The old fair green and the Bánóg in which were held fairs and races where warlike horses and great rogues got broken heads and faces an Irish-American wrote this who returned to Kilcock on a visit.
John Simmins said he was aged 97 and he remembered the Famine being then but 5 years old. The people of Kilcock used to eat boiled turnips and parsnips. He also said that he met a traveller one day and he went into the house with him. The traveller sat down and asked John Simmin's mother for a saucepan of water and a spoon. He then removed a blue paper bag from his pocket and he told Mrs. Simmins that it was pollard he got from a farmer who was feeding pigs along the way. He then made porridge out of the pollard and ate it because he was very hungry.
He then said that St. Coca's well was desecrated by the Protestants of Kilcock and they called it Tobar na Muc.
The races lasted six days.