In December 2004 the sugar factory in Carlow closed down having been a mainstay for the economy since 1926. Pat Byrne of Castlegrace reflects.

"The Last Load" by Pat Byrne

My father, William Byrne, Castlegrace, started growing sugar beet in the first years of its infancy. As far as I can remember him saying he started with a half acre. It was hard work in the twenties, ploughing with horses and getting the drills made and the beet seeds sown. It had to be thinned on your knees. An old sack wrapped around each knee and tied with a twine.
When the plants got strong you walked along with a hand held hoe and you pushed out all the weeds between each beet plant. If the weeds got going again maybe down on your knees pulling them out once more.
The fine hot summer days helped to grow the beet and increase the sugar content.

Harvesting was pulling by hand and snag off the leaf end and tidy off the root end.

It was put in heaps, loaded by hand beet fork onto a lorry and off to the factory in Carlow.

It was wonderful, of course, when the industry modernised over the years. I remember and took part in the growing of sugar beet in my early teens. I worked with the tractor in the 60’s and with the revolution of sprays in the 70’s. It made life easier and as beet was now being sown with precision seeders spacing the beet, so there was no more thinning, thank God. It has been a good money earner for farmers over the years.

In the 70’s I bought a trailer and started drawing my own beet and I have done so up to the close of the factory in Carlow in December 2004.

Shane Blanche and myself one year after we drew the last load.

Uniquely, I drew the last load of beet into Carlow; at one minute to five the barriers went down and that was the closure for ever. I had the last docket.
We will miss the income from beet. I think our politicians went to sleep when the decisions were made.
So after eighty years of beet growing in my family it has come to a closure which I will miss.
Now we have to look for an alternative.

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