Living in the Past: A Northern Irish Memoir by Arthur Magennis Page A
Authors: Arthur Magennis
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away.
The stacks looked like little houses, the turf being the bricks and the sides were sloped in to meet at the top so that the rain would fall off the turf and keep the inside dry.
These stacks were a great temptation to local people who could walk into that great plane of turf at night if they were short and get a sack full. Abraham was always complaining about it to anyone who would listen and one day he was holding forth to one of the turf cutters who said to him, “I blame the Fridayers.”
“Who are they?” said Abraham.
“Oh, sure you wouldn’t know, being of the other kind,” he said, meaning Protestant. “They’re the people who do the nine Fridays, that is they go to mass and holy communion on the first Friday of every month for nine consecutive Fridays. Holy Joes, that’s what they are.”
“Ah,” said Abraham.
A few days later, he was having a chat to someone standing on the rampart. The two of them lit their fags and Abraham walked over to lean against a stack of turf and when he did he fell right into it, as the turf had been stolen from the inside of the stack and the wall replaced. His companion got the turf off him and pulled him out and the first words Abraham said were, “To hell with the Fridayers.”
The peat moss may not have paid much but it kept a lot of families alive. Also, after a certain period, these men would have enough insurance stamps on their cards and be able to draw the dole or the buroo as it was called locally.
While drawing the buroo, people weren’t averse to doing a job for the local farmers at busy times like bringing in the hay. One promising day my father rounded up a few men for the Brilla as the weather forecast was good, or maybe my father’s big toe might have warned him that he had but a day to finish the meadow. Usually, the meadows were well hidden from prying eyes but we had one meadow that came very near to the main road and that’s where we were on this day.
The buroo men would be on the lookout for one or two men about whom they had their suspicions, having been given a tip-off from a jealous neighbour, perhaps, and they would slowly cruise around the roads, hoping to catch them red-handed. They usually carried binoculars and because of this some men adopted disguises.
I heard from my nephew Colm of a man who met another man on the road one morning, who was sporting a red beard and wore dark glasses. He didn’t know who this bearded man was, but there was something about him that seemed familiar. When he told his wife she said, “Och, do you not know your own son? He’s away to his work.”
When we were working in the meadow near the road one man called John was very wary as he raked the hay into a pile and his eye would stray to the road, looking for a car which might contain the buroo man. There were only one or two regular cars which used the road and they were well known. I was right beside him and I think he had attracted my attention with his furtive glances and talk of mysterious buroo men. He suddenly threw himself on the ground and the man beside him threw a forkful of hay on top of him. John lay there for a few minutes until the car had passed out of sight and then he was prodded and the all clear was announced.
I remember once coming from school with a boy called Paddy who said to me, “I wish I was eighteen, Arthur, and I could go on the buroo, like our John.” What ambition, between the buroo and the peat moss.
Another source of income was from flax. Quite a lot of flax was grown in the district and there was a scutching mill, as well, quite near. When the flax was ready to be harvested it was still green and would be pulled out by the roots. Usually a gang of men would pull a field in a day or two. It would be tied in sheaves like oats or barley or wheat, and finally it was taken to the flax hole to be steeped, that is soaked in water for about two weeks, I think. I’m not sure because we didn’t grow flax.
The canal, at
The stacks looked like little houses, the turf being the bricks and the sides were sloped in to meet at the top so that the rain would fall off the turf and keep the inside dry.
These stacks were a great temptation to local people who could walk into that great plane of turf at night if they were short and get a sack full. Abraham was always complaining about it to anyone who would listen and one day he was holding forth to one of the turf cutters who said to him, “I blame the Fridayers.”
“Who are they?” said Abraham.
“Oh, sure you wouldn’t know, being of the other kind,” he said, meaning Protestant. “They’re the people who do the nine Fridays, that is they go to mass and holy communion on the first Friday of every month for nine consecutive Fridays. Holy Joes, that’s what they are.”
“Ah,” said Abraham.
A few days later, he was having a chat to someone standing on the rampart. The two of them lit their fags and Abraham walked over to lean against a stack of turf and when he did he fell right into it, as the turf had been stolen from the inside of the stack and the wall replaced. His companion got the turf off him and pulled him out and the first words Abraham said were, “To hell with the Fridayers.”
The peat moss may not have paid much but it kept a lot of families alive. Also, after a certain period, these men would have enough insurance stamps on their cards and be able to draw the dole or the buroo as it was called locally.
While drawing the buroo, people weren’t averse to doing a job for the local farmers at busy times like bringing in the hay. One promising day my father rounded up a few men for the Brilla as the weather forecast was good, or maybe my father’s big toe might have warned him that he had but a day to finish the meadow. Usually, the meadows were well hidden from prying eyes but we had one meadow that came very near to the main road and that’s where we were on this day.
The buroo men would be on the lookout for one or two men about whom they had their suspicions, having been given a tip-off from a jealous neighbour, perhaps, and they would slowly cruise around the roads, hoping to catch them red-handed. They usually carried binoculars and because of this some men adopted disguises.
I heard from my nephew Colm of a man who met another man on the road one morning, who was sporting a red beard and wore dark glasses. He didn’t know who this bearded man was, but there was something about him that seemed familiar. When he told his wife she said, “Och, do you not know your own son? He’s away to his work.”
When we were working in the meadow near the road one man called John was very wary as he raked the hay into a pile and his eye would stray to the road, looking for a car which might contain the buroo man. There were only one or two regular cars which used the road and they were well known. I was right beside him and I think he had attracted my attention with his furtive glances and talk of mysterious buroo men. He suddenly threw himself on the ground and the man beside him threw a forkful of hay on top of him. John lay there for a few minutes until the car had passed out of sight and then he was prodded and the all clear was announced.
I remember once coming from school with a boy called Paddy who said to me, “I wish I was eighteen, Arthur, and I could go on the buroo, like our John.” What ambition, between the buroo and the peat moss.
Another source of income was from flax. Quite a lot of flax was grown in the district and there was a scutching mill, as well, quite near. When the flax was ready to be harvested it was still green and would be pulled out by the roots. Usually a gang of men would pull a field in a day or two. It would be tied in sheaves like oats or barley or wheat, and finally it was taken to the flax hole to be steeped, that is soaked in water for about two weeks, I think. I’m not sure because we didn’t grow flax.
The canal, at