There were more shops around this district about eighty or a hundred years ago, to what there is now.
There were two in Gortbeg, three in Ballinastack and two in Dunbeg, and it is in these shops that the people bought what they wanted. People bought things outside the parish chuch every Sunday.
If a tailor made a suit of clothes for a person, the person that the clothes were made for might give potatoes or hay or any thing else that the tailor wanted. This was done because money was very scarce that time.
There were a lot of pedlars going about the country long ago. Some of them carried clothes and others carried things that were useful for the house, such as thread.