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Title: HERE COME THE TATTIE HOWKERS

Reference number: 8232

Date: 2008

Director: d. Jennifer Stoddart

Sponsor: Scottish Screen Lottery, BBC Scotland

Producer: Jennifer Stoddart

Production company: Lichen Films

Sound: sound

Colour: bwcol

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 28.26 mins

Description: A little known slice of Scottish rural life, the tattie howkers from Ireland, is celebrated in this 30-minute film. Since the potato famine in the 1840's, tens of thousands of Irish left their homeland to do the back-breaking work of lifting and bagging the yields from the potato fields of Scotland. Poverty caused them to come every year, the money earned being sent home to pay the rent. It was still common for groups, often children from large families, to come over to work right up until the 1970s, but these migrations were little heralded beyond those Irish communities who worked the potato fields. [information from Scottish Screen]

Title at start "Since the potato famine of the 1840s tens of thousands of Irish left their homeland to work in the potato fields of Scotland."

See also BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k3p4d [last accessed 9/4/2010]

Credits: With thanks to Irish Consulate, Louis Lentin, Aliki Sapountzi, Ann & Drew Young, The Scottish Catholic Archive

Archive Scottish Screen Archive, Irish Film Archive, Reuters Agency, ITN Sources

historical consultant Dr. Heather Holmes
archive research Kelly Neal
lighting camera Scott Ward
addit. ph. Minttu Mantynen, David Halliday
sd. rec. Marcelo de Oliveira, Angus McPake
dubbing mixer Dave Murricane
online ed. Bert Saetre
film ed. Fiona MacDonald
exec. p. Becky Lloyd, Julia Caithness, Ewan Angus

© Lichen Films MMVIII