Life as it was lived in the parishes of the past

Muff, Co Donegal: The wages of menservants is found to vary in proportion to their respective merit from 2 to 4 pounds per half year and that of women servants from 1 pound to 30s for the same time. Day labourers without diet get from 10d to 12d a day and if fed from 5d to 6d by the day.

Desertegney, Co Donegal: The people live in low stone cabins with glass windows and thatched roofs bound down with straw ropes . . . The cabins . . . are not clean or comfortable. The English language is increasing. The food of the people is potatoes, water, milk and some meal. Most people keep a cow and burn turf and a little bog wood. They live from 60 to 80 and are about 6 in a family. They marry very early, frequently at 16, and in one instance in the memory of man the united ages of one couple did not exceed 28.

Island Magee, Co Antrim: The inhabitants of all sexes and classes are perhaps a more immoral race than is to be found in any other rural district in Antrim . . . particularly in the towns of Carrickfergus and Larne. What makes their immorality the more disgusting is the openness and want of shame with which it is exhibited. The women drink whenever they can procure the means. The farmers drink on all occasions to excess. On Sunday when coming from "meeting" drunken farmers will be seen staggering along the road in the presence of their clergymen. Conjugal fidelity is little practised on the part of either husband or wife. It more frequently than otherwise happens that a girl becomes a mother or is pregnant at the period of her marriage . . . All children being born before or immediately after marriage, though of Presbyterian parents, are brought for baptism to the rector.

Killdrumsherdan, Co Cavan: Potatoes and buttermilk constitute the chief and almost the only diet of the people. Very coarse friezes and corduroys with home spun woollens and fancy cottons form their attire. One striking peculiarity in the dress of the males is their never wearing a neckcloth; and the females, in the hottest days of summer, wear their cloaks and feel undressed without them. Attendance at fairs, wakes, weddings and markets are their favourite amusements, where mirth, dancing and jollity abound.