The Kitty Leyden Tapes Part 2

In Part 2 of a public interview with 88 year old Kitty Leyden, she talks of being an emigrant in New York, returning home, emigrating to England, meeting her husband, her work in Bunratty Folk Park, making bread, family memories of eviction, her love of music and dance, traditional beliefs and 'piseogs'.  Below are explanations of terms you might need help with:

County Home: Institutions that replaced Workhouses in Ireland after 1922.  Many subsequently became publicly funded nursing homes for the elderly.  For much of the twentieth century, however, they remained associated in public memory with poverty, destitution and shame.
Dr (Patrick) Hillery: President of Ireland 1976-1990, he was a GP in Miltown Malbay in the 1950s.
Bunratty Folk Park: Visitor attraction featuring a collection of traditional Irish farmhouses, as well as a village street, built to represent 19th century Irish rural life.  Kitty worked as an animator in the houses.
Cow byre house:  An ancient style of dwelling occupied by both humans and cattle.  Kitty acts in a film shot in the Bunratty byre house about an eviction.  It sparks memories of her grandmother who was evicted and jailed in the 19th century.
'They put a layer of straw and hay all the way to her house' The equivalent of a red carpet to welcome the woman home from jail.
'The Loop Head': A Bunratty Folk Park house in the style of the Loop Head region of South West Clare
Piseogs: A form of folk magic, always malevolent. Performed to cause misfortune to someone, such as burying eggs or an animal carcass on someone's land.
'Coming from his cuaird':  Coming home having been night-visiting with neighbours.
'Cóiste bodhar' or Death Coach: a harbinger of death.

Series 2 of The Clare Oral History Podcast is supported by The Ireland Funds
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