School: Banada
- Location:
- Banada, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Laoise Ní Dhochartaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0241, Page 074
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Banada
- XML Page 074
- XML “Food in Olden Times”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- In olden times the people of Ireland had very poor food. They got up very early in the morning and the men went out to work for about two hours. When they came in the woman would have potatoes boiled and they would sit down to a meal of potatoes and buttermilk. The same meal was served again for dinner, and then for their supper they had porridge made from Indian meal, and they eat it with what they called 'scait'.
A man with a large family was usually very poor, and when the woman of the house made porridge she only half-cooked it. Then she poured it out on the lid of a pot and the family would get wooden spoons and eat it. They used to sit in a row along the floor. On Easter Sunday they would have potatoes and eggs and they considered this a great feast. They never drank any tea in those times, and they were very healthy people.
At one time there was an Englishman visiting some friends of his in Ireland, and one day he was out in the fields with the men and he said. I think it is time for lunch, and they began to wonder and say to one another, what does he mean, and they told him they never heard such a thing and did not know what he(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Mary Hopkins
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Keelbanada, Co. Roscommon
- Informant
- Mrs Morrisroe
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Keelbanada, Co. Roscommon
