


Ration Book & Cash Book
"The ration book is important to me as I was five years old when it was issued to me so I could not have been aware of the conditions of the time. It is unused which points to improving circumstances and perhaps even honesty on my parents part- they did not, could not perhaps, use it for themselves or swap some of its coupons for other ones. The Ration Book is an emblem of a time long passed in Ireland but a reminder of the suffering that war brought to our neutral country. In 1951 the United Nations was in its infancy, the European Union was still a long way off and the idea of relief agencies hardly conceived. Our self-reliant Government endeavored to feed its people. My parents were National Teachers and speakers of Irish at home- hence my name is in Irish. The little cash book contains the everyday items purchased by my parents between Sept 1941 and June 1942. It is important to me for several reasons. Firstly it identifies the kinds of products available in a small town in Co. Leitrim during the war years. It also indicates for me the diet, state of health to some extent, and the social habits of my parents in the years before my birth. For example, my mother was a non-smoker yet the frequency with which cigarettes appear tells me something of my father, a man I loved dearly but hardly knew as he died on my sixth birthday. The cash book is in good condition."