BACK TO DONKEY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 84, 6 October 1941, Page 8

BACK TO DONKEY

AND THE RUSHLIGHT

EIRE PINCHED BY THE WAR

(0.C.) LONDON, August 8. , A survey' of conditions in Eire appears in the "Manchester Guardian" in an article by R. M. Fox. In happier days the teapot stood on the Irish hearth as an emblem of the national hospitality, and every visitor had to drink at least, one cup of hot, strong tea, he says. Now that the tea ration is half an ounce a person a week there is desolation iri the home. When the tea edict was issued many who had never tasted coffee before were asking for it in the Dublin shops. Now coffee is difficult to get and cocoa has disappeared. Various substitutes have come into use. Barley is the chief ingredient. At one time the customer thought he was conferring a favour on the shopkeeper'/by buying at his store. Now it -is the other way round.. Shopkeepers can be as rude as they like, though mostly the habit of politeness persists. But the customer is always polite, b Margarine is a war casualty. Sometimes a regular customer is able to get half a pound or a quarter. Luckily butter is plentiful. Sugar is hard to get. This is because of large-scale smuggling over the Northern border. To check the outward flow the Sugar Company has rationed supplies. But the beet supply is said to be sufficient to meet" Eire's needs. It is an offence to sell white bread, and alKflour milled in Eire must contain 95 per cent, wheat content. White flour is smuggled in from the North, Sacks of it are sold in Dublin marketplaces at 6d or 8d a pound. ' ■> Supplies to Irish clothing factories are diminishing,' but so far the 'shop, windows are well stocked.. Silk stockings are running short. Clothes smuggling over tlie border is a problem. Visitors from the North appreciate the opportunity of buying clothes without sacrificing coupons. SMOKERS LOOK AROUND. Tobacco and cigarettes are scarce. To eke out supplies manufacturers ration the shops. At close periods smokers comb the city and tobacconists have a hard eye for strangers. Matches, too, are scarce, though a recent'lrish invention to replace phosphorus may remedy this. Flints for gas lighters are almost . unobtainable. Yet when flashlamps were scarce in Britain they .were plentiful in Dublin. Oil and candles are, off the market. In some of -the city tenements and in many country districts people rely on these for illumination. Around the Dublin mountains I know dwellings where during last winter there was no light to read by except the flickering fire, This winter they expect to be in greater darkness than ever. In wide areas of Donegal rush-lights which went out fifty years ago are now back. These are made by drying rushes and soaking them in oil from fish or animal fat. Carpenters are busy making wooden holders for the rushlights: Earlier metal ones can be seen in museums. FUEL SCARCIT*. I In the poorer> Dublin districts coal was bought in small quantities from the "bellman." Under registration schemes this way of getting fuel has suffered. Added to the scarcity of coal we have the prohibition of peat in except under licence. In the peat areas no coal is admitted. Linked with this are the- transport difficulties. Low petrol stocks have affected private cars,-buses, and lorries severely. Bicycles are in favour. The horse and the donkey are going the roads again. Motor-cars travel the city with billowing balloons on top, filled with "town gas." But there is a shortage of gas now. Sharp cuts have been made in rail services, amounting to a third of the total running capacity. All Sunday main-line trains have been taken off; fast trains everywhere have been cancelled. The Dublin suburban service has suffered. Early morning newspaper trains have gone and. mails for the country are now delayed. Lack of coal is, responsible for all this. Green-coated soldiers-from the Curragh have been out fighting the battle of the bog, cutting the sods of brown peat for winter firing. Reinforced by thousands of workers—Construction Corps and civilians-r^-they have won millions of tons of. this Irish fuel to make good the xoal shortage. Without sufficient coal for the trains or petrol for motor .transport, officials are getting headaches puzzling how they are going to bring this bulky fuel from the. bogs to centres where it is needed. Canals will be used and fleets of lorries.are now being mobilised and reserved for the purpose. But the man with the donkey cart who can cut the brown sods from the bog and take a load home, while he sticks rushlights —like will-o'-the-wisps—on the mantelpiece, is now the most independent of Irish citizens.