Tag Archives: farming history

Friday Fields: The Letterbox

Only ivy fills the hole where the letterbox once sat.

Most fields on all farms have names, primarily to aid communication. It’s important everyone in the family and any workers know the names of the fields. There is less risk of going to the wrong field with the all important tea or machinery parts for a repair. There’s also less likelihood of communication breakdowns so that gates aren’t left open on the wrong fields, and livestock aren’t brought to the wrong field for grazing, although of course mistakes happen. I’d [...]

Have you ever seen an Egg Weighing Scales?

Egg weighing scales

When I attended the #farm1916 commemmorations in Athenry last Friday (organised by Teagasc and a superb event), I was really excited to see this egg weighing scales. As you can see, a single egg sits neatly into it and the little dial goes up and down. The measurements are nearly worn away but I’m sure they were clear a century ago.

Egg weighing scales[...]

Farm Wife Days of the Week

Circa 1935 - one of my aunts in a turnip basket.

When feeding calves on Easter Sunday morning and wondering what could I wear to church that was clean and ironed, while also debating why the hourwas going forward on a weekend when church was earlier than normal and sleep was in short supply due to calving, I thought of something my dad had said recently – how his sisters and mother and indeed, probably all his female relations and other female parishioners often got new clothes for Easter Sunday and [...]

Marriage For Irish Farmers Through the Ages

Would You Marry a Farmer?

 

Farmers haven’t always been seen as a good catch. Farming was often be a very isolated occupation, with the farmer living on an isolated farm, eking out a living and caring for an aged parent, usually a mother. The age difference between husband and wife could be a couple of decades in some cases, partly because the man could be in his 40s or 50s before he could afford to marry. His father might have died or die during the [...]