School: Cúl an Dasain (Cooladawson) (roll number 1620)

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1. Cooladawson (continued)

   

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   all meals added for the six days and if no work were done on a holiday (holy day) no pay was given. The day man was usually a married man with a family. If he accepted the shilling a day and his food he had usually other perquisites a free cottage some milk in a few instances a little fuel and the tilling and cultivation of a rood of potato on the farm.

   All day men were not so fortunate as these day men employed by the tillage farmer for instance the alleged gentry and Boddachs of those times only paid their men seven shillings a week cost net that is without food or perquisites of any kind and they expected them to work on six days of the week and to be at the gate at seven o'clock and on no account to leave off work even in the most distant field till seven in the evening and to ensure that these labourers did a good day's work one of their number was appointed a GAFFER at 9 shillings a week and he made his badly paid and worse fed underlings do a good day's work.

   Little boys the children of these labourers were taken from school then at the age of ten eleven or twelve years and set to thin turnips, shake hay, pick potatoes, herd cows off the crops etc for 6d a day. One farmer in this locality employed school children in the early Spring when stalling cattle and other animals were housed to carry off in buckets the urine and liquid manure which had been collected in pools at the rere of the byres up to the

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Location

   Cooladawson, Co. Donegal