APH
By Gerry Loughnane
Dated: 2013
In this account I refer to the townlands of Cahertubber East, Graig Abbey, Bengarra, Binn and Lisdoran.
Farming
Most of the farming in the above mentioned areas was carried out on small to medium size farms and comprised of cattle, dairy and sheep farming. There was also a lesser amount of tillage farming, corn, beet, potatoes etc.
Years ago, most farmers kept pigs and cows as well as chickens, geese and other fowl, which produced their own butter, milk, bacon and eggs. When a farmer killed a pig he would share some of it with his close neighbours. Most farmers sowed a garden and produced their own vegetables – cabbage, onions, turnips, potatoes, etc. A lot of small farmers today are part time and are also employed in the general work force.
Saving the Turf
A lot of people in the above mentioned areas cut and saved their own turf, also known as peat. This was once done by hand with a slane and was a very laborious job. Today it is cut by machine and is much less labour intensive. In the past, the whole family would get together to cut the turf. People would travel miles on bicycles or by pony/ donkey and cart. Usually they would bring food with them and build a fire in the bog over which they would boil water and brew tea. The usual provisions were bread, cheese, eggs, and not forgetting the good old tin of sardines.
They might even bring potatoes and cook them in the embers of the fire. It was a long day for them; usually they would leave their home very early and stay in the bog till late in the evening – this was due mainly to the long distances they had to travel and the slowness of their transport. It wasn’t unusual for the family to call into one of the small shops scattered around the area on their way to the bog to pick up provisions, which they might require. This is a tradition that has practically died out. Due to EC directives some bogs are being preserved and some people are prevented from harvesting their turf. This is leading to discontent amongst local people who have harvested turf for generations and had expected to do so for generations to come.
Forestry
In recent years a fair amount of land has been planted for commercial timber. A lot of this land was on the periphery of bogs and was poor and not much good for anything else. As bogs were originally forests – it was said that once upon a time a squirrel could travel from Galway to Dublin without touching the ground and while that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not that much – one could argue that with all the land that is been planted that the wheel is coming around full circle. Unfortunately, most of the trees currently grown on the bog lands are pine and fir trees, which are not native to Ireland but which grow quickly and love the acidic soil of the bog/scrub lands, so it is a quick turnover and a quick profit. Ireland’s native trees were mostly hard wood – oak, ash, elm, hazel etc. Copses are still to be seen around here, and small stretches of forest are still to be seen around the area, particularly in the lands around Graig Abbey and where other big houses once stood in the Athenry area.
Local Shops
In the early 1930s there were three local shops in the areas – Loughnanes shop at the junction of the Newcastle/Athenry & Attymon roads, Glynns shop in Tourkeel and Whealens, later to become Burkes in Newcastle. These were very popular as were all country shops at the time because in those days there was no such thing as supermarkets and the most common mode of transport, if one was lucky, was a bicycle.
Loughnane’s Shop and Mill
I will refer here to Loughnane’s shop as it was located in the Graig Abbey / Cahertubber area and had originally been started by Michael and Beezie Loughnane at their home in the Gate Lodge of Graig Abbey House. Michael Loughnane had both a small shop and a small corn mill at this location. There was a difference of opinion (probably putting it mildly) between himself and the land lord at the time, a man called Major Eames. Major Eames decided that he could no longer run his shop at Graig Abbey and the case went to court. By then a Land Lord could not evict you without providing alternative accommodation, which he built at the railway gates between Graig Abbey and Ballyboggan, not much good for some one trying to run a business as it was located off the main road and only led to farm land and bog land. There were no other houses on it and it flooded nearly every winter. Michael Loughnane let Major Eames go to the trouble and expense of building this establishment but never moved there as by the time it was finished he had built his own property, where it stands today at the a/m junction and which is now commonly known as Loughnanes cross.
The Mill was at the back of the house and was a wooden structure. In it were two milling machines that were powered by two Amanco engines. The corn was mostly ground for livestock feed. He also ground a lesser amount of corn into wholemeal and white flour for baking. The engines ran on a fuel called TVO, which was bought in Galway and it arrived by tanker. It was decanted into barrels that were kept in the mill building.
