for ever;

(2) Leases for three lives which expired on the death of the last life;

(3) Leases for a period of years, e.g. 21 years, 31 years, 41 years, etc.

(4) Leases for three lives, or so many years, whichever was longer.

These leaseholders were usually not obliged to work for the landlord. If they did, they were paid in money. Grazing land sufficient for a few head of cattle per family might be held in common. While the title of "freeholder" conferred dignity on the individuals concerned, these freehold estates lasted only for the duration of the lease or of the lives concerned, and thus were of uncertain length.

Often, significant changes in the lives of the "freeholders" came at the expiration of the leases. For example, an entire congregation of Scots-Irish "Associate Reformed Presbyterians" apparently emigrated to South Carolina in 1771 when their leaseholds on his Antrim estate expired and the Marquis of Donegal demanded exorbitant increases.

Middlemen sometimes made, or added to, their living by renting land themselves and then letting it out in small holdings on shorter term leases, usually annual in length, or even "at will", in which case the tenants could be driven off the land if the middleman could get a higher rent from someone else. These middlemen were often oppressive, looking for quick profits at the expense of their subtenants. Because of personal supervision, conditions were usually better when the landlord handled the leases himself.

Under the middlemen came the tenants...the most numerous classes of all. There were three classes of tenants:

(1) The annual tenants formed about seventy-seven percent of the occupiers of farms. This was the typical "small farmer" class. They settled mainly on lands valued at perhaps less than L15 per annual leasehold, land which totalled more than fifty percent of the cultivated acreage.

(2) Next came the cotters who lived in poor cottages usually located on someone else's land. They usually rented a patch of "conacre", or land rented annually on an eleven month tenure to the highest bidder, to grow a crop of potatoes, or to pasture their sheep. Labor was often exchanged for rent.

(3) At the bottom rung of the ladder were agricultural laborers who had no land at all, but they too often rented a patch of conacre. The potato crop from one acre was enough to maintain a man and wife and six children for three-quarters of a year in a less than satisfactory condition.

By law, any improvements made by a tenant became the property of the landlord. Improved property commanded higher rent and the tenant who made the improvements were not compensated. Consequently, he was discouraged from bettering his house or his land.

The situation of the peasantry was indeed deplorable.

A description of their condition in County Monaghan is contained in a Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, written in the early to mid-19th century:

“Population is dense, the number of labourers has increased, and the system of con-acre is prevalent. Marriages are, in general, early and without provision. The wages of agricultural labour average 10d per day; and the amount of work for each labourer averages about 180 days in the year.

Most of the peasantry pay their rent in labour to the parties from whom they hold their con-acre and their cabins. Labourers wives occasionally earn a mere trifle by keeping poultry or by spinning; and their children sometimes earn from 10s to 15s during the summer for weeding and herding.”

“The common food is potatoes with rarely a little butter-milk or sweet-milk; and is preferred, as constant food, to bread or meal. The cabins have either one room or two rooms; they may measure 12 feet square, and seven or eight feet high; they are floored with mere soil, occasionally mixed with lime; they have straw thatching, and in general, chimneys of sticks and clay, with perhaps an old firkin square (a small wooden vessel or cask) for a chimney pot; and their windows are usually about a foot square, and rarely glazed.”

“Clothing is, for the most part, both poor and scanty. Few women make their own clothes; though since the failure of employment at spinning, many are becoming more used to the needle. When families are large, a portion of the bedding is usually mere straw spread upon the floor. Pawning and drunkenness, up to a period of about the early 1850’s, were seriously on the increase; and the chief drunkards were tradesmen about the towns, and farmers who frequented the markets. Emigration, principally to Canada and the United States has been considerable.”

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Conacre (a corruption of corn-acre), in Ireland, is a system of letting land, mostly in small patches, and usually for the growth of potatoes as a kind of return instead of wages. One third of agricultural land in Northern Ireland is let as Conacre