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This is taken from an interview of Molly Lonergan, Lucy Gordon, Kathleen O’Hare. the interviewer was David Reid, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
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I was in the south of Ireland in 43, I came up in 1946, up here. And before that I was living in the south of Ireland, I met a Belfast man, married him in 1946, we were married 47 years. There weren’t much rations in the south of Ireland at that time. Soap was very scarce, and tea was very scarce. We had plenty of vegetables and butter, which they hadn’t have up here, and plenty of onions. This one character in a bowler hat, walking along, after a man who had onions. Scarce, you know?

Tea and butter, [only] 2 ounces a week of butter up north

There was no problems with meat or dairy, like there was up here, which shook me. The margerine up here was terribly yellow. Very artificial looking.

Clothes were all right.
You got points for buying clothes. That time, you see, I was getting married. You couldn’t have a white wedding because you couldn’t get the points to buy the stuff. I was friends with tailoresses, they provided me with the material. So they did. You borrowed points off your family, you see.

I just wore an ordinary blue frock and a coat over it.
But that was common then. You couldn’t have gotten anything else. It was what you had to wear. You had to do with it.

You wouldn’t have saved your rations. You got them every week. You got 2 ounces of butter and 2 ounces of sugar and 2 ounces of cheese a week. And meat I can’t remember.
You could do with that or not. We ate it all on a Thursday, because that was the day you got them. We always had high tea on Thursday.

We were on a farm and we had lots of stuff, Milk and butter, all that. We were very lucky.
You didn’t really. When you were on the farm you could always get something else. Even the hens. You had your own hens, ducks, geese, everything.

When we got married you had to have Utility furniture. Remember that, Utility furniture? I had my table until I left and came in here.
It was very strongly made. But you had to have coupons for that too. You could only get so much. You were allowed a bed and a dressing table and a wardrobe, but nothing frilly. And to get curtains or anything. I remember we had no curtains for a long time. And I got, you’ll hardly believe this. The muslin that they used to strain the butter, you remember that? I got yards and yards of that and made curtains for the windows to keep people from looking in. Everyone sort of used what they had. They had to be inventive. We put up with a lot. And sweets were rationed, too.

I never sewed on my sewing machine, because my husband was the oldest of ten. He could sew and do anything. He used to work in Derry, different places, and he’d always get me the material and made curtains. I was lucky, because he was travelling the country, and he was always able to get a bit, this and that.

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