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Abstract

THE Right Hon. Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett, F.R.S., sometime vice-president of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, enters on his seventy-second year on October 24. A member of one of the oldest pre-Cromwellian Anglo-Irish families, he was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford. Soon after attaining his majority he took up (and very successfully) the development of a ranch in Montana, gaining a mass of practical knowledge and full acquaintance with American agricultural methods. He returned to Ireland in 1889, and thereupon engaged in propaganda work embodying the need for economic legislation which might revive and encourage individual enterprise and promote practical rural education. The ultimate outcome was the establishment of a Department of Agriculture. From time to time Sir Horace met with much criticism and opposition from parliamentarians of the day, his ideals of a new civilisation in Ireland not being, apparently, consonant with their political vision. Nevertheless he can look back to many notable accomplishments. Sir Horace is an Hon. D.C.L. (Oxon.) and Hon. LL.D. (Dubl.).