the importance of "having enough to eat and those who enjoyed that state were extremely grateful for the priviledge. No doubt the tales they heard first hand from their parents and grandparents of the enormous suffering during the worst of the famine years in 1840/45 was still strongly in their minds.
The evenings entertainment often included accounts of weird experiences - the occasional sighting of a ghost in the dark winter evenings was recounted with a very convincing array of detail.  The wail of the banshee (literally the fairy woman) was heard in the night - usually when someone was about to die.  The net result was that I was terrified to go out in the dark, even when nature called and there was nowhere else to go but down the garden - the notion of lavatories was confined to distant hotels - rarely visited by country folk in those days.  I recall later on some new 'council' houses being built in a nearby town Ballyjmesduff and these had flush toilets installed.  It was reliably reported that the toilets were assumed to be for washing the spuds!
The amenities we now take for granted, such as electricity, central heating, sewage collection and disposal and indeed mains water supply were not available to rural communities in those days.  One of my routine duties was to collect the daily supply of water for human consumption, cooking and other domestic purposes, from the well - the well derived from a 'spring'  on the edge of a field, a few hundred yards from the farm house - the water was transported in two steel buckets.   
But life was not all hard work - although entertainment was essentially home made it was spiced with the occasional visit to Ballyjamesduff, when the sale of a bullock or pig produced a little surplus, which in the case of my grandfather Mick, was perhaps to too great an extent devoted to entertaining his pals over copious pints of 'stout' - the stout then was invariably Guinness.  Granny was a very religious woman, who bore her constant pain from a permanently ulcerated leg with great fortitude and regarded it as penance for her sins -  the sins were at worst, I suspect, the occasional outburst fuelled by her perception of husband Mick's fondness for the occasional binge.  Granny sat by the kitchen window every evening looking towards the convent in Bally'duff , reciting her long litany of prayers. A serious confrontation with my grandfather ensued when she prevailed on me, during the course of one of Mick's visits to the local fair in Ballyjamesduff, to cut down a tree which was beginning to obstruct her view of the church.  My grandfather had a great regard for his trees and raised merry hell when the noticed the gap in his line of prized poplars.  Fortunately for me I was regarded as being simply Granny's instrument in the destructive process and I escaped his wrath.
My only seriously painful memory of my visits to Lisdonish was when, one Saturday, my Uncle Harry, who was beset with farm demands, asked me to drive Granny in the pony and trap to confession at Bally'duff .  I was so proud - as this was the first time in my life I was entrusted with such enormous responsibility.  I enthusiastically helped to harness the pony to the trap and proudly held the leather reins while Granny was being helped into the trap.  All went well on the outward bound trip and I duly delivered Granny to the chapel.  Not wishing to take any risks with the pony I stood outside firmly holding the reins. Sadly Granny's prayerfulness was my undoing - it took so long for her to achieve absolution that the horse went into a state of revolt and became so stroppy I decided to tie the reins to a tree to avoid the constant strain of his abrupt head rearing.  One particularly vicious lift of the head by a now very impatient pony resulted in the reins breaking.   
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My Own Personal Recollections" Continued :

Then followed the arduous job of cutting the slab into sods with hay knifes and separating out the sods to stand on end in 'footings' for as long as it took the sods to dry.  Following this the sods of turf were made into clamps in preparation for carting home by pony and cart to form the winter's turf rick.
The great consolation of turf making was the arrival of Granny at lunch time with a generous supply of concannon - a potato based concoction which included milk, eggs and onions and formed a delicious meal for bog weary folk.
The food in general was basic but brilliant - all home produced , always fresh  and bearing out the old Irish saying "Se an t'ocras an salainn is fear" - hunger is the best sauce.  Potatoes were an essential part of the diet and the good "flowery"potato, the skins of which separated from the spud when boiled was highly prized - the potato crop was carefully cultivated in raised hand dug ridges to ensure good drainage and kept fresh and protected from frost in  straw and soil covered heaps over winter.  Equally oat meal porridge was a most important part of the menu - the porridge was made from the home produced oats boiled for several hours every evening over the open hearth fire in the farmhouse kitchen.  The resulting 'stir-about', as it was called, was for me a much cherished dish, with fresh cow's milk or buttermilk added to taste.  I hugely enjoyed my porringer full of stir-about, every morning and evening.  The midday dinner was the big opportunity to enjoy an abundance of boiled potatoes, with home made butter, as well as cabbage and on occasions some boiled fatty bacon, produced from the offspring of the family sow, and home cured with a plentiful supply of salt.  My granny would invariably preface the meal with the admonition "Eat up and be fat Micheal" - fat and fatness were considered as being conducive to good health and well being in those days - the effects were no doubt offset by the hard physical work which was accepted as a necessary part of the lifestyle.  Good soda bread too was a highly prized part of the daily diet - made from coarse wheat meal with buttermilk and bicarbonate of soda plus a pinch of salt, the soda bread was wonderful with the rich farm butter. Following the milking of the half dozen cows and the final evening feed being delivered to the pigs and hens the family sat on stools around the big open turf fire to review the days happenings, read the weekly local Cavan paper, the Anglo Celt and reminisce about days gone by.
My grandfather Mick was a noted ballad singer who regaled his family and often neighbours and friends with his repertoire of traditional Irish songs.  Granny was also a gifted musician and when in the mood accompanied Mick on the fiddle.
Ceilighs were one of the social highlights, when locals assembled at neighbour's houses and the evening usually turned to a succession of songs and music following the preliminary craic and the cup o' tay.  Each of those present were expected to make a contribution and even my solos were invariably greeted with a reassuring round of applause. The 'mellodian' (piano accordion) was a favourite instrument as well as the fiddle and the mouth organ and tin whistle were also popular.  think back on my childhood visits to Lisdonish with a strong sense of appreciation of the friendship, community spirit and close camaraderie evident in the people of that time.  There was no perception of any sense of deprivation  or envy of the lifestyle of  better off  contemporaries -  I often heard references to