“…It was all so simple then…”

WITH JOHN FITZGERALD

Nell Leahy, drawing on her natural wisdom, explained that boils could be difficult to cure. But if you pressed a hot bottle, heated with boiling water, against the boil it would extract the vile contents and then, hopefully, the boil would go down and disappear. This could be painful, but effective.

Dock leaves eased nettle stings, as well as replacing costly rationed toilet paper in many wartime homes.

“…It was all so simple then…”

Nell Leahy explained to Donnacha O Dualing in one of her radio interviews that many marriages in the 1930s and 1940s were arranged. A date was set for the two to wed whether they liked it or not. Some matches proved successful, others disastrous.

Word of Mouth invitations to weddings were far more common than written ones, Nell stressed. There were precious few of the extravagant marriage ceremonies that have become the norm nowadays.

“…It was all so simple then…”

The words of the song come to mind when contemplating Nell Leahy’s word pictures of a past that has virtually disappeared.

   In her interviews on national and local radio, Nell recalled the simpler lifestyle of the 1940s and preceding decades. The Tilly lamps and candles… the water drawn from the well…the open fires that cooked everything…the old cures that worked no matter what the doctors said.

More Old Kilkenny

• “…It was all so simple then…”
• “…It was all so simple then…”
• “…It was all so simple then…”
• Preparing for the Worst…
• Stop the excuses and start living
• Preparing for the Worst…
• Preparing for the worst…
• Rationing: Black Bread and a Pinch of Tea
• The gathering storm: Kilkenny triumphs...Cork and Poland face defeat
• Cromwell Attacks Kilkenny (Part Four)
• Cromwell Attacks Kilkenny
• Cromwell attacks Kilkenny
• A visit to the pattern of Coolagh