School: Dún Gar (Frenchpark) (roll number 3961)
- Location:
- Frenchpark, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Tomás Mac Mághnuis
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0243, Page 360
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- XML “The Labouring Man”
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- (continued from previous page)of the detested "Yallow Male", that terrible emblem of famine and
death in our land, that mark of slavery to which our people had been reduced.
But it was not alone the work, lack of wages, and starvation that made
"duty work" so unfair. The worst part of it was they were required to
attend to the lord's turf and corn at the risk of losing their own crops,
and the loss of a crop meant the loss of the little home and bit of land. This duty work ceased only about thirty years ago. On the Davis estate near here, the landlord waited patiently for his duty days till he saw that the tenants were just in the middle of their own work and then insisted on the tenants coming to him. It might be well to remark that the Ashbourne act did not cover this form of rent and that long after the tenants had been bought out under this act "Duty work" was still expected and given. On the latter mentioned estate a very cruel form of trickery was worked. Now he kindly consented to forego his rights on consideration say of the tenant presenting him with a stook of oats in every ten, a muster clamp of turf or two, a cock of hay, or even the rearing of a gun dog in lieu thereof. But it was not alone the lords of the soil who battered on the sweat of the labourer.(continues on next page)
