School: St John of God Convent, Rathdowney (roll number 16203)
- Location:
- Rathdowney, Co. Laois
- Teacher: The Sisters
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0828, Page 225
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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
- Buying and Selling
In former times shops were not as plentiful as they are now. The shops were open on Sunday as well as on every day and this was the shopkeepers busiest day. There was only a limited number of public-houses and each one had a name of distinction as Mr Gannon's Horse and Jockey." The trade is still carried on at Mr Gannon's and the name is familiar to drinkers. Unlicensed shops on cross-roads were termed "sheebeens". They stored the drink in underground cellars. When the police came to search the house they sounded the floor with the stock of the rifle and people breaking the law were severely punished. Mr Maher, Strabawn Cross was once brought to justice for his under-hand work.
A shilling was called "a bob" and a sixpence was termed "a kick" and sometimes a tanner, a "kid's eye" was a threepenny piece, a penny was called "a copper" and a quid was meant for a £. When a person had no money he said "I haven't a make" or "a rex" or "a fluke"(continues on next page)
