HIRING FAIR – WORKING ON THE LAGAN
Years ago at this date in May the Hiring Fair would be passed and young people would be starting their 6 months work as farm hands and domestic servants.
My granny Marjory Gallagher probably met my grandfather Patrick O Donnell under such circumstances.
The following short story is an Imagined tale on how and where they might have met.
Gemma Hill 2018
I was up early that May morning. My mother hadn’t to call me twice. I was going to the hiring fair in Strabane to make my fortune.
My mother’s face was sad as she handed me a string bag with my few things in it. I barely notice so excited was I to be going to work in the lagan.
My sister Francis was going too. That was the only reason my mother was letting me go. Francis had been hired before. She didn’t say much except for me to stop my nonsense as I skipped along beside her. As we reached the end of the lane to the cottage she gave a little forlorn wave to our mother.
Strabane Square was overflowing with boys and girls like ourselves looking for to be ‘taken on’.
A boy older and taller than me squeezed in between me and my sister. He had a bundle under his arm. I smiled at him. “Are you from Donegal too? Have you been hired before?” I asked.
“I’m from Ligformdrum and I’m hopin’ to be re-hired by a farmer I was hired to a couple of years ago,” he smiled. “Here he comes now,” he said straightening up and stepping out a little from the crowd. The man passed on. “What’s your name,” asked to chase away the frown on his face.
“Patrick O Donnell. What’s your,” he asked.
“Marjory Gallagher, from Creeslough, but everybody calls me Madge.”
“Is this your first time at the hiring fair?”
Smiling happily I nodded.
He nudged me as another farmer approached. “He has a farm of land at Camus, just outside the town. I hear it’s a good place for a servant girl to work,” he said under his breath. “They let her sleep in the house.”
“Madge,” shut up! Stop that gabbling. Nobody wants to hire a talking child,” my sister Francis berated me. “Open your coat and show the farmers the white apron mammy made you for your work.”
Her rebuke drew the attention of Mr Smyth. He stopped in front of the girl. “Can you milk a cow,” he asked examining the strength of her hands.
Madge nodded. “And I can sew and knit and mind children,” she said boldly.
“Have you ever been hired before?”
Madge shook her head.” But I can read and write and speak Irish.”
Farmer Smyth smiled briefly. She had spirit. She’d need it to withstand his brood of brats. Very few servant girls ever said the six month.
“You’ll do. You’re hired for one term.”
Madge didn’t know what a ‘term’ was but she nodded anyway.
“Get something’ to eat at the Coffee Stand and be back here ready at six o’clock ready to walk the five miles to your work,” he said turning away.
Madge was on her third ‘term’ with the Smyth’s when she saw Patrick O Donnell at Mass one Sunday. Her heart gave a flutter.
“I’ve been thinking about you – wonderin’ how you were getting’ on. “There’s a dance comin’ up soon in the old school. Will you come?”” Patrick asked….
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And in real life Marjory Gallagher married Patrick O Donnell in Glenock Chapel in 1903.
They met while the worked on adjoining farms near Camus.
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