extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. COUNTY DOWN The first Thursday in May and November was known as Loosing Day – the day that workers left their old jobs. Then followed a week of entertainment and dancing and on the next Thursday they went back to the fair either to re-hire with their old masters or to hire with someone new. Hiring also took place on the third Thursday. Any farmer who was known to have treated a servant harshly or unfairly during the half-year was likely to get a trouncing from the Mullaghbawn boys before he went home. One of the noisiest places on the evening of the fair was Edward Street Station from which excited and nervous young people were setting off into the great unknown. Mothers wept as they parted from their children for the first time. Third class carriages were packed to overflowing while first and second class carriages were usually empty and kept securely locked. Sara Savage of Poyntzpass captures the mood of one young hireling in the words of the poem, ‘Hiring Day’.       Paddy Taggart was one of hundreds of young people who hired in Newry in the 1920s. As he stood with his mother in North Street along with her two sisters and their families who were also hiring, he couldn’t help feeling excited at the prospect before him. He has vivid memories of that day:       There were these weemin steppin’ about carryin’ baskets on their arum [arm], wicker baskets wi’ lids. They were goin’ into the butter market and they had walked maybe miles.       So then there was a man came over to me and he says, ‘Are you a son of John Taggart’s?’       I said, ‘I am.’       And he said, ‘Who have you with you?’       And my mother stepped forward and he said till her, ‘What would this boy have till get? We could do with a lad like this. When I heered who he was, that’s why I’m so interested in him. I’ll give him nine poun’ for the six months.’       My mother says, ‘Now, it’ll not be in this fair the day. I think you’ll give him ten.’       And didn’t he say owin’ to the case he would give me ten. And then he took us down to Mickey Boyle’s pub at the fut o’ Mill Street. My mother didn’t touch drink but she took a mineral and I took a mineral and he took a half-un o’ whiskey himself. When he got up to go he give me five bob and he says, ‘You know where I live (Connolly’s blacksmith’s shop) an’ when you’re goin’ home you can stop. If not, come in the mornin’.’       So of coorse when I was goin’ by it he was out watchin’. He would be afraid you wouldn’t go you know. Good enough people, dacent people. And me and this blacksmith – he was a son – we slept together, shared the same bed, the best of a fella’, and died young. So I was up there ’til November. I wasn’t involved in the black-smithing, just the farmin’. He had a big farm there (...) everything in the line wi’ workin wi’ horses too – runnin’ up spuds, grubbin’ turnips an’ things like that. The crop was in then, d’ye see. That was the third Thursday in May. Then it would run on ’til the second Thursday in August (the quarterly fair) and if you had a bad place you were eligible then to leave. On the third Thursday that would be hirin’ day again. A blacksmith’s was a place where people gathered. It was a warm place. It was all horses that time – no tractors – horses comin’ through the day, and ploughs. And then at night all the oul ones would be in, young ones too – no weemin. There could be a dozen people there. And there was no wireless, no television – nothin’. They would stan’ there in the dark an’ talk an’ the oul men would smoke clay pipes.       The worst year, I remember it well, was 1932 – spuds a shillin’ a ‘hundred’ (hundredweight) – an’ this day in Newry the weemin was there wi’ their sons and daughters. Honest to God, they would nearly a’ give them away to get them fed. I hired in Warrenpoint that year at the Yankee Bar, an’ he had a dairy too and milked twelve cows. I had nothin’ to do wi’ the bar of coorse.       He bought turnips. These turnips come in cartloads an’ they would tip them up in the shade [shed] an’ you would go out in the mornin’ an’ pulp these turnips for the cows. Then the cows were milked an’ that milk was strained and she (the man’s wife) would measure the milk out – wee small kens [cans] and I would deliver the milk roun’. There was wan about a quart, and then a pint and a half pint.       You would be up about six o’clock. You would get your breakfast about nine. The pubs opened that time about ten and he would want to have all redd up about that time to get the pub open. Then I would be away up in the fields switchin’ at hedges or somethin’. I had no watch or nothin’. He would say to me, ‘There’s a wee factory down there and you’ll hear the whistle of it goin’ an come up for your dinner.’ Then you would be home – it would be dark round about half four and the cows had to be fed and milked again. But it was harder in winter. The farmers hadn’t the money to pay you. They were sellin’ – the bullock that’s makin’ £400 now, you would have got him that time for eight.       Then there was a servant girl in it, and that girl was paid off for not being in at ten o’clock at night. I thought that was a tarra! So when I left there I went home for a week. That week, the boys and girls, they would’a rid miles on bikes just to go to parties. But there was more boys and girls struck up (a friendship) at the hirin’ than anywhere. God, sure that’s where a whole lot of them met!   Extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. Previous extracts regarding County Armagh: Part 1 Forthcoming extracts regarding County Down: Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 |

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