School: Belturbet (B)
- Location:
- Belturbet, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: S. Mc Govern
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0972, Page 305
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Belturbet (B)
- XML Page 305
- XML “Potatoes”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- Potatoes 6-4-1938
Long ago about my Great-Grandfathers timer potatoes were the principal food of the country. Very little crops were sown except potatoes.
When setting the potatoes they used to spread manure over the ground. Then they used to make ridges which were about five feet wide including the furrow which were one foot wide. Some-times potatoes were sown in drills.
When making ridges the farmers used to use a wooden shovel and when ploughing they used a wooden plough. When setting potatoes in ridges they used to throw a Jackson so as not to let the potatoes get too much manure for fear they might rot.
In the time of the potatoes famine the people died of hunger as potatoes were the main food of the country. This famine started in the year 1846 and the black-blight was the cause of it.
When the potatoes which were rotten were thrown away the poor people used to eat them and were poisoned. If a person fainted the other people(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Mr Peter Small
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Belturbet, Co. Cavan
