School: Westland (roll number 8428)

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1. Weather

   

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   On a whole the weather in this part of Co Meath is not very bad, but at times we have very severe snow and wind storms.
   My aunt, who is very old remembers hearing about a time when there was a drought for ten months in 1826.
   Oats was the only crop that grew at all. It grew to about a foot long, so of course people could not cut it, but as it was the only food they had they tried their best to make use of it.
   Everybody in the house went out and helped to pull up the oats, root and all. They shoot the clay off the roots, and then just used it the same as any other oats.
   But the worst of it all was that a great many people died from eating sand in the oaten meal. Water was very scarce and people had to come a couple of miles to a well on the side of a hill near Losset (my aunt's old home) called the Mullagh Buidhe for water Cattle died by the hundred but as there is Breakey lake beside Losset, the people round there did not lose as many cattle.
   A family of five named Cahil, who were living beside Losset, lived on two stone of oat meal and milk for eight weeks. They had two cows and they warmed the milk and stirred in a handful of meal and took some of it morning and night and when Spring came, they were the healthiest family in the neighbourhood.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. genre
      1. weather-lore (~6,442)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Betty Mc Whirter

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Drumlayne, Co. Meath

   Informant

   Miss Mc Whirter

   Relation

   Relative (other than parent or grandparent)

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Drumlayne, Co. Meath