School: Tullistown (roll number 5751)
- Location:
- Tullystown, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: Mrs. Sheridan
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0719, Page 206
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- XML School: Tullistown
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- XML “The Potato Crop”
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- (continued from previous page)to set them with a spade or láighe.
Those instruments are made in a factory at present but long ago they were made by the black-smith from iron with a wooden handle. We dig them with this but the more modern people have a machine for the purpose, a potato digger. Some people help each other and this is called working in comhair. Two or three men dig and bring two drills each. They put the potatoes in a nice row and the stalks at one side.
Children pick them and sort them into three kinds, good big ones, black ones and rubbish. The back ones and rubbish are used for pig feeding and the good safe ones are kept for human use and for seed the following Spring. They are stored in pits about a foot deep in the ground and covered with scraws from the bog and afterwards with clay in order to have them air tight.
Long ago people used potatoes for many purposes. The used to put them in bread instead of yeast and also make starch for their clothes. They made(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Julia Mac Dermott
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Foyran, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- William Mac Dermott
- Relation
- Parent
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Foyran, Co. Westmeath
