School: Knockcommon (roll number 16549)
- Location:
- Knockcommon, Co. Meath
- Teacher: Sighle Nic Aibhsc
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0684, Page 079
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Knockcommon
- XML Page 079
- XML “Local Fairs”
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
- Long ago in Ireland there were great fairs held in Tara yearly where the people made their necessary purchases for the year. In this fair articles of every kind such as clothes, lace, corn, oil, tea, wine, sugar, and tobacco were sold.
Fairs are held in this locality in many different places - Drogheda, Navan, Slane and Duleek. Drogheda and Navan are towns, but Slane and Duleek are only villages. In Duleek it is not called a fair but a sale. In this district cattle-dealers buy and sell their stock at a farmer's house. A workman gathers the live stock into a yard where the buyers inspects them and buy all they need.
Nowadays fairs are not held in streets. Usually a certain field is selected and, here the people buy and sell their goods.
In selling stock when the bargain is made the mark of satisfaction is shown by the buyer spitting on his own hand and then clapping it down on the seller's hand. Toll is only paid at two of the local fairs - Drogheda and Slane. The price is about 2d per head.(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Maureen Lenehan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Gilltown, Co. Meath
