Working with a scythe. Making a stook of oats. Feeding the turkeys.
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‘Seasonal tasks were all about. In the spring we had to pick stones out of the fields so that in the act of mowing later on the
scythe would be safe from being caught or damaged. Turf cutting was always in April. My sisters and I would stand on the bank,
each armed with a two-pronged fort. The men cut the sods with the sleán [Irish:turf-spade] and cast them up on the bank for us to
pick with the pikes and lay them down for the first stage of drying. After a month, it would be quite dry so we would ‘foot’ it –
standing every four sods in the form of a cone with a fifth on top. A few weeks later again, the stooks were broken up and made
into ricks for bringing home. In the summer, we had the cutting and saving of the hay. In the autumn we had to pick the potatoes
that had been dug out before us during the day.’
Mary O’ Shea, (b. c.1918) Derrynabrack, Tuosist. Lifetimes – Folklore from Kerry, p. 109.
Turning sod for ridge. Bringing manure to the field. Cutting seed potatoes. Spreading manure.
‘Every year my mother fattened a flock of turkeys to sell for Christmas but we had a goose ourselves to eat for the Christmas
dinner. The houses were decorated simply for Christmas – holly and laurel all around the pictures; no Christmas trees and no
tinsel. I didn’t know what a Christmas tree was until I went to England and I thought it was a wonderful thing to see a green tree in
the middle of a house with light on it.’
Mary O’ Shea, (b. 1921) Castlemaine. Lifetimes – Folklore from Kerry, p.18.
Setting seed potatoes. Closed Ridges. Digging the potatoes. Making a potato pit.
'I know it all sounds very romantic now but one of the most vivid things I remember was seeing the cows come home in the
evening. There were cobblestones in the farmyard in front of the farmhouse where my Aunt Mags and her husband Jackie
were living. The cows would go across the cobble yard and their tails would be swishing and it was just a beautiful sense of
summer. The swallows would be nesting inside in what Mrs Ruth called the byre, what we called the shed. It was beautifully
whitewashed and I think that was another picture of summer. There was a little rose then, a pink rose at the turn of the yard and
whenever I think of the cows I think of the rose.’
Patrick O’ Sullivan, (b. 1950s) Callinafercy. Crossroads – Folklore from Kerry, p. 62.
Cutting turf. 'Footing' turf. Ricks of turf. Drawing turf home.
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