This tanker also delivered paraffin oil which was sold in the shop. There was no such thing as fire regulations in those day sand the only fire fighting equipment was a couple of buckets filled with sand and a stirrup pump. Luckily there was never a major fire. Before rural electrification paraffin oil was bought by the locals for lighting their oil lamps. It provided a stronger and steadier light than candles which were also used for lighting, but was smokier and required the wicks of the lamps to be regularly cleaned of the sooty build-up on the globe and the wicks had to be trimmed each evening before lighting. Every local shop would have carried a large stock of wicks and wax candles. Shops carried everything required for a rural community to survive – tea, sugar, flour, bicycle repair kits, pot menders, etc. Nothing was thrown away in those days. Young people today think that recycling is a modern trend when in fact it has been around a long time in the old days-if it broke you mended it if at all possible and maybe that’s another wheel that might be taking a full turn.
One of the most important pieces of equipment in the shop was the weighing scale and the little brass weights. At the time all measures were in the old imperial measure of pounds and ounces, whereas most measurements are now in the metric measure of tonnes, kilogrammes and grammes. In the 1940s canned goods were also becoming popular and more readily available though the world war caused a certain amount of disruption to supplies.
Rationing during World War 2
Rationing was invoked in Ireland during the emergency, as the Second World War was referred to in Ireland; the country remained neutral and did not take part in the fighting. A large number of Irish men did join the British Army; many died and many more were injured… Some of the goods rationed were tea, sugar, butter, cigarettes – mostly produce that had to be imported. Supply lines to the UK were cut off or severely curtailed due to the war. Meat was not rationed locally, as every farmer by this stage had a ready supply of pigs, sheep, cows and fowl to slaughter for the pot, and most households kept a well stocked kitchen garden. Almost every part of an animal was used at slaughtering time – the story goes that every part of the pig was used except the squeal. Nothing was wasted and everything was preserved usually in salt or brine as refrigeration was not available in the years before rural electrification (1935-1939). The squeals of the pigs could be heard for miles when it came to slaughtering time – it wasn’t a pleasant sound to hear but it was far better than going hungry. .
Harvesting the corn
When it came to harvesting the corn, the whole community would band together to assist. The arrival of the harvesting machine would be eagerly anticipated by the adults, anxious to save the corn before the weather turned, and usually viewed with dread by the children as it was hard work and it would be a case of ‘all hands on deck’. Before the harvesting machine arrived the corn was all saved by hand with an implement called a scythe – the children were kept well away from the fields at that time as there was a real chance they might be hurt by the scythe if they couldn’t be seen coming by the adults. For the same reason they were kept away from the harvesting engine also – this was a steam powered piston driven engine, which made a lot of noise and smoke and was fascinating to a child. The piston driven rubber threads could snare an unwary child with potentially disastrous results. Once the corn had been cut, either by scythe or machine, the women and older children walked behind gathering armfuls (bushels) of corn and tying them quickly with a couple of entwined stalks. Several sheaves would be gathered together and stacked, seed head upwards, and a rope twisted of the same corn to keep them together. Once this was done the corn was then taken away for storage, and brought to Loughnanes mill as needed to be ground down. A good worker was much valued at this time, as speed and neatness made the storage of the sheaves much easier. The straw itself would be used for bedding for livestock or for thatching roofs.
A Dangerous time for children
Overall it was a dangerous time to be a child – poverty and lack of knowledge of germs led to many children dying before they reached their 5th birthday. Infant mortality was high; many childhood illness still around today led to death or permanent disability in the absence of any medicine; measles, polio, tuberculosis, scarlet fever – even the dreaded influenza-could all prove fatal, though apart from this the local population would have been comparatively healthier than today. Obesity was a rarity, particularly in rural areas, where survival depended on being fit and able to work all year round. Obesity was usually observed in wealthy landowner types who could afford to eat the finest and richest of foods, and who generally didn’t do much manual labour. Their children were equally vulnerable to childhood illness, but as adults the main problem tended to be an increased risk of heart attack, and frequent attacks of gout, the rich mans disease.
