Volume: CBÉ 0407 (Part 1)
- Date
- 1937
- Collector
- Locations
Archival Reference
The Main Manuscript Collection, Volume 0407, Page 0012
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- (continued from previous page)spend most of the day washing the mud & dirt off his much treasured globe. We had school only during the late autumn winter months & spring as we had to help at farming ? during the remainder of the year. The master worked for one farmer or another during the vacation. He gave us a great guide in Arithmetic. Mensuration & English Literature, especially poetry. He could recite thousands & thousands of lines, but his chief care was handwriting & correct spelling. We paid him a penny per week & brought 4 sods of turf each season.[Calligraphy was the proper title for the handwriting as he taught in that penultimate hedge-school_ "vale copperplate, replete with flourishes and lib. As late as 1906 my father's writing was mistaken for all of Mr Thomas Murphy, Draper, Carlow. Both were pupils of the same school of calligraphy. One had spent all his life "behind the counter" while the other had spent all his life engaged, more or less, in all kinds of forming operations]. I love, also, observed had many of the old age pensioners of West Tipperary of today,1937, can write much better than their sons or grandsons. Some few years ago two old men (M. Hammerly & Phil Kearns) challenged each other to a variety competition to the tune of £50 a side. As I was adjudicator they got two first prizes and no stake was forfeited.
