In olden times the people lived on very strong food. Most of these were grown on the land. Some of these were very nice, for example boxty. Boxty was made from grated potatoes and flour. The also ate sowans which is made from seeds of oats out of the mill cleaned and boiled. When cold with hot milk it was considered a very nice dish.

Long ago all the bread used in the homes was home-made bread. Shop bread was almost unknown. The chief kinds of bread used long ago was oat bread, potato bread, and boxty. The farmers in those days grew wheat, barley, and oats, and ground the corn on a mill-stove or a quern. None of these are to be found nowadays. Later large mills were erected throughout the country were the farmers brought the grain to be milled. It was only on special occasions that potato bread and boxty were made. Rye and oat bread was the chief bread of the people. Potato bread is still made by the people. Boxty has ceased to be made. In order to make potato bread the potatoes are first boiled and then the outside skin is removed. The potatoes are then mashed and mixed with flour and salt. It is then cut in squares and placed on a pan to bake. Long ago boxty was made with grated potatoes and flour. To make the bread long ago the people used a griddle. There were two kinds of griddles, one that hung upon the fire and one that stood before the fire. The griddle that hung upon the fire was like the pan used nowadays only that there was no rim on the griddle used long ago. The principal bread used nowadays is home-made flour bread, and shop or baker’s

they lived on potatoes and porriage. The bread was baked in a pot oven, pan, gridiron and an iron. Boxty was made at Halloween a crowd of young people would gather to a house and grate potatoes and they would get the boxty for their supper.

1. The kinds of bread made in this district area:
Oven bread, Oatenmeal bread, Griddle bread, Potato cake and Boxty. Oaten bread is made from oatenmeal, a pinch of salt, a pinch of breadsoda and water.
Boxty is made from boiled potatoes and raw potatoes peeled and broken and mixed with flour while they are still hot. There is an old saying:
Boxty on the griddle
Boxty on the pan
If you don't eat boxty
You will never be a man".2. "... The cakes of oaten meal were made with water and cut into two halves and either baked on a brand-iron or put standing against a sod of turf before the fire. Corn was grown locally and ground in the querns which were in every house at the time. First the corn was shelled in the quern and then it was

Food in Olden Times
Long ago the people's food consisted of oat-meal bread made very thin and boxty. There were two different kinds of boxty, boxty made from potatoes and thick oat-meal porridge which they cut into slices and fried in the pan, and the boxty made out of oat-meal and water and then put in a pot of porridge to boil.
Long ago there were no spoons no cups or no delph of any kind but they used pitchers for drinking out of.
When they were eating their dinner they put the potataoes out into a sgib and left in on top of a pot called this the three-legged stool.
Potatoes they ate for their dinner and supper, and boxty or brown-bread and milk for their breakfast.
In those times there was no sugar but the people used honey instead.
Potatoes were the most important vegetable used during the famine years.
The people long ago used to boil nettles and eat them.
Tea was only used on Christmas day.

salt and pepper. This was mixed and kneaded on a floured board until it was firm. it was then rolled out and cut in farrels and baked on a griddle or pan. When potato-bread got cold it was split and fried on the pan for breakfast.
Boxty was another favourite with the old people. It was nearly like potato-bread. There is a poem written about the making of boxty:-"There's some people making boxty and it's very dirty bread,
They neither wash their hands or face, nor do they comb their head,
The right way to make boxty is to wash the potatoes clean,
To keep the bag awringing till the water it is drained
Get a little flour and some sweet-milk if you can.
Put some boiled potatoes through it and roll butter on the pan."Boxty is made yet by some country people at Halloween.
Long ago when oven bread was being made the people used

Bhúrca go raibh comhnuidhe air í Mainistear Eóghain agus a fúair bás 40 blían ó shoin in aois 72 blíana.In olden times bread was made from oats grown locally. The oats was first brought to a quern and made into oaten meal from which bread was made called oaten-bread and it was baked on a griddle and sometimes it was baked standing supported by a couple sods of turf in front of the fire.
The other sorts of bread made at that time were Potatoe-cake and Boxty.
The Boxty was made by peeling raw potatoes and grating them into a basin with what was called a Boxty scraper.

