School: Cúige (roll number 10773)
- Location:
- Coogue Middle, Co. Mayo
- Teacher: Mícheál Ó Briain
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- XML School: Cúige
- XML Page 019
- XML “Potatoes”
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- (continued from previous page)or "scíbín". The "scíbín" was of timber with a step for the foot and well pointed and sometimes the pointed end coated with iron to make the points last longer. The potatoes were slitted as now, one eye left in each slit. The remainder of the potato was called "laodhán" and boiled for pigs or hens. After about three weeks they put the manure on the ridges with the donkey or mule and "párdógaí". The manure was well mixed with bog mud (from the top of the bog) and turf-mould.They broke the lumps in the manure very carefully before spreading. The dykes were dug with spades and the clay shovelled up as now. When the stalks were two or three inches high they again dug the dykes and put on the second mould. They never sprayed the potatoes till after the famine and they never had blight until then. When they did begin spraying they put the material on the stalks with "besoms" or heath brooms, and used lime instead of washing soda. They dug the potatoes Garland Sunday - the last Sunday in July and rarely before that. In the late Summer the old potatoes were eaten up or unfit for use so they were in a hurry with Garland Sunday to try the new ones. July was called the(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Geraldine Cuniff
- Gender
- Female