Stories and
Poems from Trainees
"One For You And One For Me”
Two young lads – they went up a field beside the
graveyard. There was a Convent where the nuns lived in and there was an
orchard of apples at the back. They stole the apples in a bag. On their
way coming down across the field, it was beside the graveyard, they sat
down to cut the apples to make two halves of them. So the fella who was
counting, he was saying, “There’s one for you and one for me.” There was
a man going home from town after he’d had a few drinks and he heard the
young lads counting the apples, and he understood it was the Devil and God
and he was counting the Souls, “One for you And one for me.” (The Devil
was getting the bad one). So yer man took into the running. He came to
town the next day and he told people that he had heard God and the Devil
counting the souls, “One for you and one for me.” He say’s, “The Devil is
there alright” but people didn’t believe him.
Mary Mc Donagh
The Humble Flour Bag
We'd steep the flower bags in cold water - we'd get all
the flower off them; two eight-stone bags, sew them together and make a
sheet. Two four-stone bags would make two pillow slips. More times we'd
make underwear for ourselves and for the children.
If we were making a handmade patch quilt (they were all
the go at that time), we'd line them with the flour bags and we'd put the
bindings all around for the joinings of them, made out of the flower bags.
We would make babies nappies out of them and for the inside of baby
clothes. We'd make our aprons.
When you had them washed, you'd rinse them out in the
blue (bag of blue), which would give them a nice bluey shade. If there was
any stain on them, you'd look for the green bush or green grass and spread
it and this would take the stain out. And we'd use them for tea-towels.
They were very valuable bags them times.
Mary McDonagh
The Blackbird
In the far comer,
Close by the swings,
Every morning a blackbird sings.
His bill is so yellow,
His coat is so black,
That he makes a fellow whistle back.
Ann my daughter thinks that he,
Sings of us, especially
Marie Allen
I Am A Traveller
I am a traveller born to be free,
I would love to go back to the old country,
With my horse and my wagon and my own family,
That's when I knew I was free.
I get up in the morning at the crack of dawn,
And listen to the birds singing their song,
I would harness my horse and then carry on,
To hawk for the day, that's the way we got along.
It's come to the evening,
We'd ail gather round,
We'd tell some old stories,
And sing old travellers songs.
We had no worries,
Nothing to fear,
What happened with us,
Was gone with the air.
Times they have changed,
And are different now,
As I sit and think how,
The way life used to be,
Once again I'd love to be free.
Mae Cleary
