Scarce footage of Rural Ireland circa 1940 in Color Enhanced

I am a mixture of Scottish Irish and visited relatives in Ireland for the first time, four years ago. I am now 88years old and have had quite a few holidays abroad but never have I felt such peace and belonging as I did in Ireland. It felt like my ancestors were calling me back. It’s a magical island.

Being of Irish decent myself I look at this video and I bet life wasn't easy for them but to me I wish with all my heart I would have been there despite the hard times I bet there was a sense of community a kind of belonging times long gone now I'm in the latter years of my life I find the world has changed so much and not for the better sadly,

A time when children were reared on hard work and little in the ways of comfort; it made them resilient difficult times ahead of them, mainly emigration to England or further , America and Australia. If it was either of the last two countries you can be sure they never saw their parents again.Traveling home for a vacation was very rare or impossible. When a family member left they held " an American Wake"...basically saying goodbye to a living loved to be sent away, never to be seen again. Heartbreaking.

Hard times ☹️ but great people. They did the best they could. Fair play to them because without them we would be nothing…

My Father would have been been 7years old at this time and he would talk for hours about his pigeons (which they ate) and his dog, they were very poor, very simple and not very easy times he would remind himself and his four sons. RIP Dad and thank you for generating this fill it has made me realise what he did for us all.

rural Ireland was still like this in the 70s, Ireland has transformed itself insanely fast since then.

I grew up in the 60s on a small farm. Nothing but slavery... Weeding beet turnips and spuds all summer, lifting heavy square bales, getting sunburnt on the bog, then picking spuds and pulling frosty beet and turnips by hand, . Thank God for modern farm machinery...

My late father's family were flax farmers in Northern Ireland at this period, not far from Portadown. They were proddies, but except in the matter of religion lived the same way as their Catholic neighbours. Water came from a well, milk was brought over in pails from a nearby dairy farm, all heat came either from the stove or from the fire in the grate. He joined the RAF and left Northern Ireland in 1948 only returning for occasional visits. He brought my mother over after having got married and it slipped out that she had been baptised a Catholic, which did not go down at all well with certain of his relatives! An anecdote my mother once shared with me about this time. She and my father were walking in a nearby wood and they came upon a ring of toadstools. My mother went over to have a closer look and my father, genuinely agitated, shouted out: 'Don't tread on them! That's where the little people like to gather!'

Gald to say we live and restored a similar cottage in kerry and with our two girls Try and live a simple life in 2022. Great video.

I remember carrying those bales of hay in the early 60s when visiting my grandparents during summer holidays sweet hot tea and sandwiches tea from granny after... God be with the days! 🥲 We were richer in so many ways back then..... and ..... knew right from wrong.. I love Ireland!

A breath of fresh air real Irish people in there Beatufil homeland

Simpler and harder times when people had bugger all, but knew and helped all their neighbours, and at the end of the day they were happier than we are now.

If I had a time-machine that allowed me to experience the pace of life in certain places during certain times in history, this would be one of them.

I too, have Irish Blood. I'm American red, white and blue. But have great love and admiration for Ireland and the Irish people. Different great grandmothers and grandfathers came over during or just after the Famine. Stories of the starvation and abuse and neglect from the land lords and the English were told and retold. The hardships of coming across the sea with hardly a penny in their pockets. And then to be met by terrible prejudice from non-Irish Americans. This film shows difficult times for the Irish. And yet how peaceful and hard working life was 80 some years ago. The rural areas of Ireland, the small villages. Many still without electricity. A very nice film to watch..... Thank you.

My dads folks immigrated to Canada in 1904 from Northern Ireland, county Formah west of Belfast. He got work in Toronto. Lost a little girl Mary at birth. Dad was born in 07. Grandad worked on the docks until one day his English foreman called him a mick. It may have felt good to of bloody’d his nose but he was then unemployed. Moved west to Alberta to a homestead in 1910 that I now live on and farm. Nice to see these films. Like a glimpse back to my roots. We have it easy physically but sometimes peace of mind is missing.

It goes to show in rural Ireland 80 years ago, people had their priorities straight: cat videos.

That's when the people really were the " salt of the earth".

The walls i remember as a child going to galway you could looking back now sence the irishness that came from the land the buildings that were left. Its always amazed me how churches survived. The landscape is breath taking. I love this country.

Hard physical work and cold and damp houses with no running water or electricity. But did you see those BEAUTIFUL shawls those women were wearing?

Very much part of my childhood, no idle hands on a farm everyone got a task whether they wanted it or not.