Eating Outside

Pat Smyth 21^st July 2017 Skylark Centre, Athenry, Co. Galway

Eating Outside

Interviewer: Clare Doyle (CD)

Interviewee: Pat Smyth (PS)

CD: And, and did you ever go to the bog and have to bring the bit of lunch with you?

PS: Ah, I’d have go up with bottles of tea

CD: And how would the tea, how would it stay warm?

PS: Well, you drink it the way it is

CD: Right. And it would be warm enough, would it?

PS: It would, because the weather would be fine and…

CD: Yeah

PS: You couldn’t work in the bod when it would be wet

CD: Right. It would be a sunny, kind of a dry day

PS: You wouldn’t be able to work the animal. A donkey

CD: And what. A donkey! You’d have to bring the donkey and the card with you?

PS: Yeah, yeah, to carry it

CD: And would you feed the donkey during the day in the bog or would be just be fed in the morning

PS: Ah no, you used not feed him at all

CD: What would you give hi, oats or something, or hay?

PS: You’d give him hay

CD: Yeah

PS: And out him out grazing for the night

CD: Ah, right

PS: He wouldn’t be able to eat it because he had worked so hard

CD: Yeah, he’d be tired

PS: Yeah

CD: And when you were in the bog and you had your bottle of tea, what would you eat with the tea?

PS: You could eat sandwiches

CD: And would you have a bit of cake?

PS: Tomato sandwiches

CD: Tomato Sandwiches?

PS: Yeah

CD: That sounds alright! And did you ever work in the fields saving the hay?

PS: I did, yeah

CD: And you’d have the bottle of tea then as well, would you

PS: Yeah. And the oats

CD: The oats as well

PS: And barley, if there was

CD: Yeah. So ye were busy men?

PS: Yeah, we were very busy, my father would go out with the scythe

CD: Oh, right

PS: A scythe he used

CD: And what’s that look like?

PS: A big thing with two handles

CD: Right

PS: And you…

CD: It was for cutting, was it?

PS: Yeah and he had a scythe stone

CD: Right

PS: He used to call it the scythe stone, to sharpen it

CD: And is the stone a big one, is it?

PS: Big, big, long

CD: And it would keep it sharp?

PS: Yeah

CD: You’d have to be careful, that would be very sharp, I’d say

PS: Mmm