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The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was an agricultural association in Ireland which advocated, and helped to organise, agricultural cooperativism. From its establishment in 1894, it quickly became an important element of the Irish economy and laid the foundations of the successful Irish dairy industry. Although officially nonpolitical, the IAOS became associated with the Irish Home Rule movement and Irish nationalist activity from its inception. It was later reorganised and renamed as the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society Limited, a body which continues to operate in the Republic of Ireland. ==Foundation== The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS) was founded in 1894 by Sir Horace Plunkett, an Anglo-Irish politician with a keen interest in agriculture and rural affairs.〔Harold Barbour, ''The Work of the IOAS'', 'Why agricultural organisation was necessary in Ireland' (Cornell University Library, 1910), 2-3.〕 He had established a cooperative on his family estate as early as 1878.〔Donald Harman Akenson, ''Conor: A Biography of Conor Cruise O'Brien'', Volume I, 'Narrative' (McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 7 Sep 1994), 41.〕 Other key figures involved in setting up the IAOS included Plunkett's personal friends Thomas A. Finlay and Thomas Spring Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle of Brandon, whose Mount Trenchard House home provided an early venue for meetings.〔Donald Harman Akenson, ''Conor: A Biography of Conor Cruise O'Brien'', Volume I, 'Narrative' (McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 7 Sep 1994), 42.〕 Plunkett and the other founders were motivated by a desire to "regenerate" Irish farmers materially and morally.〔Timothy G. McMahon, ''Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893-1910'' (Syracuse University Press, 2008), 152.〕 Plunkett had witnessed at firsthand the success of agricultural cooperatives in the United States of America, and desired to establish a more productive business-like approach to farming in Ireland, taking account of Scandinavian models of co-operation. In addition, he saw cooperativism as an answer to the growing conflict between Roman Catholic and Protestant rural communities. As Plunkett recalled in his 1908 pamphlet (''The Rural Life Problem of the United States'' ): Our message to Irish farmers was that they must imitate the methods of their Continental competitors, who were defeating them in their own markets simply by superior organisation. After five years of individual propagandism, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society was formed in 1894 to meet the demand for instruction as to the formation and the working of coöperative societies, a demand to which it was beyond the means of the few pioneers to respond. The new rural enterprises were administered by a democratically elected committee upon which "the best businessmen in the community" sat, whether "landlord or tenant, Protestant or Roman Catholic, Unionist or Nationalist".〔R A Anderson, ‘Agricultural Co-operation in Ireland’, in ''Ireland: Industrial and Agricultural'', ed. by Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Dublin: Brown and Nolan, Limited, 1902), 232.〕 IAOS activists believed that the application of cooperative principles offered a solution to problems of rural life and addressed social anxieties prevalent in the Irish countryside. The agricultural cooperative was a relatively new idea to Ireland, but by 1894 there were already numerous examples of cooperatives operating, especially in south-west Ireland. The first creamery co-op had been established in Dromcolliher in 1889, while Plunkett was involved in setting up the second in Ballyhahill in 1891.〔Irish Co-operative Organisation Society website, http://www.icos.ie/history/sir-horace-plunkett/ (Accessed 28 September 2014)〕 The IAOS sought to provide an overarching organisational structure for these small cooperatives, providing farming advice, business expertise and financial assistance when necessary.〔Harold Barbour, ''The Work of the IOAS'', 'Why agricultural organisation was necessary in Ireland' (Cornell University Library, 1910), 2-3.〕 The policies of the IAOS were guided by a committee of twenty-four members, one-half of whom were elected by individual subscribers and the other half by the affiliated societies.〔(''Ireland in the New Century'' )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Irish Agricultural Organisation Society」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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