For our folklore project we went to interview Rosie Kennedy. We found out lots of interesting information.We started by asking her about school days. She went to School in Clonaslee Girls N.S.
In school she learned
Irish, English, maths, geography, history and knitting. Every day she had to
walk to school bare footed. She had to walk one mile from her house to the
school. She didn't have to stay at home to help out at home during school so she
went to school every week day. They started school at the age of four or five
normally. The principal at the time was Ms. Bates. Her teachers were Ms. Daly
and Ms. Bates. The games they normally played were tag and hide and seek. Her
favourite subject at school was English reading. She went to secondary school
for two years. The thing she liked at school was meeting her friends. She
enjoyed her years at school.
As a child she enjoyed her
life at school and at home. Her most frightening experience as a child. was
getting teeth out and her rubela injection. Her happiest experience as a child
was passing her primary cert. When she was a child the headlines on the paper
had only the odd murder.
There was nothing about drugs in the paper and only a few robberies. She knew
some people who could cure Jaundice, ring worm and shingles. Her family knew a
home cure for shingles. The person that cured the shingles would prick his/hers
finger with a needle and then put the blood on the scalp. Someone used one of
the old cures on her. She was cured of shingles. She knew an older lady that
could make cures for burns out of herbs. She didn't now any old cures her self.
As
a child her jobs around the home was to bring in water for the washing and she
had to bring turf and sticks for the fire. She had to pulp turnips and mangles
to feed the cattle. To do her jobs it took her about one hour. As a child she
hated thinning the turnips and scraping the potatoes. The food she had the most
as a child was home made bread and butter made out of cream. We also often had
potatoes and home cured bacon. Back then we didn't have pizza and burgers. They
grew most of the food themselves. They were one of the only families that had a
pump in their own yard.
I enjoyed this project because of all the tea and biscuits.
Thank you Rosie Kennedy Tom 09/02/00