a stone of yellow meal would be bought for him. Long ago the people used to make bread of oat meal potatoe cakes and boxty. When they would be making a boxty cake a lot of girls would gather into one house. They would scrape the potatoes and take all the water out of them. They they would make and all of them would eat it. Boxty was regarded as the best cake of all. The people also used to eat a lot of salt meat and herrings. No meat was sold in the shops only at a market or fair. The meat used to be in little parcels called spóilíns. When the tea came out first there was no cups only bowls and cups made of timber. Sugar was also very scarce. There was also black sugar. When the people would be going to the shop and meet another one coming home they would say "did you get any grain" and the other person would answer "One pound of the black"

Food in olden times
People in this district had very poor food in olden times. They used to eat two meals a day. They got up at seven and worked for a few hours before breakfast. They had stir-about, milk, and salt for their breakfast. It was usually yellow meal stir-about. They had supper at six o'clock. For the supper they had stir-about milk and boxty. Potato cake was sometimes eaten instead of boxty. This is how they made boxty. They made holes in a tin box with a nail. They rubbed this box against peeled potatoes, and so made the raw potatoes into small bits. They mixed flour with the potatoes. They poured milk on the flour and

The people of this district in former times made bread which differs from what they make now. There was no flour or factories in those times and the people had to make their own flour by grinding local corn with grind-stones.Potato-cake, boxty-bread, and oaten meal bread were some of the common foods used by the old people. They made boxty-bread by scraping potatoes into a baisin. They then put soda flour and salt into it also and mixed them up together. They cleaned the hearth-stone next and left and left the boxty-cake down on it to bake. As time went on griddles came into use. Once in the year the people made currant-bread and that was a Christmass.

Boxty was another kind of bread they ate and sometimes people went from house to house making boxty and they would make as much as would last them for a few days.First they would grate the potatoes with a grater made by themselves out of a large sheet of tin which they bored with a big nail. Then they would squeeze the juice out of them and they would take the starch and mix it with new milk and salt and thicken it with flour.Then they would put it on the griddle to bake and eat it hot with lots of butter. Each person would go home satisfied from the boxty-party after eating their fill.

hammer. We make holes in the tin. We get big potatoes and take the skin off them.
Then we scrape the potatoes one by one into a baisin. When that is done, we put salt, soda and then we nearly thicken it with flour. We heat a pan and put butter on it we put down some of the boxty on the pan. We leave it there until it is baked.We take it up, and put some more butter on it. That's the way we make the boxty. Some people in this district put cold boiled potatoes with the boxty.

The old Irish never made soda bread, they had no money to buy flour and they made boxty and potato bread and oatmeal bread. When they made boxty and the other kinds of breads they did not need much flour to make it.The way they made boxty was; first they washed and peeled six or seven potatoes, grated them and squeezed the pulp through a clean cloth. Then they put the dry pulp in a basin, added some flour and made the mixture into a cake. This they put on a greased pan which must be very warm. This cake was baked for thirty minutes.

The different kinds of bread made in this district long ago were oaten meal bread, wheaten bread, boxty bread and potato cake.
Wheaten bread was always eaten in this district long ago. Potato cakes were made on different occasions. The ingredients in a potato cake were flour, boiled mashed potatoes, salt and a small quantity of milk if needed. The potato cake was then cut into "farrels" and baked in an oven or on a pan.
Long ago people used to gather into some house during the long winter nights and make boxty bread. The boxty is made of peeled potatoes

killed and was eaten by the people. This meat of a newly-born calf was called veal. At the two principal feasts in the year - Christmas and Halloween the people ate boxty.Boxty was made by grating potatoes on a grater. A grater was made of tin and was holed like a strainer. By rubbing the potatoes up and down on the rough side made them fine pulp. After the potatoes wwere ground into boxty it was put into a cloth and the water was rung off. Then several little cakes were made from it and these were boiled in a pot. These were called dumblins. Before cups were used the people had wooden noggins and niggins out of which they drank.

