Tobacco Growing in Ireland

 Growing Tobacco in Ireland. Pics courtesy of County Museum Dundalk

I like to have a go at growing new things every year.  There is one plant that so far I haven’t tried to nurture and that’s the tobacco plant (Nicotina tabacum), but I think this year I will have a go.

Like tea (Camellia Sinensis) and industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa), tobacco plants are actually ideally suited to some areas of the country and are only not grown much because of licencing and laws. This wasn’t always the case though. Up until the 1900’s hemp was the most common material for household and farm use as it has so many uses from clothes, mulch, animal bedding, milk, paper and ropes to a valuable nutritional seed food.  

Tobacco on the other hand was really only grown for smoking, but it does have a use in the garden. On a small scale, tobacco has been used as a natural organic pesticide for hundreds of years. It’s getting new scientific attention as a potential mass-produced alternative to traditional commercial pesticides that are increasingly getting unpopular. 

It might not be long until the country is covered with hemp, tobacco and tea fields as demand for natural products increase.

Process

The simple process to turn tobacco plants into a pesticide involves heating the leaves to about 900 degrees Fahrenheit in a vacuum, which produces an unrefined substance called bio-oil.

For centuries, gardeners have used home-made mixtures of tobacco and water as a natural pesticide to kill insect pests.  A “green” pesticide industry based on tobacco could provide additional income for farmers, and as well as a new eco-friendly pest-control agent. There doesn’t really need to be any need for killing in the garden if we embraces the eco system, but this is being created more for an industrial use on farm crops. 

Tobacco History in Ireland

The history of tobacco growing in Ireland is fascinating. Tobacco was once quite a popular crop in the more eastern counties of Ireland. The notion of widespread tobacco cultivation in the country was first proposed in ‘The improvement of Ireland’ (c. 1698) by the Jacobite Thomas Carte.

One estimate has it that a fifth of all tobacco consumed in the United Kingdom during the 1800’s originated in Ireland, and the success in growing tobacco on reclaimed bogland was almost certainly a factor in the commercial spread of the crop.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century, there was an upsurge in tenant farmers cultivating the crop, and by 1831 the tobacco plant was being extensively grown in County Wexford in particular. This was most likely due to the favourable conditions that prevailed there climatically and agriculturally. A twentieth-century pioneer of tobacco cultivation in Ireland often claimed that the greatest obstacle to the growth of the crop in Ireland was never climatic but rather political, and in 1832 a prohibition act specific to Ireland was passed in Westminster and all growing of tobacco was halted.

Resurgence

Gearóid Ó Faoleán  from Limerick in his report tells us that there was a resurgence in the 1930’s.  “The spirit of self-sufficiency that pervaded Ireland under de Valera in the 1930s led to the last significant flowering of tobacco cultivation in the country. The government of the time decreed that, henceforth, cigarettes were to contain a percentage of native tobacco.” 

Tobacco experts such as Kentuckian G.N. Keller, who had come to Ireland in an official capacity almost 30 years before, were on hand to facilitate this new project, and by 1934 some 750 acres of land were under tobacco cultivation in counties Wexford, Carlow, Laois, Kildare, Kilkenny, Meath, Wicklow and Offaly. It was a popular crop, according to Meath county councillor J.P. Kelly, who stated in 1934 that ‘people who grow tobacco had made money beyond their dreams’. The knock-on effect of this industry could be seen in Belfast, where tobacco-processing was one of the only industries that actually expanded during this period; the number of people employed in this industry increased by up to 30%.

There was serious money to be made. Increasing numbers of farmers now sought to introduce tobacco onto their land. Alarmed, the government responded by introducing strict new legislation concerning the price paid for tobacco and restricting growing permits only to those who had taken part in the 1933 growing season. The experiment in significant tobacco self-sufficiency was at an end.  

Home Grown Tobacco

Growing tobacco plants seem to come with a load of health warnings. I would be growing it for a pest deterrent and wouldn’t even consider smoking ANY deadly pesticide.

There are even warnings on touching the plants. One book tells me “First, be careful handling fresh tobacco leaves.  Touching wet leaves can cause green tobacco sickness, a type of nicotine poisoning.  The sickness frequently affects tobacco harvesters, usually migrant workers lacking adequate protection.” 

And it probably wouldn’t be very good to have them in the garden with children around “Children exposed to high levels of nicotine from wet leaves often require hospitalization. “ Challenging stuff indeed.

Low Profile

I have found out that if I am to grow tobacco in the tunnel, I first need to apply to Irish Tax and Customs at the local Revenue Office for a licence. So we’ll say no more about it, and if anyone asks, you haven’t seen me.