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This story is taken from an interview with Geraldine McGee and Seamus Clenaghan, and has been added to the site with their permission. The authors fully understands the site's terms and condition. The interview and transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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G
At that time, I distinctly remember, it meant nothing to me, but I remember [there was a singer] during the war with the troops. From the Donegal Rd … she sang for the troops.

S
Ruby Murray. [she sang] Down in the big factories where they didn’t have time off, to lift their spirits.

And if you had any scrap of cardboard, anything that you could do with at all, you handed it back in.
G
We used to walk up and down to school, and in front of the hospital there was steel railings. They took them away. And we used to get up, walk on the walls. I remember that.

S
They were taken away for ammunition.
We all contribute. Anything you didn’t need [was recycled].

[what about VE day? Were there street-parties?]
G
I don’t recollect.

S
I can’t say, because I was down in Dublin.

G
But didn’t they retain the long nights? What did they call it, light-saving?

S
2 hrs instead of 1. You’d have farmers out in their fields until 11pm. And of course, everyone had to get up early in the morning as well.

Down in Dublin, of course, we led a very sheltered life. We didn’t know half of what was going on outside. They concentrated on their own thing, and didn’t worry about what was going on outside it. We didn’t hear quickly.

Things were rationed there too. You got a wee container. You got in that container a scoop of sugar at the beginning of each week, and that had to do you. And there was nothing left over! It put people off taking sugar in their tea. The amount of sugar produced locally, in Carlow, from sugarbeet — coarse, very coarse sugar. Butter — you got a wee packet no bigger than a half-crown.
And you had 2-3 slices of bread. You had enough butter for 2, and if you wanted some on your third slice you had to scrape some off the other 2. No jam either, of course. No jam, that was a luxury.

G
We had dried bread - Brick-bread. That seemed to be all the way through the rationing. That and lard.

S
Dripping from beef.

G
Greasy, greasy …

S
In the morning we always had fried bread. You collected the fat from, if you had a roast or a lamb. You see, in the country you always had meat. We had some sheep and we had some pigs too. So there was another family, an uncle of mine, and my father, living my way — so between the 2 of them, 1 had …
For winter. And the same with the sheep or lambs. So whatever, they got. And that was used for frying bread.

2 ½ miles to walk. 6 year-olds.
We always had a fried egg and a little bit of bacon.

[did you hunt rabbits?]

S
I used to go our with a wee terrier dog around the fields.

G
It wasn’t out of necessity.

S
It was more to exercise the dog.

G
In those days they used to come around. There wasn’t the supermarkets they have today. The coal man came around. The mineral man with the soft drinks. Or the bread man. The vegetable man used to come around. And the Fishmonger. They used to come round. You were not given anything you couldn’t afford to pay. They called it “tick”. There was no work.
The bread man
My mother, she made her own bread. Even thought we had a Kennedy’s bakery just at the top of the road there.

S
It was a bit of a luxury, getting a bit of sliced bread.

G
Bought bread. But there was no Jam.

S
You’d make your own. We used to sell Eggs, 6p a doz. 9p a doz in the wintertime. And potatoes — 1hwt you got a half-crown or 2 shillings for 100wt a bag of potatoes. very little for anything. My father would have gone off on the Tuesday to the market. And all he’d have got was 3-4 pounds back after all the day’s takings. He maybe had 7-8 bags of potatoes along and some eggs and a bit of butter. 1 and 6p for a pound of butter. A shilling …

[Did you carry your Gas mask in a cardboard box?]

G
That’s right. It had your name on it. You weren’t allowed to let anybody touch yours, you see.

People seemed to be happier. That’s my recollection. There certainly was the community experience. That has definitely gone.
There was no television. You went out to the pictures.

S
Primitive radios.

G
There was no washing machines. Everything was done … all our clothes. Starched the collars of the shirts.
My mother was a sewer.

Shuttle service

When my mother got Television for the first time. She said “I don’t want it — I don’t want to be electrocuted in my own house”.
It won’t do any harm.
“Make sure the plugs are off.”

[electrical system introduced]

S
We had batteries there [in New Zealand] for a long time.

We also had petrol lamps.
You light the thing.

I remember there was a wealthy neighbour who did get electricity, I think it was before the war. And he paid something like 300 pounds to get the electricity brought. A mile or so, to pay for the poles.
Everybody was in admiration of it, that he’d got electricity. Just flick a switch.

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