EUGENE DALY continues his series on various aspects of Irish folklore and customs

 

Over the last few decades there has been a great increase in the consumption of coffee. Coffee shops have increased and coffee is available in supermarkets and grocery shops, often offering a wide selection. Coffee wasn’t available in Ireland in my youth in the nineteen fifties. Tea was the popular drink then and it hasn’t lost out completely to coffee. The Irish were once the world’s number one nation for per capita consumption of tea and we must still be near the top of the list.

Tomás Ó Criomthain of the Blasket Islands, author of the classic An tOileanach (The Islandman), born in 1856, recalls ‘that he was a grown man before tea was known and when a pound of tea came their way for Christmas, it was sparingly used and the remnant saved till the next Christmas’.

A story from Westmeath folklore, written in 1938, tells us: ‘About one hundred years ago, tea was first introduced into this locality. It was then looked on as a great treat. And it was only used on special occasions, on Christmas night, at a christening party, or at the station for the priest’s breakfast. Now the tea is usually bought in half pounds.’

Long ago it was usually bought in quarter pounds or ounces. The first vessel used in this locality for making tea in was a clean pot. And later the tinkers began to make tin tea-pots. Then the delph tea-pots came into use, and now enamel, and aluminium tea-pots are the general run.’

‘Tea is now the universal drink in this locality. When a neighbour now comes into a house visiting at night, he is nearly always treated to a cup of tea. Long ago “whey” was the usual treat. ‘

And sometimes when a farmer, would sell a beast, and get a good price, the woman of the house would invite a few of the neighbouring women, and they would have a cup of tea.

Also if there was any tea left over after Christmas night, it would be kept for New Year’s night. People used drink tea also on the night before Ash Wednesday.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own