Repair Acts Ireland – the history of repair in County Westmeath

COLUMN 2

Repair Acts Ireland have carried out research into the history of repair in Westmeath. The data gathered represents a snapshot of repair activities in the county from 1938 to 2022. Archival material housed in the local studies section of Westmeath libraries provided a valuable opportunity to examine how our ancestors lived, what they fixed and repaired and how repair activities were visible in towns and villages.

Looking at local history collections (Dúchas Schools Collection), newspaper advertisements, trade directories (Thom’s and Slater’s) and phone book listings, we have gathered a representation of who carried out repairs, and what items were typically repaired through the decades.

By tracing the items that were made, bought and sold, and the people who repaired them, we can see how repair skills, repair shops and repair conversations decrease through time. Blacksmiths disappear, but bicycle shops and bicycle repairs stay present throughout our timeframe, and vehicle repair shops increase.

With the mass assembly of cars in the late 1920s and 1930s, automobile mechanics make their appearance in the 1930s and then increasingly specialise as vehicles become more complex.

Listings for the artisans involved in making shoes and clothing dwindle as the advertisements for ready-made fashions appear.

The story of repair in the county has a number of main threads. First, that people living in Westmeath in the 1930s were closer to the making of those items that they needed for their daily lives.

That is to say, there were many people in the community who were involved in ‘hands-on’ making of the goods needed to transport, clothe, and feed themselves and others. People’s possessions were simpler, made from more basic materials and with less variety of choice.

With this closeness to making came an ease of access to repair as there was a variety of artisan and skilled tradespeople, who not only made things but also repaired things. This variety ranged from specialist sock makers, blacksmiths, gate welders, makers of cranes for fireplaces, thatchers, nail makers, coopers and wheelwrights. Clothing and shoes were also made by hand.

Additionally many of those items were made from locally sourced materials. Our findings show that across the 1930s and ’40s, the making and repairing of goods was closer to home, and items were either made domestically in the kitchen, yard or in a local town or village. From the 1950s, we see transitions occurring in repair, as mass produced goods became available.

Advertisements for goods and services began to offer ‘sales and service’ for an ever increasing array of products for home and commercial use. Electrified domestic appliances became available, such as refrigerators, electric cookers and sewing machines.

We see that vehicles become more dominant and their repair more specialised. Agricultural livelihoods change, and life becomes more mechanised, reflected in advertisements for the sale and repair of machinery, tractors, and milking machines.

Our data also tells the story of the transition to electrified appliances and electrified homes, and to the integration of electronics into our lives. Mobile telephone repair, computer repair are obvious parts of the recent story, but so is the repair of less obvious electronics such as components within appliances, security systems, and industrial devices.

The possessions that we need in our daily lives and the things we feel are necessary to live, and live well, change through the decades.

Finally, we can see that the skills we need to live and have a productive life change through time, but the need to repair is still present. We have lost the majority of our skilled makers and repairers from the community and we have a different relationship with our possessions. We buy things instead of making them, and we have a lot more things!

As our possessions become increasingly complex, the expertise required to repair them becomes more specialised and often inaccessible or unavailable. Fewer among us are able to repair our own possessions, but the criticality of repair is still evident. It is seen in the services and professions presented and available to us and the in people’s desire to hold on to things, to save money but also because objects have sentimental and comfort value.

Maintenance, care and repair were seen to be part of a productive everyday life, but our ideas of being productive have changed through time, and are now premised on the idea of producing or purchasing something new rather than fixing and mending. Examining these local archives helps us to reconnect to how things were made and repaired in the past, to think about the skills that have waned over time, how to waste less, repair more, slow down and reconnect with the people around us.

Thanks to the Local Studies section of Westmeath Libraries for their support for this work. The Repair Acts Exhibition and Féile are in Kilbeggan, on November 3-6. The event offers free workshops, demonstrations and talks on the theme of repair. The archival work will be displayed in various location across the town.

See www.repairacts.ie/exhibition for more details. All events are free to attend, with suitability for all ages and needs.

– Repair Acts, Ireland: Robin Ferguson, Alma Clavin, Teresa Dillon