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Plunkett was born in [[Sherborne, Gloucestershire]], England, the third son of [[Admiral (Royal Navy)|Admiral]] Edward Plunkett, the 16th [[Baron of Dunsany]], of [[Dunsany Castle]], [[:Category:Dunsany|Dunsany]], near [[Dunshaughlin]], [[County Meath]], and the Honourable Anne Constance Dutton (d. 1858; daughter of [[John Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne]]). Raised in County Meath, Plunkett was [[Anglo-Irish]], being of Anglican [[Unionist (Ireland)|Irish unionist]] background, educated at [[Eton College]] and [[University College, Oxford]], of which he became an honorary fellow in 1909.<ref>[https://www.dib.ie/biography/plunkett-sir-horace-curzon-a7385 Plunkett, Sir Horace Curzon] [[Dictionary of Irish Biography]]</ref>
His older brother was [[John Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany]] and a distant cousin was the Roman Catholic [[George Noble Plunkett]], a [[Papal Count]] and father of [[Joseph Plunkett]], one of the signatories of the [[Proclamation of the Irish Republic]] and a leader of the [[Easter Rising]] of 1916.{{cn|date=July 2022}}
Threatened by lung trouble in 1879, Horace Plunkett sought health in ranching for ten years (1879–89) in the [[Bighorn Mountains]] of [[Wyoming]], where, together with a substantial fortune, he acquired experience that proved invaluable in the work of agricultural education, improvement and development. On visits back to Ireland, and for much of time when he returned, he devoted himself to these topics.{{cn|date=July 2022}}
Never marrying, he poured his tremendous energy into agricultural and rural development, politics and diplomacy, public administration and economics. As visible testimony to his endeavours, he left as his main legacies the Irish [[cooperative]] movement, which grew to encompass vast creamery and food ingredient businesses such as Avonmore and Kerry Group, and what is now the [[Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine]].{{cn|date=July 2022}}
==Pioneering co-operation==
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He took a leading part in developing [[Agricultural cooperative|agricultural co-operation]] in Ireland, of which he had learned from isolated American farmers, taking account of Scandinavian models of co-operation and the invention of the steam-powered cream separator. Working with a few colleagues, including two members of the clergy, and advocating self-reliance, he set his ideas into practice first among dairy farmers in the south of Ireland, who established Ireland's first cooperative at [[Doneraile]], [[County Cork]]. He also opened the first creamery in [[Dromcollogher]], [[County Limerick]], now the site of the National Dairy Cooperative Museum.<ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/21835009/national-dairy-co-op-museum-carroward-east-dromcolliher-co-limerick | publisher = National Inventory of Architectural Heritage | website = buildingsofireland.ie | title = National Dairy Co-Op Museum, Dromcolliher, Limerick | access-date = 4 April 2021 }}</ref>
In the setting up of creameries the cooperative movement experienced its greatest success. Plunkett got farmers to join together to establish units to process and market their own butter, milk and cheese to standards suitable for the profitable British market, rather than producing unhygienic, poor-quality output in their homes for local traders. This enabled farmers to deal directly with companies established by themselves, which guaranteed fair prices without middlemen absorbing the profits.{{cn|date=July 2022}}
==Work with Roosevelt==
Plunkett believed that the [[Industrial Revolution]] needed to be redressed by an agricultural revolution through co-operation, and proclaimed his ideals under the slogan "Better farming, better business, better living". (US president [[Theodore Roosevelt]] adopted the slogan for his conservation and country life policy.){{cn|date=July 2022}}
[[Gifford Pinchot]], Theodore Roosevelt's head of the [[Bureau of Forestry]] introduced Plunkett to Roosevelt in 1906. Roosevelt had recently set up the [[National Conservation Commission]] and was also interested in Irish cooperatives. Arguing that it was not enough to conserve natural resources without tackling the problems of rural life, Plunkett and Pinchot helped draft Roosevelt's letter recommending the [[Commission on Country Life]]'s report to congress. The [[Dictionary of Irish Biography]] credits Plunket with persuading Roosevelt to establish the Commission as a complement to the conservation work.<ref>[https://www.dib.ie/biography/plunkett-sir-horace-curzon-a7385 Plunkett, Sir Horace Curzon] [[Dictionary of Irish Biography]]</ref>
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His work on co-operation took him abroad frequently, and when he was in the United States during the [[Irish Civil War]] in 1923, his home, Kilteragh, in [[Foxrock]], County Dublin, was one of some 300 country houses [[Destruction of country houses in the Irish revolutionary period|targeted by the IRA]] and burned down,<ref>Ferriter, Diarmaid: p. 210</ref> the fire taking with it many of the records of the Plunkett family, which he had gathered to prepare a work on the subject. Plunkett wrote of his sorrow that ''"the healthiest house in the world, and the meeting place of a splendid body of Irishmen and friends of Ireland"'' had been destroyed. He resigned from the Seanad in November 1923.<ref name=oireachtas_db>{{cite web|url=https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/Horace-Plunkett.S.1922-06-12/|title=Horace Plunkett|work=Oireachtas Members Database|access-date=16 January 2016}}</ref>
Plunkett moved to [[Weybridge]], England, where on 21 December 1918 he set up the [[Plunkett Foundation]], launched in 1919 with £5,000 to support work with the co-operative movement. The foundation continues its work today.{{cn|date=July 2022}}
Plunkett continued to promote and spread his ideas for agricultural cooperatives. In 1924 he presided over a conference in London on agricultural co-operation in the British Commonwealth, in 1925 he visited South Africa to help the movement there, while as late in 1930, he was consulting with the Prime Minister of Great Britain on agricultural policy.<ref>Weybridge, London: Diaries of Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett, 18 September 1930: Came to town to see the Foundation ... At Mount St. found a cordial invitation from the Prime Minister to meet him at lunch at the Athenaeum or anywhere else to discuss the agricultural policy of the Government!</ref>
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During Plunkett's last years, [[Gerald Heard]] was his personal secretary. [[Naomi Mitchison]], who admired Plunkett and was a friend of Heard, wrote: "H.P., as we all called him, was getting past his prime and often ill but struggling to go on with the work to which he was devoted. Gerald [Heard] who was shepherding him about fairly continually, apologized once for leaving a dinner party abruptly when H.P. was suddenly overwhelmed by exhaustion".<ref>[[Naomi Mitchison]], ''You may well ask'', London, 1979, Part II, Chap. 12.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>
Plunkett died at Weybridge on 26 March 1932 and was buried in St Mary's Churchyard in nearby [[Byfleet]], where his gravestone survives today.{{cn|date=July 2022}}
==Personal life==
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