School: Finiskill (roll number 13075)
- Location:
- Finiskil, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Cathal Ó Floinn
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0219, Page 376
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- Usually the people ate four meals a day in olden times and the custom is still the same. meals were breakfast dinner tea and supper. It was the general custom to work for one or sometimes two hours before breakfast which meal was , as a rule, eaten about 9 A.M. About 70 or 80 years ago every meal included potatoes except the supper which consisted of oaten or Indian meal porridge and buttermilk. Along with potatoes the other meals consisted of eggs buttermilk butter and oaten bread. In later years when tea became common potatoes and buttermilk disappeared from the menu of the evening meal. Tea was regarded as a rare delicacy even about 60 years ago as an old man named Francis Clyne, Sragarn, told me that in his boyhood this beverage was only used at Christmas or on some very special occasion. This would hardly apply to town dwellers, who adopted modern foods considerably earlier than country people. The same old man informed me that flour was also looked upon as an expensive and rare commodity so much so that people buying it used to bring a pillow case with them to the shop and buy the full of it of flour.
In most country homes the table was placed along the wall inside of the door and the older members of the family partook of their food sitting around it. The(continues on next page)
