bridget McCarthy page 2

My Memories of Ring in the 1930/40’s

I don’t remember starting school, but it must be when I was five

years old, my first memories in infants class was of Shilta (seeds)

The new school above

similar to what we plant today to grow sweet corn on the allotment,

St.Nicholas school

we learned how to shape out letters and numbers as in 1, 2, 3 and A, B, C. also plasticine was used in the same way, we had little blackboards and chalk to write our names and draw pictures.

All our lessons were done in Gaelic except for 2 1/2 hours a week for English reading and writing essays which didn’t give us a good grounding in English, especially all we had to do is go into Dungarvan town and Gaelic wasn’t understood there, I feel it was a mistake not giving us more time to the English language lessons and preparing us for the outside world, as the majority of young people had to leave Ring to find employment.

I remember one day when I was in Phil Foley the head masters class, Fr. McGrath the PP.came in we had our English jotters/notebooks out he picked up one or two looked at them and said that the spelling was atrocious, I didn’t know what the word meant at the time

They were 3 teachers, Miss Siobhan Lacey (Mrs Christopher) took infants and 1^st. class, Miss Una Parkes (Mrs Walsh) took 2^nd. 3^rd. and 4^th class and Phil Foley the head master took 5 and 6 class or what was left, many children left school on the day they were fourteen years old didn’t wait for end of term or leaving exam. Miss Parkes took the girls for sewing and knitting we started sewing making pump bags then chemise/vest, knickers then a simple dress, knit wise we made a jumper, cardigan ,Gloves with fiddly fingers and socks/stockings learned how to turn a neat heel and a square grafted toe. We didn’t learn cooking. We didn’t have any toilets in the old school we had to go down the grove or under the bridge, it’s a good job that a little river flowed by and flushed it all away.

It was lovely when we moved into the new school with toilets and hand basins but we lost the freedom of fields to play in, in the new school we had a small square of ground and the boys had a separate play area.

some new houses at Ring

All 3 teachers were cane happy, especially Phil Foley and seldom a day passed without us getting a slap or three.

An inspector came once a year to test us on Gaelic, he wandered around the village checking that Gaelic was spoken and if we passed each child at school got £2 a year, my mother kept well out of his way as she wasn’t fluent in Gaelic but she depended on the money to buy us a pair of shoes /laced boots to last us for the year, when the shoes/boots were new she put segs/studs on the heels and toes to lengthen the wear, if our shoes were badly worn she was very good at soling and heeling, she had watched her father as a child in the Cunnigar .

In the summer months we picked wild strawberries, blackberries, crab apples, sloes, watercress from Killanooran well, and mushrooms from the field opposite the well, every morning there was a fresh crop of mushrooms.

We kept a goat which gave us milk, as well as buying some from Noonie Harty

We played bowlie, with a tyre less bicycle wheel, made daisy chains in the field, and spent a lot of time in the summer down the strand and in the sea , we lay flat on our tummy’s on the slip at Ballinagoul with a piece of string with a hook at the end trying to catch crabs.

We had a swing in the garden, a rope with a seat in the middle, tied to the branches of two trees.

We played rounders at the cross roads of Bother na Sop, children from 2 or 3 families gathered together there of an summer’s evening, when we heard the drone of a car coming we dived for cover we knew it was the head master’s Philip Foley’s car, not many people had cars in Ring at that time.

THRESHING

When the threshing machine came to a few small farmers by us, we used to help with the dinner, the men came in relays as the the machine didn’t stop work till all the corn was trashed and then the haggard was cleared, the men would be given some

Porter when all the work was finished.

I remember Joanna Terry giving us a half cup of porter and plenty of sugar in it.

THE CO-OP STORE

The co-op stores sold everything that was needed, from bread, grocery, pigs head ,crubeens (pigs feet) dried lander fish ,flour for baking, meal for the fowl, wool for knitting, material, post cards , sweets biscuits, also in out buildings there was petrol although there were only 2 or 3 cars around, paraffin, coal, it was the same assistant who served you to everything, and no washing of hands in between, I don’t suppose we ever heard the word hygiene. When we had a penny to spend on sweets we waited our turn to get Mick Drummy to serve us, he made a poke out of a square of paper and filled it, where the others counted how many sweets we got, we went for quantity not quality, I remember you could have only have 5 glacier mints for a 1d.

Every thing came in bulk and had to be weighed and measured, butter came in wooden boxes, they made good seats turned upside down, flour came in white calico bags, four of them joined together made a bed sheet, washed and then spread out on the field to bleach the writing off them, sweet tins was the other things that people had to wait their turn for 6d, they were used for carrying water or milk. Recycling is a great word today but we recycled 60-70 years ago but it didn’t have a title.

CHRISTMAS

At Christmas time Liam Meehan manager of the co-op stores gave each child who came into the store 6d, my mother told us we were to spend it in the store, they stocked lovely dolls, bodies, arms and legs stuffed with straw or fine wood shavings,

They had lovely faces and either golden curls or brown, all of us girls bought a doll each and how we cared for them, that all finished when war broke out.

Street leading to Balinagoul

At Christmas time any shop you gave your custom through the year you were given a calendar, barn brack, and perhaps tea and sugar as a thank you.

Mrs. Meehan gave 3 or 4 big families a fruit cake, plum pudding and a pot of home made jam, we were on her list and enjoyed the extra nice goodies on Christmas day. We didn’t have many presents/gifts at Christmas, perhaps a penny, orange and a few bits in our stocking. One year our aunt Lena sent us 4 older sisters a Christmas stocking from England those net type you see now with small chocolate bars in .

In those stockings were miniature dolls, scales, card games and lots of interesting things we thought they were wonderful also they were wrapped in fancy Christmas paper.

Our mother worked hard to look after us, she was the only woman in the village who had a sewing machine ( singers) she made all our clothes and knitted our jumpers, cardigans and stockings, she took in some sewing and did simple dressmaking for women in the village, in the summer months she did a days washing at the collage with Katie my grand uncle’s wife, I think it was once a fortnight mainly sheets and blankets, and earned 2 shillings and sixpence for the days work. heavy work done by hand, boiler and hand mangle, no washing machines then. She went down the rocks sometimes picking 1d winkles, a family called Keown from Dungarvan came out and bought them it took a lot to fill their gallons