Pilgrim Hill: Alienated Farmers and Degraded Ecologies

Abstract

ABSTRACT Irish agriculture is currently dominated by a cattle economy that can be traced from its historical origins under British imperialism to subsequent expansion and intensification since Ireland’s accession to the European Union (EU) in 1973. Its current growth-directed trajectory has been underlined by the controversial Food Harvest 2020 document produced by the Irish government with major input from agribusiness interests, which envisages significant intensification of beef and dairy farming. Combining ecosocialist theory with an eco-film analysis, wecast a critical eye over the range of externalities generated by “Green Revolution” technologies that form the centrepiece of most farming in Ireland today. We have analysed three films that represent Irish farming over the last century—Man of Aran (1934), The Field (1990) and Pilgrim Hill (2014). In particular, the concerns of Pilgrim Hill have been foregrounded, dealing as it does with a certain dysfunction at the heart of farming today, while the first two films have been used to consider the historical context. While government and industry campaigns have promoted the idea of “grass-fed” sustainable agriculture in Ireland, Pilgrim Hill highlights rather the difficulties faced by alienated farmers living and working in degraded ecologies under conditions of neoliberal capitalism.