extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. COUNTY TYRONE In mid- and north Tyrone there was scarcely a village (small though some of them were) that didn’t have its monthly fair by the end of the nineteenth century. They included Carrickmore, Mountfield, Donemana (or Dunnamannagh), Plumbridge, Rock, Gortin, Beragh, Sixmilecross and Pomeroy. Most had hiring fairs. Sixmilecross was particularly good for hiring according to John Ewing, a native of those parts. John left school at the age of eight unable to either read or write and hired with three old bachelor brothers who lived a few miles away. He remembers:       'Their name was Myles. They farmed - mostly raisin’ spuds an’ sellin’ them. I slep’ in a wee bed on a sort of shelf above the kitchen. There wasn’t much room, just room for a bed. They used to boil a big pot of spuds over the fire. When it was boiled they pulled the crane out, lifted the pot off and carried it to the door and teemed the water off them. Anyway you got pirties (potatoes) and salt for your breakfast – in a basket in the middle of the table. You never got a knife and fork to peel them or anything. You peeled them wi’ your thumb nail and you ate them wi’ your fingers. You got that for your breakfast an’ your dinner an’ your tea. It was always the same. I looked after the cattle; took them to the mountains. You would have got peewits’ nests in the heather. I used to look for nests. It passed the time.'       A number of places had just one fair in the year e.g. Seskinore, Ardstraw and Altmore. In the eighteenth century Gortin had one fair. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it had two, one held on the Monday after old Midsummer day and the other on the Wednesday after old Hallow day. By the end of the century it had twelve. Gortin was the place to go if you wanted a good ass or goat or if you had a pet lamb or pig to sell. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a fair was held on the first Monday of every month at a place called Charlestown in the townland of Tullynacross for the sale of mountain stock. It did not have a single fair in 1895.       Pomeroy’s fairs were held on the second Tuesday of every month for the sale of provisions, yarn, mountain stock, pigs and horses. Stock was sometimes bought by jobbers at the farm and resold at one of the fairs. The horses were said to be of poor quality, the breeds of cattle and pigs also poor. Up to the early part of the nineteenth century there was a steady demand for yarn as nearly every cottager was engaged in weaving the narrow webs of coarse linen which fetched 7d. or 8d. a yard in Dungannon and Cookstown markets. Apart from weaving and labouring, the only other work in the area was to be found in the cornmills. Some illicit distilling went on in the mountains. It fetched six shillings a gallon in quiet places.       Around a century later Michael Martin selected Pomeroy for his first hiring. Michael was born in 1914 and reared at Upper Kildress outside Cookstown. Although he was christened Michael he could not remember ever being called anything but Mickey. One evening in the Spring of 1922 a stranger arrived to see his father. Eight-year-old Mickey was sent outside while the two talked and when the visitor was about to leave he was summoned. His father told him that the man’s name was O’Connor and that he came from a mountain farm a couple of miles away in the townland of Teebane. He told him also that he was soon to leave home for he had just hired him to this man for six months, at the end of which time he would have earned £1. Mickey was to rise early each morning and take the cows out to graze before he went to school. The cows would stay indoors during school-time and when Mickey came home he would take them out again.       The O’Connors were kind to Mickey. They fed him well, bought him clothes when he needed them and sent him regularly to school. If he felt lonely, he went off home for an hour or two until he got over it. Never at any time however did he see his wages which were paid directly to his father. After a couple of years Mickey was hired with a different farmer at the increased wage of £2, the arrangements again being made (and the wages collected) by his father.       At fifteen Mickey decided to strike out on his own and went off to the November fair in Pomeroy. He noticed a number of people for hire strung out along the street outside O’Neill’s pub. Mickey couldn’t make up his mind whether to join them or not. Mickey wandered about aimlessly for a while, unaware that he was being watched by an interested farmer. Suddenly the two came face to face and the farmer, seizing his chance, said, ‘Are ye for hirin’ boy? What’s your name?’       ‘Mickey Martin.’       ‘You wouldn’t be a son of Barney Martin’s that works up at Cappagh?’ Mickey said that he was, and this seemed to satisfy the farmer for he hired him immediately, gave him a shilling and made arrangements for him to come the next day. His name, he said, was McGeogh and he lived just outside the town in the townland of Cornamaddy. Mickey was to start at seven o’clock the next morning and he was to make shores, clean sheughs, cut hedges. For this McGeogh would give him £5.       With the serious business of the day behind him, Mickey began to take stock of the fair itself. One man was selling all kinds of harness – reins, winkers, breechin’, collars, straddles. Another was dealing in wheelbarrows and wooden gates. A woman was resting her basket of wares on the street. As far as Mickey could see it contained four hens for there were two heads over one side of the basket and two over the other. He was fascinated at the way their heads darted from side to side while their bodies remained absolutely still. A dealer from Dungannon was trying to buy them as cheaply as possible. Other women were selling butter and eggs.       Mickey then turned his attention to the stalls. He would have liked to buy a penknife but sixpence was a lot of money so he decided against it and bought a cup of tea and a bun instead. Thus fortified he watched the shooting galleries for a while; then proceeded to the wheel of fortune. Nobody was winning much at either so he moved on to the next attraction which was a contraption with wooden men on it. All you had to do was knock one of them down to win a prize. It was so easy he couldn’t believe it. He had a go and lost his money in seconds. Fortunately his attention was taken almost immediately by the sound of an accordion and someone singing. It was none other than Bob Magee, the popular ballad singer from Cookstown. Bob attended all the fairs and wherever he went a crowd gathered to listen to and enjoy the rich tenor of his voice which had that authentic lilt which only comes to the natural untrained singer. He was singing a favourite song of Mickey’s – ‘The Spinning Wheel’. Before going home Mickey went back and bought the penknife. He was a man now and he would make his own decisions. Tomorrow he started at McGeogh’s. He would have to work hard but he didn’t mind that. The spring would soon come and with it the warmer days and the putting in of the crop. In fact he stayed with McGeogh for a second term until the crops were harvested as evidenced in the following words: 'One of my duties was to take the corn to the mill to be ground and then to take it to be dried at the kiln head. There was a mill out there – Loughran’s they called it. Then there was one in Dunnamore or Dungate. There was mills all over the country that time. And you brought it home and you boiled it and you supped it and fed calves with it and fed everything with it – but yourself in particular. You’d make porridge with it and oat bread. And you took the hulls home and you steeped them in a crock to make sowans. It sat there for a couple of days and then you drained the water off it. Then you put it in a pot or an oven and boiled it and it was lovely stuff.' In the years that followed Mickey hired at a number of places, his wages varying from £5 to £11 10s, and the time he stayed varying from six months to eight years. He worked hard and was rewarded by being treated well wherever he went.       Extracted from the Appletree Press title Hiring Fairs and Market Places by May Blair. Previous extract regarding County Tyrone: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 Forthcoming extracts regarding County Tyrone: Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12

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