School: Gaddyduff (roll number 16642)

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1. How the People Lived when my Grandfather was Young (continued)

   

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   because if they had big windows or big chimneys there would be big taxes on them. If any one had a slate house they would way he was a millionaire. There wasnt many slate-houses anyhow.

   The usual amusements the men had was playing Caman and duck also wrestling and jumping. Indoors they played cards. The children around the fire Dickery Devey and blind stand. Outside they played hide the stacks and tig. There used to be a lot of big nights. The only music they had was lilting or somebody playing on a comb. After that the fiddles came out. The dances they liked best was the polka and pin polky and the three reel and the four reel. On Sundays they held the mass at the same time as it is now. An odd one had Sunday clothes but the majority of them wore the same clothes as they used during the week. After mass it was a great style with the people to visit their friends.

   You had to go to the post office for all your letters and when you would get one you had (?) to pay a shilling and if you did not give it, they could keep the letter. Any shop that would have a ten stone bag of flour or a peck of meal was counted as a store. If they had a few pounds of tea they were far richer. When the tea came first no one knew how to make it. It was given to a house where the stations were as a present and the woman of the house did not know how to make it, anyhow she made it ready for the priest's tea. When she had it boiled she poured out the water and left the leaves down on a saucer and left pepper and salt down beside them; she thought that they were cooked in this way. There used to be a lot of

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Patrick Quigley

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   13

   Address

   Gortnahunshion, Co. Donegal

   Informant

   Mr Quigley

   Relation

   Parent

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   56

   Address

   Gortnahunshion, Co. Donegal