 |
Search the site:
 |
|
|
extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair.
COUNTY ANTRIMTom really enjoyed that Fair Day. The weather was glorious and all the familiar sights were there. Maggie Ramsey was at Cromie’s corner selling confections of all descriptions – especially Peggy’s Leg, a sticky yellow concoction made to her own recipe. Shooting galleries, delph sellers and clothes sellers were doing brisk business on High Street. A small crowd surrounded Mousie O’Neill and his three performing white mice. In the throng Tom spotted William Stewart, a well-known figure about town and easily recognisable in his bowler hat. William was always on the lookout for workers for his dairy farm or perhaps even for his grocer’s shop. He also needed a shepherd for a mountain he owned near Limavady. A fiddler from Armoy stood outside a pub playing ‘The Rose of Tralee’ and ballad-singer Alec Knox was singing the only song he knew – ‘Master McGra’ [the greyhound Master McGrath]. Happy Jamie accompanied himself on the hurdy-gurdy as he sang ‘Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight?’ The Malone brothers had travelled from Ballymena and were selling apples at sixpence a bucket from their trap, while the pony munched bruised corn and hay out of a nose-bag slung over the end of the trap shaft.Badges were the whole rage that year and were selling like hot cakes. Word got round that they could be bought for tuppence at Sam Gamble’s sweet shop in High Street. Tom bought one in the shape of a sheepdog and, imitating his contemporaries, pinned it on his cap. By late afternoon when the serious business of the day was over, the young ones (especially the girls) walked the streets – up Church Street and Victoria Street, round by Linenhall Street, down High Street, back to Church Street – round and round they went calling out cheerfully when they saw someone they knew. When they tired of that they could go to a dancing class where they could learn to dance the Quadrille, the Lancers or the Four Hand Reel. There was great rivalry amongst them as to who could wrest a badge from one of the boys’ caps. This is their day, their faces show it;From past experience, Tom knew that the second half of May would be occupied almost entirely with cutting peats. As it turned out the hot weather continued, and apart from a few half-days scaling (spreading) dung, sowing turnips and moulding potatoes he was in the Garry Bog all the time. The brothers left him in charge on 26 May while they went off by train to Balmoral Show – a distance of forty-six miles. The good weather brought out the crowds from both town and country and they had a great day. June came in hot and dry – great for the peat, but bad for the corn which desperately needed rain. However thistles were flourishing in spite of the drought and had to be painstakingly removed using wooden pullers specially made for the job. The brothers took time off on the first day of the month to vote at the elections for Ballymoney Rural District Council. The next day finished the turf-cutting and Tom was then sent to scour a sheugh on their side of a ditch that marched [bordered] a neighbouring farmer. At about the same time a man was engaged to repair and re-cradle a well that had fallen in. An unexpected late frost on the eleventh gave the potatoes a set-back in the bogs below the railway, just when they had finished hoeing and moulding them. The flax crop was by now well forward and it was necessary to clear the hay off the dam fields in readiness for the spreading. On 17 June the weather broke with thunder and heavy rain – the first for twenty-two days. Other jobs that month included thinning and hoeing turnips, and of course the inevitable spreading and rickling of peat. There were still some old potatoes left in the barn and before they could be used every one had to be disbudded individually by hand. The brothers had decided that at some stage before the winter two new sheds should be built, one for housing a cart and the other for turnips, and on the last day of the month a load of sand was purchased in readiness for the day they would find time to begin. They would do the work themselves. Five loads of quarry dust were purchased at the same time. This could be scattered on lanes or even spread over bogland to improve the texture of the soil. July began with cleaning out a flax dam. Much of the month was taken up with carting home and stacking peats and looking after the potatoes which still needed hoeing to keep down the weeds. As July was the main month for blight, they were also sprayed several times, just in case. To do this the wings and tail-board were taken off the cart, and the sprayer, a frame surmounted by a horizontal wooden barrel, was lifted into it. The spray – 8lb of blue stone [copper sulphate] dissolved in a crock of water and 10lb of washing soda dissolved in a bucket – was then passed through a wooden strainer into the sprayer barrel full of water. A couple of thick ammonia bags were thrown loosely over the hole on top to prevent spillage. The spray was released by being pumped by hand through nozzles on a boom at the back of the sprayer as the horse progressed along the drills. A fine spell of weather during the second week of July ensured the cutting, tying and stooking of the grass seed and about a week later, when the seed was ripe, the stooks were carried carefully to a corner of the field, where they were built in huts and where they