School: Carlanstown (roll number 884)
- Location:
- Carlanstown, Co. Meath
- Teacher: Séamus Ó Gérbheannaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0708, Page 025
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- Long ago when the times were very bad and wages small the people lived on two meals a day. They used to work for hours in the morning before getting anything to eat and then a bowl of thin porridge was brought out to them so thin that "if it were spilled it would run like a river from one end of the furrow to the other," I heard an old man say. And the men in those days were big and able. At night they partook of a meal of potatoes and milk, sometimes sitting around a sack spread upon the clay floor. Some people may not believe this but it is quite true.
Oatmeal and potato cakes were eaten very often I am told and such luxuries as tea, coffee etc. were never used except on feast-days. Cups and saucers were unknown and the people drank out of wooden mugs called "noggins".
