School: An Bóthar Buí (B.), Áth Treasna (roll number 16396)

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1. Feat of Strength and Endurance - A True Story (continued)

   

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   only with difficulty when fully loaded.
   Now this woman used to collect her basket of eggs going around from house to house. When full she prepared herself to dispose of them with profit. She used to walk from her home to Cork City with the basket on her back a distance of 40 Irish miles; and she didn't travel by road. She knew all the short cuts through the country. When it was a question of crossing a fence she put the ends of the rope holding the basket into her mouth and held her load with them while she used her hands to climb over the fence. Her jaws became so powerful that in course of time she was able to do this with comparative ease, though in the early stages all her teeth got torn out in the operation. She was toothless as far back as I can remember, and I knew her for 35 years before her death, and I may tell you that it wasn't a dentist who extracted the teeth. She was very tight about money and would have borne a tootache all her life rather than pay for its removal.
   She used to start early in the morning (at daybreak) and she used to arrive in Cork on the evening of the following day. She rested for a night in Cork, sold her eggs, and bought a basket-full of tea and sugar. When her load was complete she started for home again, travelled by the fields as before, resting by night in some

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. agents (~1)
      1. historical persons (~5,068)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   John Galvin

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   55

   Occupation

   Teacher

   Address

   Islandbrack, Co. Cork