4st bag of spuds

silver2020 · 26-12-2021 11:38am #1

I saw Jason Byrne reminiscing about the 80's earlier.

But he forgot what I think was the defining item of those years - the 4 stone bag of potatoes.

For those under 40, that's a 25kg bag and most households got one every week or so and they were piled high outside most fruit/veg shops.

Then pizza and pasta arrived into Ireland and the bags dropped to a measly 7lb 🤣

zell12 · 26-12-2021 12:33pm

What is a '7lb' ?

Atlantic Dawn · 26-12-2021 12:36pm

It was all health and safety, I remember lads take 2x4 stone bags of cement at a time of trucks. Now if you take more than 1x10kg bag off at a time you would find yourself at a meeting with the site safety manager.

Firblog · 26-12-2021 12:45pm

There used to come a lorry up our street once a week, loaded with 4st bags of spuds, 'balls of flour' all the mammies would go out to get a bag, the young fellas with the lorry would deliver the bags to the purchasers shed - McDaid, the spudman.

enricoh · 26-12-2021 12:47pm

Picked plenty of them as a teenager, throwing them up onto the trailer at the end of the day was the equivalent of the lads benching down the gym nowadays!

Gregor Samsa · 26-12-2021 12:48pm

We didn’t have a car until I was 7 (1980). My mother used to do the shopping on a bicycle - cycle to the supermarket, walk back with the bags draped on the bike. She used to have to do a special trip for the 4 stone bag of spuds, strapped into a child seat on the back with bungee cords. Child would have to walk.

emo72 · 26-12-2021 12:48pm

They were feckin heavy.

Gregor Samsa · 26-12-2021 12:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374188#Comment_118374188

1,792 dram

49,000 grains

Bass Reeves · 26-12-2021 1:14pm

The cwt bag( 8 stone) would still have been common then. Only really moved over to the 4 stone bag in the late 80's early 90's.

Coal and cement was in cwt bags until the mid/late 90's Remember hauling cwt bags of cement from the boot of the car when the house was being build in the early 90's.

In the late 90's cement and cattle rstions moved to 25 kg bags. Coal remained available for a while after that. It moved to 40 kg bags which are still available.

Animal feeds are still in 25 kg bags but most larger users buy in bulk. Coal/ smokeless is in various weights from 40-20-10 kgs. Was buying 400 kgs and got it in 20 kg bags it worked out a tenner extra. 20/25kg banks are very manageable for most adult males.

In my youth there was an old man that lived near by. He was in his 70's when I knew him but was a very strong man. In his prime he use to lift a cwt bag of flour accross the kitchen floor........with his teeth. Looking back on it his shoulders and neck were all the one.

tabby aspreme · 26-12-2021 1:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374198#Comment_118374198

Handling the 8st/50kg of cement in the paper bag was great exercise, spent a few summers in my mid teens waiting on blocklayers and plasterers, I would sleep well at night

Melodeon · 26-12-2021 2:20pm

I can (sort of) remember the 'barrel' in use for measuring grain.

A barrel of barley was 16 stone/2cwt/101.6Kg.

A labourer in a mill was expected to carry this in a sack, on his shoulders/back, taken off the back of a flatbed truck.

There are still a few of those old hessian sacks about the place here, they're utterly ridiculous!

Donald Trump · 26-12-2021 11:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374330#Comment_118374330

hundredweight bags of fertiliser were still common until relatively recently. Well 50kg. I remember lugging them around on my back as a teenager. I'd probably struggle with them now. I'd say they were a good bit heavier than me back then!

I remember the coalman bringing 50kg bags of coal here until the 2000's I'd say at least. Actually I think he still delivers them. We don't get coal here anymore but the odd time I'd see him on the road he'd be lugging fairly big bags. Might possibly be 40kg sacks though now. He used to fill them himself from bulk. They wouldn't be closed/stitched.

My ould fella says that they used to have 16 stone bags for grain back in the day. Filled on the back of the first "combines". I don't know whether he was imagining that or not. Edit: poster above mentions those as well.

Bass Reeves · 27-12-2021 1:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118376539#Comment_118376539

the coal changed to 40kg bags 25 in a ton. Fertlizer can be still be got in 50 kg bags but most lads buy in 500kg bulk bags. 16 stone, two cwt bags were common for some produce. Guano used to come into ports in it. I heard a story that one man used to collect it with his pony at Glengariff and bring by pony up over the Healy Pass. It was used in the potato and vegetable gardens. As he got to the hardest of the climb over the Pass he would transfer the bag onto his own shoulder and lead the pony over that part before transferring it back onto the pony for him to take it down to the farm.

ahnowbrowncow · 27-12-2021 1:57am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374242#Comment_118374242

Yeah they were 4 stone.

BurgerFace · 27-12-2021 5:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374230#Comment_118374230

Now that would be a job if you were in any way easy on the eye. Wear a t-shirt even in the cold and rain as you were hoisting these bags of spuds as if they were bags of feathers and there'd be a few wives who would "stray".

PalLimerick · 27-12-2021 5:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058224359/4st-bag-of-spuds

I'm slightly under 40 and they were got every week in our house. My brother is mid 30s and he remembers them. They were a thing well in to the early 2000s. Probably even still are.

Wishbone Ash · 27-12-2021 6:00am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374528#Comment_118374528

The oul lad used to tell me that they'd also be expected to carry the 16st bag of grain up a ladder.

Galwayguy35 · 27-12-2021 6:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374345#Comment_118374345

Yeah first job when I was 17 was on a building site in England, lifting the bags of cement wouldnt be long knocking the cobwebs off you!

Bass Reeves · 10-01-2022 9:07am

Was in s conversation with an older man the weekend. He said originally potatoes came in 20 stone bags 50 years ago. There was 8 bags to the ton. I had heard of 16 stone bags but 20 stone bags was new to me.

Larbre34 · 10-01-2022 3:49pm

I too worked the summers in a building suppliers and handballing 50kg cement and sandbags, not to mention the 300L of moss peat (120 kgs equivalent and a two man job, but still) had me in the shape of my life.

In other unrelated news, my sciatica has been quiet this winter so far and the crepitus in both knees is below the level of drowning out the television.