Farming in Rural Ireland

IRELAND | Sunday, 13 January 2013 | Views [574] | View Smaller Image

John spreads fertiliser on his crop of barely to help it grow. It will take a further 5 mths before it is ready to harvest. It is a relatively easy task now with machinery, in comparison to 50years ago. "30 men would be working on the job and the women were very busy too preparing the food for the men. The potatoes were boiled in big pots and served on a cloth piled high along the table. The men would eat 8 or 9 spuds at a time from the hunger they would work up from thrashing the corn. You could eat what you liked as it was always worked off".

Tags: field, tractor, tree, rural ireland

Aidan Murphy (miller and sawyer) is standing beside the huge circular saw used for cutting timber for roofing houses. The mill and saw were built in the late 1700's and is still being completley operated by water to this day which has been channeled from the river Urrin. Local farmers would bring there grain by horse and cart in sacks weighing 17 or 18 stone. The grain would be ground by french burr stones into flour and oat meal. During the emergency in 1939 -1946, (World War II) each member of the house hold was entitled to1 barrel (20 stone, 125kg) of wheat meal per annum, ½ oz tea and 1lb sugar per week.

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John Keegan (tillage-cropping farmer) stands with pride beside his Clyde’s Dale horse. These are very strong horses which were used by his father when he was farming. They were an invaluable asset to the farmers before the introduction of machinery. John's father used to plough the fields with 2 horses. He tells me that you could plough an acre a day and he reckons you would walk 36 miles in the acre. His father had 30 acres to plough and it took him 9 weeks to finish.

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Farming in Rural Ireland

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