Window into the past
Born on June 22, 1909, John Cleary is the oldest person in Ballycroy. Here he recalls a wealth of memories from simpler times living off the land I WAS born and reared here in Bunmore. We had a small farm and my father reared
cattle and sheep, but stock reared on the mountain were of an inferior quality to those on arable land. As a result, the price we got for the cattle was always poor. During the first world war and the economic war people here had to sell their cattle at almost half price. I often wonder how my father and people like him at the time were able to survive at all.
Farming was difficult. It was done with the spade. They would dig the land with the spade and the boys would be kept home from school in the springtime to help dig the ‘stubbles’. Even the girls would sometimes help. The manure was put out with the donkey and creels. Later on, when some of the farmers were able to afford a horse and cart, it was a new life. Those that had a horse and cart were looked upon as well-off. I was a fully grown man before my father got his first horse and cart.
I was cutting hay and cutting turf when I was 12 years old. My father would mount a scythe for me and I was expected to help him mow the meadows, which I did. Even as a young lad I had to do my share.
At that time the people were very industrious. They had to be to survive. For the most part they were self-sufficient. My father grew potatoes, oats, cabbage, turnips and other vegetables. Potatoes fed the people and their animals. Cabbage was an important part of the feed that was given to the cows. Big white heads of cabbage were cut and thrown to the cows. People never went hungry.
They reared hens to produce eggs. They made boxty and potato cakes. They reared pigs. So, really, the people may have been poor as regards financial income, but they were well-fed with very healthy food from their own farms. Of course there was salmon from the river too, and at that time the rivers were really full of salmon.
All the clothes that time were made from wool: blankets, socks, in fact everything that the people wore. The women would card and spin the wool and make it into thread. It was then taken to the weavers to make it into cloth and blankets. Then the frieze cloth was taken to the tailor if suits were to be made. There were very few cloth suits then. It was all frieze. At that time there were several weavers working in Ballycroy. I can remember the Henrys, the Murrays and Maddens. There were shoemakers also in this area, John O’Boyle and Hugie Kilroy.
I WENT to Shranamonragh school, as did all the children from Bunmore and Knockmoyleen. We walked from Bunmore and very often we went across the bog rather than following the road. And of course we went barefooted except when there was snow or frost on the ground. It was an understood thing that after the first of April shoes were dispensed with until winter.
The school in Shranamonragh at that time was a two-teacher school with just over 50 scholars. Later, during the war years, it increased to about 130. The school was then one big space, one big classroom, with the two teachers working in the one room. What a noisy mansion it was with both teachers shouting instructions to the children. Later on it became a three-teacher school and was divided into two classrooms.
The facilities available to the children were really primitive. There was no drinking water available and the place was polluted with rats. There was no football pitch and – what was worse – there was no room in the school yard to play football. The boys would bring hand-balls to school to play against the gable of the school.
Teachers were very strict on children and school was not a place of fun and happiness like it is now.
While there were some very bright and intelligent scholars in the area, there was no such thing as free education. Very few, if any, of the parents were able to afford to send their children to second or third level education. It was a deprived area in every sense of the word.
I CAN remember everything back to 1916 and looking back over it all I often wonder how the country stayed as good as it did considering all the upsets we went through and all the blunders that were made. I suppose it all hinges on the fact that the Irish were good workers and they were great people when their backs were to the wall.
After I left the national school I worked with my father on the farm. We did not have a lot of arable land. It was nearly all bog. It was only later on that we were able to increase the size of the farm. There was a scheme going that time by which farms could be extended. Farmers got five pound an acre to cultivate bog-land that had not been sown before. By doing half an acre a year people were able to add to the size of their farm and that is what we did. Most of the farmers that time would have no more than three or four acres of green land. They were great people to struggle along and rear cattle for selling.
With the bad land the cattle would be three years old before they would be fit for sale. At that time also the breed of cattle was inferior. It was mostly Galloways that we had. They were a Scottish breed and supposed to be good for beef. They were not great for milk. When the cows were milked some was used for the house, some to feed the calves, and some was prepared for churning to provide butter for the household. However, it was difficult to do this in winter when the cows would be in calf and the milk was scarce. There were many times when we didn’t have butter on our bread from November ‘til summer.
Cattle were sold at the fairs in Bangor or Mulranny. Bigger cattle would go to Westport to the November fair. Only by November would the cattle be in saleable condition.
But through it all the people never lost hope. Everyone was on the same level. Nobody had anything much better than the another.
WINTER time was the best time of the year for the young ones, especially the teenagers. We did not have so much work to do on the farms during the winter. At night there was card-playing in the houses. There was dancing in the houses also. Sometimes there was what was called a ‘raffle’ in a house. A musician, usually a fiddler, played and all the young ones – and sometimes the ‘not so young’ ones –would gather in and dance the night away until midnight. It was called a raffle because something would be raffled, maybe a ‘coileach’ or whatever was available. Then whoever played for the raffle would get the freedom of the house for a week to hold a ‘school dance’. It might be sixpence or a shilling for the week. The dance master would ensure that all the young ones were up dancing. The boys would be paired off with the girls, who were good dancers anyway. The dance master gave instructions on what to do. In this way the young ones learned to dance and they gained confidence on the dance floor. It was noticeable that nearly everyone was able to dance that time…old time waltzes etc.
MATCHMAKING was all the go at that time. Dowry was all-important also. This was a way of giving a girl her share of the place and I suppose it was only fair because she would have worked at home for a number of years. It was compensation for her labour. Very often the matchmaker might ask ‘how much is going with this girl?’. That was the system. At that time girls worked very hard on the farm at home. They milked cows, strained the milk, fed the calves. Then they might go to the bog to save the turf. This was all supposed to be a girl’s work. So when they married they got a dowry. This was a sum of money or maybe it was a number of cows. She took that dowry with her to her new husband and her new home. Very often some of that dowry might be used to marry off a sister of the newly-married man and so leave the house free for him to take in his wife.
Then at weddings the strawboys would attend. I was often a member of the strawboys. The hats, which were of rye straw, were made during the winter months. Newly-weds liked the strawboys to come to the wedding and they were usually well-received. They would come in to the house, do their dancing etc and then they would be given drink and food if they wanted it.
There was fun at wakes too, especially if it was an old person who had died. Everybody went to the wakes. Fun and games were the usual ways of passing the night at a wake. Then there were those women who would come into the wake and cry for the person who was dead. Some women seemed to have a special gift for crying.
AS I look back at it all now, I think it was the best of times. People were happy. There was more laughter then than there is now. There was no radio or television. People visited each other’s houses. Stories were told. Indeed some of the older people were gifted storytellers. There were very few cars in the parish when I was young. We walked everywhere because when I was a teenager you felt yourself very lucky if you had a bike.
Yes, times have really changed. The huge difference I see now as a senior citizen is the way that the old people are looked after. It’s really great. I never thought that in my old days I would be treated like a lord, and that’s what we are now. Really well looked-after.
Education has made a huge difference. People have confidence in themselves. Huge changes have come around in farming. New methods and machinery have been invented. There are subsidies and all sorts of help for farmers in poor areas like Ballycroy.
In all, I think we live in a wonderful time and in a wonderful country. But it’s all down to the people. By their hard work they have brought it about. Long may it continue.
John Cleary was in conversation with Pat Conway
