Milk and Chickens and Keeping Pets

Martin Monahan

Martin Monahan 21st July 2017 Deerpark Social Services Centre, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

Milk and Chickens and Keeping Pets

Interviewer: Clare Doyle (CD)

Interviewee: Martin Monahan (MM)

 

CD: Do you think does milk taste different from when you were small, when you were saying about taking the cream off the milk, did the milk taste nicer, it tasted different, did it?

MM: The milk always tasted nice

CD: I’d say it probably had a creamy taste to it?

MM: When the churning was over you could use the buttermilk to make cakes too as well

CD: Ah, very good

MM: We used to call it the buttermilk

CD: And you had chickens and eggs too at home as well, did ye?

MM: We used to have a chicken every Sunday

CD: And had you to kill the chicken yourselves?

MM: We used to have to kill the chicken

CD: And you’d kill the poor aul chicken the same way you’d kill the goose for Christmas?

MM: That’s right

CD: I’d be wick I’d say

MM: It would

CD; You’d have the chicken in the pot in half an hour

MM: I usedn’t to do it, my father and my mother used to do it

CD: Yeah

MM: Cause I was young and I didn’t like doing it

CD: No, it’s not a nice job, sure it’s not?

MM: We used to rear our own chickens

CD: Yeah, would you become very attached to them?

MM: You would

CD: And did you ever have a pet lamb or a pat calf?

MM: Only a pet dog!

CD: Right

MM: I used to have a pet dog alright, but I never had a pet lamb

CD: Because it’s awful hard to kill an animal of it’s a pet

MM: Tis very hard that’s right

CD: And even with the chickens, to see them small and see them getting bigger and growing, up it’s very hard to kill a chicken to have for your dinner

MM: That’s true, it would. It’s cruel.

CD: It is yeah, but …

MM: But what could you do

CD: I suppose that’s what you had to do to eat it

MM: That’s, that was their way that time.

CD: Yeah, that was the way it had to be done. Not like today, you could go into Supervalu and buy your chicken

MM: They had none of that, that time

CD: Yeah

This page was added on 07/08/2017.

No Comments

Start the ball rolling by posting a comment on this page!

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.