LIFE DURING WARTIME By Joe Roche

In 1939, Europe and the World went to War, while in the Republic of Ireland, we had an Emergency.

The Emergency is remembered by a shortage of Goods and Supplies. Essential food was rationed. Tea was in very short supply and at one period it was one half ounce per person per week. This is equal to about five tea bags today.

The Gang I knocked about with in those days discovered An Oige and we spent time in Wicklow Hostels and noticed that one group seemed never to be short of tea. So we established friendly relations. How come so much tea! Go North young men! There is a War on. How can we cross the Border and avoid Customs and Police on both sides? Simply go out The Newry Road from Dundalk and turn right over the Mountain before the Customs Station and head for Omeath. Cross the river on the Narrow Water ferry which seldom has Security on it.

So the day after we arrived in Omeath we crossed the border in spite of the fact that it was secure in preparation for the second Front. We were now about to take the advice of our friends in Wicklow about rationing in the North.

The drill was to go to the food office, which was generally located in the Town Hall, or Municipal Office of towns and villages in Northern Ireland.

On production of your identity card you would receive one weeks emergency rations. The scam was to visit as many towns and villages in one day and secure a weeks emergency rations from each office. Three a day was attainable.

You then used the tea coupons to buy tea; their rations were more generous than ours. As meat was short in the North our meat coupons could be traded for tea coupons. In this way to secure a pound of tea in four days was possible. Another part of the operation was to secure bicycle tyres and tubes. This was achieved by going into the North with worn out tyres and tubes fitted to the bicycle and replacing them with new. These were freely available in the North,

The return to Dublin followed the same route as we took to the North avoiding Customs, Police, B Specials Military Police both British and American and on our own return to Dublin a warm welcome for that pound of tea which involved a round trip on the bike of around four hundred miles in all kinds of weather, but after all there was a World War On…..