Hiring Fairs and Market Places - County Armagh [part 3 of 8]

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extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair.

COUNTY ARMAGH

It was a big farm, about fifty acres. He had fourteen cows. That was a cheque every month; an’ calves an’ dry cattle in the field, heifers and bullocks. I had to cut cabbage and turnips in the wintertime. Then he took cattle to the fair, either Newtown or Keady. There were no cattle lorries at all that time. You walked. You’d meet some other man an’ they’d all go together. That left plenty of help to go into gaps an’ places where cattle run. If he run into a field on your side you had to do the running and bring him out again. I seen me running from the Water House at Darkley; you know that’s a brave long hill down. The bullock was scared an’ broke away. He was runnin’ like a racehorse. You know a baste when he gets out, he can run! An’ they all had to wait till I got ‘im back. An’ I got in front of ‘im an’ got ‘im turned. I was out of breath, nearly droppin’.
There used to be ceilidhing houses. I used to go to a man the’ called Henry John Laverty. He was a wee oul thin man, lived wi’ the daughter. The house would be full wi’ all ‘aged’ men. There was no electric. There was an oil lamp wi’ a back on it hung on the wall. Keady Fair night was a good night to go. So was Newtown. The fair night was the main night for a bit o’ craic. There was only one man could read an’ that was Charlie McColville, a big tall man. He read very slowly. Charlie had a farm o’ lan’ below this house. As soon as Charlie come in Henry John would say, ‘Were you in the fair the day? What sort of a fair was it? What was cattle like?’
‘Dammit, there was a good rise on them the day.’ If it was only ten shillin’s it was powerful. Then, ‘Did you get the almanac?’ Old Moore’s Almanac give things about moons an’ fairs an’ things. Charlie had to houl it up till the lamp till see it. They’d ask him questions: ‘What about the weather?’, ‘Does it give the winner of The National?’ an’ things like that. Then there was another house I used till go till – Mills’s – over fernenst [opposite] Douglas’s. I’ll tell you about that too.
In days gone by you couldn’t commend a woman better than to say that she was a powerful worker – in or out of the house. That meant out in the fields alongside the men. The downside was that women had sometimes to carry butter anything up to ten miles to market because the horses were needed in the fields. James Greene’s neighbour at the first place he hired, Ann Jane Mills, fitted into this mould. But Ann Jane didn’t let anything get her down. She made her own fun, often getting the better of the men in doing so. James Greene reminisces again:
There was a farm over fernenst Douglas’s an’ sometimes if I finished early I wud go over. There was seven brothers of them, big rough men they were, an’ the sister Ann Jane. She wrought the skin aff her bones keepin’ them men in feed. She baked a ten stone bag of flour every week, an’ she was the best maker of tea I ever seen in my life. I said it was the water. She had a good well at the side of the house. I never got tea anywhere like it. She always made it in a tea-drawer – a tay-drawer* – not a tay-pot.
She looked after the cows an’ young cattle. Any young cattle they had, she fothered [foddered] them. She was goin’ from daylight ’til dark. She used to wear clogs and you would hear the rattle of her comin’ across the street. I’d go over on a summer’s evening an’ if she was milkin’ she’d hear you comin’; an’ she cud skite that milk straight from the cow’s teat an’ hit you fair up the face. Sure as a gun. An’ she’d laugh till she’d drop aff the stool, at gettin’ you as soon as you come in. She cud hit you between the eyes. And she had a dog wud’a ate ye. The brothers was big rough men. Some of them wrought on the roads. She was a big heavy woman, wrought from daylight till dark.
Then Sammy, one of the brothers, said, ‘We’ve a big day comin’ up at the hay an’ we’ll have plenty of help.’
They had no hay-floats at the time. It had to be lifted off the cock wi’ a fork an’ threw on a cart. They had nine horses an’ nine carts nearly all belongin’ to the neighbours. Then it was all built into one big stack. I was on the stack all day. I never was as tired in my life. Ann Jane made mate [food] for all them men. But there was a fella called Stewart Ross and he was a terrible talker. When the men all sat down an’ he’d be startin’ his dinner he wud start to talk. But the rest were fly. They’d ate away for they were very hungry. There wud be plenty of spuds, cabbage, bacon – no scarcity – an’ plenty of milk. An’ Ann Jane wud start liftin’ the plates one after the other an’ scrape them intil a bucket. An’ he wud har’ly have two bites out of it wi’ talkin’. But she passed no remarks, just went on an’ lifted them all. It fair put ‘im from talkin’, I’m tellin’ you.
Then sometimes they wud have a ceilidhe in the barn loft that night, especially after the flax pulling. They’d have taken a barrel of stout into the field, draught stout. That was emptied out with a ladle into pint tins. They’d nearly be singin’ in the fields. They’d clean up the barn, knock the cobwebs off it, put a lock of planks roun’ it to sit on an’ that was great enjoyment. There was singin’, dancin’, fiddlin’. They’d dance Setts, the Mazurka, the Waltz. Somebody wud get up an’ dance a horn-pipe, or sing. I mind [remember] me singin’ in Barney Laverty’s loft. I nearly always sang ‘The Bradys of Killane’.
There was no shoes that time, just thick knitted stockings an’ big heavy boots. An’ a girl wud get a hoult o’ ye. She was that big an’ strong, ye couldn’t get yer arms roun’ ’er; an’ she wud throw ye about like a cork. I’m tellin’ ye. An’ everybody wud cheer. There was quare [good] craic that time. I’m tellin’ ye.

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