Page 28 - SV 3 2024

Potato shortage – Ireland 2024
Ceimici Teoranta factory in the 1970’s
switched over to small scale dairying which was then more profitable. Corroy factory started to manufacture the alcohol from imported maize until its eventual closure in 1979. The site is still in use by a cosmetics manufacturer, Ultrapure Ltd. The original factory chimney has been preserved.
This article is Dedicated to the memory of William Gordon (1936 -2024). Thanks to Owen Durkan for help with research.
MICHAEL GORDON FNVS
At the time of writing, it’s predicted that there will be a short-term shortage of potatoes in shops in June, July and August, because planting on farms
is three weeks behind owing to bad weather. Seed scarcity will cap the area of potatoes planted this year at 21,000 acres, as seed was hard to get earlier in the year.
Potatoes have always been an important crop in Ireland. In the 1930’s a state-owned company was set up by Sean Lemass (later Taoiseach) to produce Industrial alcohol distilled from Potatoes. The company was named Ceimici Teoranta. Five industrial alcohol factories were initially erected one at Riverstown, Cooley, County Louth, one at Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, Two in Co. Donegal at Labbadish and Carndonagh and one at Corroy, Ballina, Co. Mayo.
The Corroy factory opened in 1939. The impressive complex of factory buildings included a tall red brick chimney more reminiscent of the North of England than North Mayo. In the early 1950’s my father used to stay with his cousins, the Durkan family in Knockmore, who lived one mile from the factory, to help with the potato
harvest. Growing potatoes for the factory was a good cash crop for a small farm, little in the way of machinery or high skilled labour was needed and children could help harvest the crop. A farmer would typically grow 2 Irish acres (an Irish acre was equivalent to approx. 1.6 imperial acres). One year the yield produced on Durkan’s farm was 96 tonnes – all sizes of potatoes produced were used, some of the stalks grown on heavily manured small plots produced up to 44 tubers! Incidentally the record yield per acre of potatoes was from a farm in Creeslough, Co. Donegal in the 1930’s, which returned 36 tonnes per acre. Photos shows the factory in its heyday.
Voran was the potato variety grown for conversion to alcohol because of its high starch contact. It was described as a late
to very late maturing, high yielding variety. The tubers were oval shaped, with a yellow to white skin colour. They weren’t very palatable potatoes for human consumption. My father and Owen Durkan used to deliver potatoes by horse and cart. The farmers were paid £7 per ton in 1954. By the late 1960’s the price paid to farmers had only increased to €9 per ton. Many farmers
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