extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. COUNTY LONDONDERRY Hiring normally took place in the Diamond, though often the crowd spilled over into the surrounding streets. When Jeannie O’Neill of Carrickatane wanted a servant girl in 1912 for instance, she headed straight for Butcher Street. On that particular occasion she took her eleven-year-old son Andy with her for company on the journey.       Girls were in good demand in Derry at that time, as more remunerative work was to be found in the shirt factories. Andy’s mother knew that if she didn’t succeed the first time out there was always the second Rabble the following week and as a last resort the Runaway fair a week after that (so-called because if you were unhappy in the place where you had hired, you could run away and rehire with someone else on the third day).The minute she set eyes on Bridget McFadden Jeannie liked her, but she did not understand Bridget’s reluctance to commit herself, until someone told her that she was anxious to hire in the same general area as her two sisters so that the three could get together now and then. In the event Bridget came to O’Neills and stayed until she married three years later.       Andy loved the day of the fair for he knew he was sure of a treat or two – like a wafer of ice-cream or a bottle of lemonade or tenpence worth of peas and chips from the Italian cafe on Carlisle Road. It was also exciting to go into Woolworths. On Rabble day Woolworths placed mirrors here and there to discourage thieves and Andy saw a boy being challenged for helping himself to grapes from a bran barrel. The boy seemed surprised and pointed to a nearby mirror saying, ‘Sure that other boy’s taking some!’       Eating houses did a roaring trade on hiring day. Most of them were situated in the streets surrounding the Diamond – Foyle Street, Waterloo Street, William Street. The fare on offer was plain but substantial. Boiled beef or bacon was usually served with cabbage or turnip, together with the inevitable boiled potatoes. This was followed by a bowl of rice with either raisins or a spoonful of jam. A cup of tea, strong and sweet, rounded off the meal.       Andy’s abiding memories of that day were of the many fiddlers and ballad singers, the blind man on the footwalk collecting pennies in a cap, and the tables with people throwing dice and placing thimbles over something. These things fascinated Andy as he was never allowed to stop and have a good look. He was puzzled by the number of people going through Butcher Gate. Some, no doubt, were interested in the hiring but others were likely going through to the pawn shops, Andy’s mother thought. In the second-hand clothes shops boys and girls no bigger than himself were being kitted out for the next six months. A blouse or a skirt could be bought for sixpence, a pair of trousers for tenpence. One boy, his face wet with tears, was pleading with his mother, ‘Mammy, please don’t make me go.’ Little did he know that she was just as heart-broken as he was. To the townsfolk, the people for hire were inferior beings; an amusing diversion. These townies did not know the despair that had driven many of them from their homes. Some had lost their mothers. Others had been living in such abject poverty that they were forced out to fend for themselves. Their appearance too would often give rise to amusement.       The cloth cap with the button undone, thus raising the crown, the flannel shirt, sometimes collarless, or the white shirt with the narrow stiff collar, jacket and narrow lapels, drain-pipe trousers – or perhaps breeches and leggings, ending in huge boots, these together with the person’s ruddy complexion, and great callused hands epitomised to us sophisticates the country dweller, or ‘culchie’ as we referred to them. [...] Here they were now, in their hundreds, slow of speech, shrewd of decision, solid of outlook – neither overawed, nor impressed by the glossy facade of city life, as though being close to the soil imbued them with a natural appreciation of the fundamentals of living.       Agnes McKeague was typical of the many who were forced to leave home at an early age. She was not to have a place to call home again until she met and married a young servant-boy called Alex Buchanan. Here is Agnes’s story:       My mother died and we had to squanner [spread] out. There were five of us – four girls and a boy. The boy was just a baby and was reared with a step-mother. My sisters went to farmers. An old lady took me. I was twelve and a half at the time. She was very frail and it was my job to look after her. I even had to sleep with her. She died when I was seventeen. I then helped her daughter for a while, but she couldn’t afford the £5 a year to keep me so I ended up at Derry hiring fair. I hired at several other places and then I got married. At that time Alex was working for a farmer called Johnny Gilfillan. Johnny gave us the use of a cottage, free fuel, a couple of drills of potatoes and all the buttermilk, sweet milk and skim milk we wanted. I used the skim to make rice. We got butter when we needed it too. It created a roughness of food and we were glad of it. Alex Buchanan tried several jobs before settling down to farm work. While he was still at school he did grouse-beater at shoots on the Clark estate at Clady. Later he worked with a dealer who bought and sold horses for shipping across the water. There he gained valuable experience, not only in working with and breaking horses, but also in understanding and respecting them. He could never understand the saying, ‘To plough the lone furrow’. ‘It was never lonely with the horses,’ he maintained. ‘You talked to them and you knew by the way their ears fell back that they were listening to every word you said.’       At a busy time on the farm Agnes helped Alex in the fields. These in the main were family occasions with the older children minding the baby while the younger ones played on the head-rig. They did all kinds of farm work – pulling flax, setting potatoes, thinning and snedding turnips [slicing off the roots and tops with a knife]. Alex always pulled the flax while Agnes made the ties, twisted them round the sheaves and tucked the ends neatly out of sight. For this and thinning turnips they were always paid by the acre. When the children were older they helped with the thinning and weeding. They also helped with gathering nettles, which were not only used for feeding the turkeys but also for making delicious stew, broth and champ for the family. Blackberries were gathered and sold at five shillings a stone. These were busy days for the Buchanans but they didn’t complain.       Not all hired people however were so lucky. Alex knew of one farmer whose hired men slept in a barn loft. At five o’clock on a summer morning the farmer would come out and look at the barn windows and then look at the crows flying overhead and say, ‘Yous is not sleepin’ in – all the way frae Convoy an’ my men not even up yet!’       Another discovered his hired man lying on the broad of his back when he should have been working. ‘It just takes me the half of my time watchin’ you Jimmy,’ he said.       ‘You’re lucky,’ replied Jimmy. ‘It takes me all my time watchin’ you!’       But on the whole Alex enjoyed his work and looked forward to each new day.       In his own words, ‘In days gone by people went whistlin’ an’ singin’ to their work. Now they go cursin’ an’ scowldin’.’ Extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. Previous extracts regarding County Derry/Londonderry: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12

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