Voices from the Archives: Readers’ unpublished letters on The Traffic in Irish Horses from The Manchester Guardian Archive 

A guest blog by Timothée Dereuder 

While researching how the slaughter of horses for human consumption became a major public issue in Great Britain between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s, I discovered, in the summer of 2024, that The John Rylands Library holds hundreds of unpublished letters sent to The Manchester Guardian following Patrick Keatley’s 1952 investigation The Traffic in Irish Horses. These remarkable documents became one of the most valuable sources for my Master’s research in history at the University of Grenoble Alpes (France). 

In the five articles that make up The Traffic in Irish Horses, Keatley described the dreadful conditions under which live horses – and donkeys – were exported from Ireland to Britain, Belgium and France, to be slaughtered and consumed as horseflesh. At the time, horse meat remained popular among sections of the urban working class because it was inexpensive during a period still marked by food shortages and rationing. In parallel, rapid agricultural mechanisation created a plentiful supply by replacing working horses with tractors. Yet Britain had long been culturally averse to hippophagy (the consumption of horse meat). As a result, the growing trade became controversial, and the conditions described by Keatley shocked many readers. This is illustrated by (1) the rapid emergence of this issue on the UK Parliament’s agenda (as early as 1949) and (2) the letters sent by some readers of the Manchester Guardian following the publication of The Traffic in Irish Horses in June, 1952. 

That’s why the Rylands archives of letters to the editor of The Manchester Guardian regarding the horse trade (GDN 223/4/1-364) proved invaluable for my research. They offer an insight – admittedly limited, but nonetheless useful – into how Keatley’s investigation was received by a section of the Manchester Guardian’s readership and, through it, into the views held by a part of British society at the time regarding the slaughter of animals for food – and the treatment of animals more generally. Thanks to the Rylands’ remote consultation service – which, it must be said, is truly exceptional – and its staff (to whom I am deeply grateful for their dedication, kindness, and professionalism), I was able to unearth extraordinary documents that significantly enriched my research and my dissertation, defended in Grenoble in September 2025. 

These letters are rare and valuable testimonies, sometimes quite remarkable, powerful, unexpected or moving – or even all of that at once – of which you can catch a glimpse in the following excerpts.

‘At first, it may seem an obscure housewife can do little to halt this revolting traffic, yet she can perhaps do more than anyone else in this country. The hand which holds the purse strings rules the world. What the French tolerate is not on our conscience, but as you truly say, England herself is not without blame, and we housewives are the main English buyers. 

Can we not all refuse “jellied veal”, “pressed beef”, luncheon meat”, “pressed chicken” and all the other unrationed meats into whose origin we dare not enquire? I know only too well how inadequate is the ration, and how great the temptation to supplement it with such delicatessen, but, having read your witness’ account of the electric pump and other horrors of horse slaughtering, how can we ever eat them again?’ 

‘Logically, it may not matter whether it is a horse or a pig, a dog or a rat that is being slaughtered; suffering and not status should be the test. But as horse works with man in some sort of companionship is it unreasonable for people to feel distaste that one worker should be slaughtered horribly while the other pensioned off? Is there to be no corner in the Welfare State for the four-footed?’ 

‘The whole practice of killing young healthy horses for meat is deplorable. Surely in this country not many people will eat horseflesh. One might expect it on the continent where they produce concentration camps & other horrors.’

Having read 146 of the 364 letters in the file, I generally observed widespread support for Keatley’s investigation, as well as a genuine interest in reducing the suffering of horses, with parallels openly drawn between their treatment and that of deportees during the Holocaust. But behind this question of horse slaughter for human consumption, what emerges above all is a profound questioning among many British readers of their relationship with themselves and with others (both human and non-human). Can one claim to be ‘civilised’ and slaughter animals – more particularly horses, which are regarded as ‘noble’ animals – for food? Many letters reflect this line of questioning, and the view that consuming horse meat – or at least meat produced under such conditions – is a sign of British moral decadence, making Britain and its empire (already politically unstable at the time) unworthy of its (self-alleged) world stature. Ireland’s involvement in this ‘appalling’ trade is reflected in several letters as a source of disappointment (whereas French behaviour is generally taken for granted), which may reflect both a sense of cultural affinity and a neo-colonial, paternalistic view of Ireland and its people by at least some of the British at the time. 

‘I always thought Irishmen loved their horses, but it seems they love the money more.’ 

‘I had always been under the impression that the Irish were a nation of horse lovers but can it be that this is just a pose – a charming conversational gambit, a bit of the old Blarney without any genuine basis whatsoever? I hate to think that this may be so with such friendly and good natured people but find it difficult to understand how they can stand idly by and allow this calculated outrage to continue.’

Thus, my research suggests – in particular thanks to the valuable insights provided by readers’ correspondence – that this was less a matter of animal suffering than a cultural issue, centred on defining the contours of British identity – ‘Britishness’ – and Britain’s place within the international moral landscape, despite being a pioneer in the field of animal rights. 

The data contained in the letters also enabled me to shed some light on the demographics of the readership that responded to The Traffic in Irish Horses. Unsurprisingly, where it was possible to identify the reader’s gender, I observed an over-representation of women (around 37 per cent compared with 18 per cent of men) as well as an over-representation of an urban population (centred around Manchester and London) in the sample studied; a demographic profile that has been characteristic of the animal welfare movement in Western Europe since the late nineteenth century. 

More than seventy years later, these letters remain remarkably vivid. They remind us that debates about animal slaughter and national identities did not emerge recently but have a much longer history – one that continues to resonate today. Above all, they demonstrate the extraordinary value of archival collections such as those held by the Rylands, which allow historians to recover voices that might otherwise have been lost. 

Timothée Dereuder