Folklore: ‘this farm would be nothing, without a woman or a girl’

There is a great song written in 1966 by James Brown and Betty Jean Newson that never ceases to invigorate me. There is extraordinary energy in the Van Morrison version recorded live in San Francisco, in December 1993, with Brian Kennedy adding pure soul to a truly great performance.

The song, It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World, quips ‘it’s a man’s, man’s world but it would be nothing without a woman or a girl’. It was written in the embryonic days of women’s liberation and the re-evaluation of the woman’s value and intrinsic contribution to society. The song is not focused on farming and rural Ireland, but it could well be an anthem that echoes and underscores the position and input of women in Irish agriculture.

In rural Ireland of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many young women made their first foray into the hard work of farm life on one of the two traditional hiring fair days that were held on Old May Day on 12 May and Old Hallow’s Day on 12 November.

Masses of poor labourers, young and old, would assemble in the squares of their local towns, lined up against a gable end of a house, with a small bundle of clothes and some odds and ends under their arms, hoping to find work for six months.

There were old stagers, the experienced hands, who would carry a loy or a spade to mark out their usefulness to the hiring farmers. The bewildered young boys and girls would stand wide-eyed in a mixture of fear and hope that their position would be a good one.

The farmer would look them up and down, assessing their looks and physiques and interrogate them. He would ask if they drank, if they were God-fearing, if they were early risers, if they were good milkers and if they were afraid of hard work.

The boys were destined for spade work and ploughing while the girls would look to the milking, the dairy, the fowl, and the constant demands of the household – cooking, baking, washing and tending the fire.

At the hiring fair, the choice for a young innocent girl of which farmer to go with was high risk – one might end up with a pleasant and fair ‘master’ or ‘boss’, as they were known, or the circumstances and experience might be exploitative and deeply negative.

A choice had to be made, and the hiring farmer would agree her wages for the six months and seal the bargain by giving her what was termed an ‘earnest’, a small amount of money of two or three shillings. She would hand over her bundle of personal belongings to confirm her side of the bargain.

The choice had to be made quickly, if one hesitated and the fair was over, the following week had a small fair where the wages and situations were usually far inferior.

Endless tasks

Once she arrived on the farm, the cailín aimsire or servant girl had an almost endless set of daily tasks and chores to complete each and every day.

Her accommodation might have been in an outhouse, away from the heat and sanctuary of the main household. She would rise at cock crow and; had to rake the ashes and get the fire going to allow her to bake the bread.

Some women would have a special small, wooden, kneading trough called a losset and in this they would mix the dough to bake brown bread, griddle scones or a cake of sweet bastible bread.

The cailín aimsire had an almost endless set of daily tasks and chores to complete each and every day

Bastible refers to the type of iron pot it was cooked in. While baking the bread, the servant girl would look to the laying hens who were kept in a hen coop at the base of the dresser and gather in the eggs.

Outside she would tend to the fowl houses, feeding the chicks and the pullets, the guinea fowl, the ducks, the geese and the turkeys, making sure they were all safe after the night.

In the time of no running water, she would then gather the enamel buckets and walk some distance to the well and lug the heavy contents home before placing one for the household to wash with. The other was used to fill the heavy iron kettle that she would set hanging on the crane over the fire to boil.

The day would see numerous demanding trips to the well for water to boil large pots of spuds, to do the washing and of course, the important work of the dairy.

Cowhouse

Twice a day, the servant girl went into the cowhouse and here she would sit on a small stool and milk the cows by hand. Women were long held to be superior and more sensitive milkers than men and used all their skill in massaging the cows’ udders or singing to bring the full complement of rich creamy milk from each cow.

The pails of milk were brought to the household creamery and placed in low keelers to allow the cream to rise and ripen. She would skim off the cream and put it in the dash churn and begin the long and demanding chore of churning the cream into butter. This was physically very demanding and could take an hour or more, depending on the temperature, for the butter to come.

She would wash out the buttermilk with the cold, fresh, spring well water, before salting and packing her round of butter into a 56lb firkin barrel.

When the barrel was full, it would be taken to market to be sold and the quantity and quality of the butter provided the income for the luxuries on the farm.

While horses or donkeys and carts were the best form of transport, it often fell to the young servant girls and women to be the so-called ‘burden carriers’. There are accounts of women walking incredible distances to the butter market, with the substantial 56lb firkin of butter on their heads. They used a small round loop of plaited sugán straw on top of their heads to help balance and cushion their heavy loads.

Women also had a strong burden rope made from twisted strips of wood so they could wrap it around awkward bundles of straw, hay and furze and carry them to and from the household.

Equally, the heavy back creels made of woven willow that were used to draw seaweed, manure, turf, animal fodder and everything on the farm were carried by women.

As I write this piece, I can hear Van Morrison bellowing out the great truism: ‘this farm would be nothing baby, without a woman or a girl, without a woman or a girl!’

Shane Lehane is a folklorist who works in UCC and Cork College of FET, Tramore Road Campus. Contact: slehane@ucc.ie