The value of a farm upbringing in instilling a work ethic was highlighted recently when entrepreneur Denis O’Brien revealed that in Digicel, they mainly hire ‘culchies’.
“It’s because anybody who worked on a farm knows commerce and is reared in a kind of commerce,” he said.
“It’s not a formal commerce that you might get in UCD (University College Dublin), but certainly if you’re living on a farm with your parents trying to eke out a living, it’s a different world as such,” he said during a question-and-answer session after being inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame.
O’Brien added that he would “err on the side of the culchies”.
Farm upbringing
A US study in 2020 found that people from places where farming work has been historically important have greater work ethic and toil for longer hours in general.
The study, carried out by researchers from Stanford University and Santa Clara University, both in California, indicated that people’s work ethic in a country or region depends on the role that labour has played there historically as an input in agricultural production.
According to the research, this is especially true where crop production is concerned. The study found that keen work ethic originating from agriculture is passed down generations even after subsequent generations move away from agriculture.
The new principal of Heywood Community School, Co. Laois, who has four young children and who is heavily involved in GAA, both as a player and a coach, agrees that growing up on a farm in Ballinakill, close to the Kilkenny border, instilled a strong work and multitasking ethic.
“There were always jobs to be done,” said Eamon Jackman who has worked at a variety of schools, including Clongowes Wood College S.J., over the past 20 years.
Fredericka Sheppard, MD and founder of Voltedge Management, HR specialists, said that work experience in a farm or family business should be highlighted at job interviews.
Many farm children devise their own mini enterprises and benefit from the exposure to the cycle of life and climate as well as discussions around the kitchen table which can stand to them during the selection process and in the world of work, she said.