would remain until they found time to thresh them. A tarpaulin was usually spread alongside during threshing and the stooks placed on it so that any ripe seed that happened to fall was saved. But the most important job of all during July was to make ready for the flax pulling. To this end the dam meadows were cleared of hay. As the weather had turned showery the hay had first to be made into laps. This was done by rolling the hay over the arm and laying it down, rounded side up, in such a way that the rain ran off and the wind blew through the middle. On the next good drying day the laps were shaken open and built into small cocks at one end of the field. The ground was then raked clean. Bands for tying the beets (sheaves) were usually prepared beforehand. These were made out of two lengths of rushes knotted together at the flowering end. Finally, dams were checked and thoroughly cleaned out in readiness for retting. On the last day of July the flax pulling began. Work concentrated on the flax for the next few weeks, though they could not entirely forget about the hay and potato crops. August was the month when the hay-cocks were drawn to the stack yard where they were rebuilt into larger stacks, thatched with rushes and tied down with rope against the storms of winter. The flax produced a good crop that year, though the stems were a little short due to the dry weather. When it was ready for pulling, extra hands were engaged at threepence a stook. It was tedious, back-breaking work, though traditionally convivial, as family, neighbours and hired hands banded together to make the most of it. The beets were counted at the end of the day and each man paid accordingly. The warm, peaty water rotted the stalks in a record time of seven days that year and then the most malodorous job of the farming year began – that of throwing the slimy, smelly beets onto the edge of the dam so that the excess water ran back in. All the carbolic soap in the townland could not remove the stench of the rotting flax from their aching bodies. The beets were then carted across the field and laid down in rows about five yards apart. The spreaders came behind, lifted a beet onto their left arm, unloosed the band and walking backwards, spread it thinly on the ground, the rows almost touching. The rush bands were kept and after a couple of days it was tied into beets again and eventually stacked in barts, to be sold later in Ballymoney market or drawn directly to Hamilton’s scutch mill in Stranocum. As soon as the flax was finished, work began on threshing and cleaning the seed hay. After threshing, the seed was put through a jigger in the barn to remove the weed seeds before bagging and selling it. Towards the end of the month repairs were made to a reaping machine in readiness for cutting the corn. These included making a new shaft and spending eight shillings on a new driving rod. A sick cow due to calve turned out to be the first of several animals to fall ill with the dreaded red water. Alex knew that the cattle on his land were susceptible to this, especially in the early summer and autumn when ticks abounded. The disease was spread by the tick first biting an infected animal, then biting a healthy animal, passing on the infection in the bite. It required the immediate attention of a vet, or both cow and calf could be lost. If August was the month for flax, September was the month for corn. Extra workers were again engaged, this time at two shillings a day. Their job was to lift the loose corn behind the reaper and tie it into sheaves, which were then propped together in fours and tied at the top with a straw band to form stooks. The continuing dry weather ensured that the work of harvesting was kept to a minimum and within a few weeks forty-four huge stacks stood thatched in the stack yard. Alex and his brothers then turned their attention to the grass seed. Thirty cwt of Perennial were bagged and sold in Ballymoney Market at thirty shillings a cwt. Some ewes and a lamb were sold for £3 7s. Towards the end of the month the last of the peats were carted home from the moss. October saw the digging of the potatoes; again back-breaking work involving many hands. The gatherers worked in twos; bobbing up and down as they threw the potatoes into two-handled wicker baskets. It took two to carry the full basket to the pit and tip it on the end of the ever-lengthening heap. They finished on a wet Saturday but did not complete the thatching and covering of the pits until a few days later. It was important to do this before the winter frosts set in. Towards the end of October they found time to begin work on building the new cart shed. They worked at it off and on for the next month. The last two days in October were wet and were spent snedding mangolds and levelling a dyke between two fields. In November the cattle were brought in from the fields and housed for the winter. The County Committee of Agriculture paid the £12 premium due on the subsidy bull purchased earlier in the year. Payment was also received for two pigs. More pigs and a cow were sold in December, together with seven bags of oats. The year 1911 was winding down. Another season had already begun. Extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. Previous extracts regarding County Antrim: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Forthcoming extracts regarding County Antrim: Part 12 | Part 13 |
All Material © 1999-2005 Irelandseye.com and contributors
