Horace Plunkett

Sir Horace Plunkett (1854 to 1932) was an Anglo-Irish agricultural reformer, pioneer of agricultural cooperatives and author. Born at Sherborne, Gloucestershire, and raised in County Meath, he was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford. Appointed to the Congested Districts Board in 1891, he became convinced that cooperative self help was the remedy for rural ills, and he took a leading part in developing agricultural cooperation in Ireland, starting among dairy farmers in the south, where Ireland's first cooperative was set up at Doneraile in County Cork and the first creamery opened at Dromcollogher in County Limerick. He founded the Recess Committee and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society and from 1899 to 1907 was vice-president of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. His slogan Better farming, better business, better living was adopted by President Theodore Roosevelt for his country life policy, and in 1922 he became a senator in the first Seanad of the Irish Free State.