Murlog School a Practical Education
image courtesy of internet
Margaret/Maggie Mc Gettigan nee Porter loved in the Holland; born in 1913 she was the eldest of five children. When she started school her mother brought her up to Cavan and Hannah Mc Gettigan accompanied her to school. It was a very long walk for a wee girl but when she got to know the way she took the direct route from the Hollands.
There were two thatched cottages inside the chapel gate and on the right-hand side beside the burn. She thinks a family named Mc Hugh lived in one of the cottages. Further up, the mission cross and the chapel were situated.
The toilets were big buckets that were emptied further down from the school and then washed out with Jeyes fluid. There was a bar of carbolic soap to wash your hands and hand rolls made from Indian meal bags that hung from bailing wire attached to a hook. In addition, sugar, tea and flour bags and all kinds of paper were used as toilet paper.
Lunch was bread made out of Indian meal – no butter. The Indian meal was course and it made the bread very bruckley – crumbs everywhere. The mice love it. So, two girls had to stay after school to dust down the desks (with brushes made from heather) and brush up all the crumbs.
The teacher used oatmeal bags to make school bags for the children to carry their lunch in. She’d get a twig from the hedge, cover it, and use it as a button to fasten the bags.
There was a range in Mrs Quigley’s room and she taught cooking on it. . In October, each pupil brought a shilling to buy coal for the range.
Cookery was after lunch and the children were allowed to take what they had baked, home. We learned how to make scones. The children brought a cup of flour and Mrs Quigley supplied the rest of the ingredients. Everything was timed by the clock.
The next thing we learned to do was make a big scone. Thais was cut into slices in the classroom and shared amongst the pupils.
Sometimes, there was a prize for the nicest shaped buns but everybody usually ended up with the prize – three sweets each.
Some of the other things we learned to do was to; make porridge, boil eggs and make soup.
The teacher would bring a bone from the butcher’s shop and then use whatever other suitable ingredients that were available. The soup would be ready before hometime and the pupils would drink it from tin mugs called ‘pandies’.
A lot of use was made of flour bags. They were boiled in washing soda and scrubbed with carbolic soap to remove the miller’s name. When this was done the material was ready for the sewing class. Pupils made aprons and lunch bags. Lace and ribbon was bought from travellers and used to decorate/dress up our sewing projects.
The proper way to iron was also taught. The iron was heated on top of the range and using, the flour bags, the pupils were taught to iron and fold.
I was sometimes kept at home to help with the work. I didn’t like that. I felt that when I came back I’d be behind the rest of the class.
I remember one day when I was in 3rd class being kept in by Master McDonagh to do sums, spellings and writing.
When I had finished he told me it was a great pity I was missing school so much. But I felt unable to tell him the reason why. He told me I was a good girl and gave me a penny. That would buy a poke of sweets.
The class all gathered around me that evening and all of them were my best friends.
But I had decided what I was going to do with my penny. I gave it to my mammy. And when Larry’s travelling shop came around, mammy bought a candle, a box of matches and black lead to be used for shoe polish; all bought with my penny.
These lovely memories of Maggie from her time in Murlog School, Lifford, Co Donegal were first published in Murlog School Centenary 1909–2009
Gemma Hill Writeyou Writeme 