For the working man he got three meals daily. In the morning the people got a plate of stirabout and at dinner time "bruisy" (mashed potatoes) and Boxty in the evening. They worked two hours before the breakfast of stirabout when they had that eaten they drank a porringer of thick milk. They never drank newmilk only buttermilk because they could not afford to drink the newmilk they had to churn it, and sell the butter. They sat around the basket of potatoes on the middle of the floor and peeled them with their fingers. The tables were mostly hung up on the wall when not in use. The bread used to be oaten bread and Boxty bread. It was baked on a griddle at the side of the fire. The boxty bread was made, the potatoes were peeled and then put in a cloth and squeezed the water out of them and put salt and soda in it, and roll it and make it into farls then bake it on a pan and eat when cold. If people nowadays got that they would as the old people say "cock their noses" at it when they would not have something nice. That is why we are not as strong as those gone before us. My Grandfather could eat a goose and a basin of potatoes at his dinner, but no tea after it like now he only got tea twice a year at Christmas and Easter. People used ate late at night and do yet that is not the case with everybody. Some people if they ate late at night they would not sleep. Old people never went to bed without eating, they used to eat

For boxty first we wash the potatoes well and then we peel them. We get a grater and grate them. There are different ways in making boxty. We can make it one way with flour soda and salt. We can make it by squeezing the boxty in a bag made for the purpose and add boiled potatoes and a little flour and a little salt. And the third way it used to be made in olden times was a little flour a small grain of salt and it made into small thick lumps and it put into a pot of boiling water and boiled for a quarter of an hour. For potatoe cake. We boil potatoes and when they are boiled. We peel them. Then we put them on the table and mash them. Then we add salt and flour and mix it together to make a cake of it. Then we cut it into quarters and put it in an oven to bake. First we get oat meal in a dish a pinch of salt a cup of boiling water a grain of sugar some carvyseed if people like it. Then we mix all together with a small pinch of flour until we get it into a cake. The cake is to be made square. Oat meal is never baked in an oven or a pan. There is an iron called a grid-iron to bake it on and the old people sometime ago used

a lot of people make wheaten bread still. Flour was made locally. The people used to bring their wheat to the mill to get it ground into flour.The people used to make potatoe bread, oatmeal bread, wheaten bread and boxty bread. Potatoe bread and boxty bread are still used. Boiled boxty is a great treat on Halloween.Some people used to bake a cake every day. More used to make enough for a week on one day. There was always a cross put on the top of the cake. The cross helped the cake to rise. Griddle bread was also made long ago. When visitors would be coming the woman of the house would give them treacle bread for a treat.

They took no tea. The ate stirabout and fresh milk or buttermilk mixed with fresh milk. They ate it when they came in from their work in the evenings. Tea was first used in this district sixty or seventy years ago. Before tin or delph became common wooden vessels were used. The vessels which they drank from were called noggins. They had wooden basins and wooden spoons which are used to the present day. The cup which they left in the churn was made of wood, also. Wooden churncups are common still.For Hollow Eve night the women made boxty, generally dumplings but this custom is dying out. They also made boxty for "Little Christmas" night. For this night a boxty loaf was made and currants were put in it.

cake. The oven is well greased and the cake is put in and baked for 4 hours on a slow fire. Fat, butter or lard will need to be often put on the top of the cake or let slip down the sides to keep it from burning. The Boxty Loaf is usually taken for breakfast. It is cut in slices and fried with bacon and then eaten with butter. It make a delicious and sustaining breakfast. Boxty is always made for the Breakfast on Christmas Morning.Boiled Boxty. Instead of making the mixture of boiled and grated potatoes into one cake, it is made into little round cakes and they are put into a pot of boiling water. The water must be boiling and either a plate or a couple of spoons should be placed in the bottom of the pot to keep the cakes from sticking. The cakes should be dropped in sideways and the water should be kept stirred round with a pot stick. About an hour will suffice to boil the