Picking spuds in Ar dee and planning for an invasion ...
IN March at the beginning of the pandemic, being 79 and 87 years of age respectively, my wife Rosemarie and I were well and truly cocooned.
The first task out of the job jar was tidying up the garage. In the process of doing so I discovered some potatoes going to seed in the bottom of a brown paper bag. Thinking that they had been forgotten about, I set to digging some holes, into which I put fertiliser, in a cultivated plot in the garden. Making drills in the traditional way was out of the question! I had just planted them and was occupied covering them up when Rosemarie who had been busy making face masks, arrived. She was none too happy when she saw her ‘precious reserve’ being buried and me lifting heavy shovelfuls of clay. When I suggested unearthing them she was adamant that they should stay buried. She was sceptical and questioned my judgement in planting Roosters that were shop-bought and not ‘certified seed’.
To celebrate the Feast day of St. Peter and Paul, June 29th, and the further relaxation of the cocooning restrictions, we decided to chance digging a few stalks of the Roosters although they could not be regarded as being an early variety. We were delighted with the yield as some of the plants were defoliated by voracious slugs and snails. They are reckoned to have thousands of teeth. We were reluctant to poison the slimy creatures with Slugtox as the dead ones could be fatal to birds that eat them.
New potatoes were naturally the meal’s main vegetable, they were glazed with melted butter and sprinkled with chopped herbs. They were eaten skins and all! Garden peas, carrots and slices of boiled bacon smothered in parsley sauce was served with them. A raspberry strudel made with freshly picked berries with whipped cream followed. Although it was not a gourmet meal it was nevertheless most satisfying. Glasses of Mateus Rose helped! New potatoes invariably evokes nostalgic fond memories of my childhood years. Boiled spuds with butter, a few scallions and salt were regarded as a real indulgence.
Among the farming community around Ardee my dad Dinny was well known for his interest in potatoes and frequently gave advice about the growing of the various varieties. His own favourites were Kerrs’ Pinks and Golden Wonders and always grew a few acres of each.
Digging into past memories of the late thirties and early forties, thankfully the neurons of my hippocampus are still functioning, I can still recall drills being split open with a two-winged plough. The same plough moulded them in the previous Spring. The stalks were first shaken to free any tubers that were attached to them, the clay was then scoured and scattered with ones boot or shoe to expose spuds that were still covered.
Besides members of the family, local lads and lassies helped with the gathering. Also employed were Travellers who sometimes camped in Debidee Lane. They were willing workers. The gatherers worked in pairs using a basket made with sally rods. First to be lifted were the unblemished medium sized saleable ones, they were either bagged, carted to a shed for storage or pitted. When bagged a full Hessian sack should weigh one cwt. The weighing scales had two tables with room on one of them for two four stone iron weights. The tops of the sacks were stitched with binder twine and two lugs or ears were formed for easy lifting. Dublin wholesale merchants bought the potatoes by the lorry load. During the war years the full sacks had to be replaced with empty ones, I know of one merchant who had a full time staff of five women mending and patching damaged and torn ones.
Coming back down the drills after the saleable ones were collected, the small and large ones were gathered for animal feeding. Sometimes the large spuds were peeled and mashed for the family. Nowadays the small ones are sold in shops and supermarkets as ‘ baby potatoes’ and the chip and crisp factories are outlets for the larger ones. Later on when the stalks were withered and the field harrowed, more potatoes were unearthed and gathered.
Our daughter Sarah never tires in telling about the time, when she was a teenager and ‘on holidays’ with my parents, was asked to help out in the potato field. When she was given a choice of a companion picker she choose a girl of her own age. During the day some gatherers were somewhat amused when they saw her picking up and hiding exposed wriggling earthworms, from the ever-present rapious rooks. They claimed that the birds had also to live. Although there was not much time for idle banter some of the youths provoked her by calling her ‘A Dublin Jackeen’. She responded in kind by saying that they were uncultured Culchies. An incident worth recalling happened one morning when the bottom fell out of her wicker basket. She was given an empty sack which she had to awkwardly drag along whilst gathering the spuds, as she proceeded it became more cumbersome and heavier. At one stage, a roguish rascal started pegging poreens (throwing small potatoes) towards the girls, there was ructions. He was fortunate in not getting his marching orders.
Only some of the freshly dug potatoes were sold straightaway. Most of the crop would have been either stored in a shed and covered with straw or pitted. The size of the pit depended on the quantity to be set aside. The sods that were dug out were left to one side and replaced with a bedding of straw. Straw cocooned all that were to be stored. For protection against frost, a covering of the cast-off sods and clay was battered on to the straw with a shovel or spade. To stop ravenous rats from getting into the store, wire netting was used as a defence. A rodent that tunnelled under the wire would have hit the Jack-pot. Besides potatoes being eaten and damaged by a rat, heavy frost in the wintertime, entering through the burrow could make some of the spuds unsalable.
In the early forties the government in its wisdom decreed, in order to deter planes, enemy or otherwise, from landing, that farmers with large fields should place in them tar barrels filled with stones or sand with boughs or branches sticking out of them. It also ordered County Councils to erect barricades in strategic locations to stymie or delay an advancing force.
In Ardee a barrier was erected between the river and the mill-race. The street was blocked off with a section of the railway line about five feet above the ground. It transversed between two holes in concrete pillars on opposite sides of the thoroughfare and was manned by members of the local F.C.A. (L.D.F.).
My father had a Federal truck at the time. Not only did he bring his own produce to the Dublin Corporation Markets but also potatoes which he bought from local farmers. I often accompanied him on those trips to help with the unloading.
I will never forget that bitterly cold winter’s night when we were stopped at the barrier by the sentry, Jim Manning, who was well-known to my father. He regularly helped out at harvest time. When my dad had forgotten the password he was given a lecture about it’s importance but when he was asked for an identification, my father’s language became unparliamentarily. Jim, to his credit kept his ‘cool’. When we eventually got through the barrier my dad was saying more than his prayers! In later years both enjoyed reminiscing about the incidents.
During the difficult war years farmers who grew beet got, as well as being remunerated, a further recompense with a generous allowance of sugar from the factory. There was an alcohol factory in Carrickmacross that processed potatoes. I often wondered if it’s potato suppliers got similar concessions!