School: Maio (roll number 13119)
- Location:
- Trohanny, Co. Meath
- Teacher: Máire Ní Chreaig
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0706, Page 457
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- Long ago, the people of this district did not eat the same food as they eat nowadays. Until about sixty years ago, the wheaten bread was only to be had by the fairly rich.
At that time, most of the people, who were all poor, ate only porridge and oaten bread for breakfast, potatoes and buttermilk and sometimes cabbage for dinner, and oaten meal porridge for supper.
They used to make "poitin and the men used to drink it. The women used to drink butter-milk and water. They never drank the sweat milk, but used to save it, to make butter, and send the butter to Dublin to the market, and it used to be brought away by men who were called "Butter Factors". They used to send it to England.
If the people had no milk for porridge they used to steep oaten meal in water for a few days. Then they used to pour out the liquid, and use it as milk for the porridge.
They used to make "Boxty" from grated raw potatoes mixed with flour. They used to eat this in the evening. Every morning the women made porridge in big steel pots. While it was cooking, the men used to go out to work for two hours and then come in to breakfast.
- Collector
- Peggy O' Connor
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Corboggy, Co. Meath
