Making butter and washing in the tub: Cork woman’s memories feature in book

A Cork woman’s memories of growing up in a rural environment feature in a new book exploring Ireland’s social heritage.

Called Happy Days And Hard Times, it is a collection of memories, stories and images, compiled by the National Museum of Ireland.

It includes a wonderful submission from a Glanmire woman, Patricia Crisp, who recalls her mother making her own butter and doing the washing in a tub with a washboard, in her home-place on the borders of Carlow and Kildare.

“She had a little cottage of two bedrooms and a kitchen,” recalls Patricia, harking back to the 1950s. “All the floors were stone.

“She made bread in a basket over the fire and put it on the windowsills to cool. There were no bread vans then.

“There was no electricity then and it didn’t arrive until 1960.”

Patricia adds that there was a ‘last’ - a piece of equipment a shoemaker, or a cobbler, uses when making or repairing shoes - “and the neighbours would go to each other’s house to get their hair cut.”

She continued: “All the land was sowed with potatoes and cabbage, carrots and onions and they would be put in a pit to keep for the winter.

“My mother made her own butter and washed in a tub with a washboard and an iron that was put in a fire to heat. It took a long time.

“She knitted and sewed all our clothes, using patterns she cut from newspapers.”

Happy Days And Hard Times is a beautiful compilation of memories about rural life in times gone, and has just been reprinted for a third time due to its ongoing success.

The book came about through a reminiscence project, which encouraged visitors to the National Museum at Turlough Park in Co. Mayo, to submit their memories, inspired by the folklife objects on display in the museum galleries.

From saving hay and bringing home the turf, to shoemaking and the fair day – each of the stories are told in the visitors’ own words alongside an image or object from the Irish Folklife Collection.

The book was compiled by the Museum’s documentation officer, Joanne Hamilton, who first started collecting visitor memories in 2013.

Welcoming the ongoing popularity and third print run of the book, Ms. Hamilton said: “It is wonderful to see Happy Days And Hard Times reprinted for a third time.

“The thought-provoking stories resonate with so many; those visits to the bog with the flask of tea, or cycling the countryside.

“It brings people back to a simpler past, a past filled with colour and conversation, a past where children ran through fields till dusk and neighbours sat for hours whiling away time.

“Of course, as the book title suggests, not all of the rich memories of country living are surrounded with a nostalgic glow; these were hard times as well, and this comes through as people recount their stories.”

Visitors from all over Ireland and many people living abroad contributed to the book.

It even features a contribution from the singer Christy Moore, who recalls listening to Michael O’Hehir on the wireless and hearing day-old chicks chirp underneath the settle bed.

Members of the public can still contribute memories and stories of country life to the project, either via the memory sheets available in the reminiscence corner at the National Museum in Turlough Park, or by downloading a memory sheet from www.museum.ie.

Copies of the book are available now at any of the book shops at the three National Museum of Ireland locations – Turlough Park, Castlebar; Kildare Street, Dublin 2, or Collins Barracks, Dublin 7.