While debilitating and painful, gout seldom proved fatal. Influenza proved no respecter of title, social standing or age, and the Spanish Flu of 1918 saw many people laid low or dead. The nearest hospital to this locale was in Galway, and most sick persons would have been transported by horse and cart to Athenry to catch a train into Galway. At the time the local doctor would have done house calls, but as there were no telephones any visit from the doctor required a bicycle journey to Athenry, and then an anxious wait for his arrival. Most doctors would have had their own motorcars but they were amongst the only locals to have such transport. Anyone sent to hospital was out of touch with home for the duration of their visit – if that was to be a prolonged visit the family members might cycle in to Galway once or twice to visit them, if they were lucky.
The Railway
The railway station in Athenry was a huge boom to the locality, and when it was opened on August 1st 1851 it was a great day for the town. The railway line runs at the back of Graig Abbey house, and passes through Lisdoran and Cahertubber as well, and was mostly dug out and constructed by hand – shovels, picks and back breaking hard work were the order of the day. Men would line up and the gaffer would pick as many men as he required for the days work; anyone not chosen would either take themselves off to hopefully find a day’s labour elsewhere or would follow the gang and wait on the banks of the construction in the hope that perhaps someone would prove a slow worker and be fired, or would fall sick and be unable to continue, in which case the gaffer would call on one of the men waiting to take his place. Nothing prevented the progress of the line – if you were injured it was on your own head – insurance was unheard of, and compensation was only given in extreme cases. The railway proved a great boon to the town though, and made Athenry one of the largest and most important towns in Galway, particularly when the lines to Limerick and Claremorris were opened. It meant the free movement of goods all over Ireland and, though expensive, a person could travel the length and breadth of Ireland if they had the money for the fare.
Beezie Loughnane, 1916 and the Black and Tans
This freedom of travel meant that many people from the locale could travel to Dublin to work, and this led to an incident with a young Beezie Molloy (later Loughnane). She went to Dublin to work for a relation of hers as a domestic servant shortly after the 1916 rising. The man who owned the house was the chief inspector of the Midland Great Western railways. She had to go down to Broadstone Station one day to collect a basket of eggs that was being sent up from Athenry. While she was there a Joseph Howley from Oranmore was shot and killed by the Black and Tans as he alighted from the Galway to Dublin train. She was only a few yards away from the man as he lay dying and dropped the basket of eggs in her fright. Mr Howley is commemorated to this day by a statue in Oranmore village.
The house she was employed in was also raided by the Black and Tans as one of the sons of the household was suspected of involvement in the Old IRA, and several searches were carried out looking for weapons. At one time during a search the sleeping baby was taken from its cot and the cot under it was searched for weapons – this was witnessed by a horrified Beezie, then roughly aged 20. The house was near CrokePark and she vividly remembered hearing the gunfire from CroaghPark on Bloody Sunday when the Black and Tans opened fire on the spectators. She also knew Kevin Barry well as he used to call to the house – he was just a young lad, her own age, and she remembers the morning he was hung in Mount joy Jail. She was outside the gates of the Gaol with a large group of people saying the rosary and the British soldiers were inside the gates with a machine gun trained on them. She always remembered the black flag being raised once the execution was carried out, and she often cried when remembering back to that dark day in 1920.
Graig Abbey House
Graig Abbey house was built on the ruins of an old Abbey – Graig seems to be an anglicised version of the old Irish Carraig. There was a deer park there at one time, and the walls of the fields were built very high in order to keep the deer from jumping out. Most of the land around here was owned by the big house. There were two entrances into the estate – the main entrance still exists to this day, as does the remains of the gatehouse, formerly home to the Loughnanes. No sign of the original mill remains – it was a basic wooden structure and as the engines were moved down to the new mill (also a wooden structure of which no remains survive) nothing remains to tell the tale. The wooden buildings housing the new mill at Loughnanes cross were torn down in the early 1970s. The engines had been sold on some years before upon the death of Michael Loughnane in 1969. The other entrance to Graig Abbey House was the back entrance, and it no longer exists except on old O.S. Maps. It ran along the right hand side of the field next to Loughnanes house, and a remnant of this road remains to this day, though it’s hardly recognisable.
