Here Come the Tattie Howkers

They were known as the tattie howkers. From the nineteenth century up until the early 1980s, hundreds of young men and women from the west of Ireland were employed each year by Scottish potato merchants to harvest the potato crop throughout Scotland. In June of each year, they would arrive by cattle boats into Stranraer. Formed into squads by their ganger, they were piled into open cattle trucks and driven to farms throughout Scotland. Many were young teenagers, over 50 per cent were females. Their way of life was hard. Yet for them all it was worth it to be able to send money home each week to their families in Mayo, Donegal and Achill. Here Come the Tattie Howkers explores this curious slice of Scotland's social history. In the film we meet Frank Quigley and Margaret Reilly, both of whom began life as tattie howkers. Frank arrived in 1953 aged fourteen, Margaret in 1935. A survivor of the infamous 1937 Kirkintilloch fire, Margaret movingly describes how she and the other girls escaped. The men and boys were not so lucky. Ten young men perished in the fire. We join Frank and Margaret on a day out to Girvan reminiscing about times gone by and visiting farms they once worked in. The lives of Irish tattie howkers bear many similarities to those of the East European migrant workers of the 21st century - some of which the film alludes to. When the potato season ended, many of the Irish returned home, but some like Frank and Margaret stayed, met their respective partners and adopted Scotland as their home.