Nan Rice

Nan Rice’s pub is still there in Francis Street! But this is a tale of the lady herself, long gone, after whom it is named!

As well as a pub and a farm, Nan Rice kept a local dairy. It was said she could afford it for she was famously tight-fisted. 

Anyway milk wasn’t delivered to the door then. You had to take your own can to the dairy and get it filled. 

 My brother P J was sent one time. He returned soon after not just with the milk, but with three eggs foreby. 

”Nan Rice sent you these for tea,’ he says to mother.

Now my parents knew that Nan would have skinned a flea for its coat. There was no way she was giving our P J three eggs for our tea! My father hauled him back to the dairy for an explanation.

It turned out that while Nan was in the back getting the milk, P J had nipped down the yard and relieved the hens of three of their eggs.

‘We should have kept them!’ my mother angrily retorted later.

‘The oul’ besom never even thanked you for your honesty in bringing them back!’

… start of Maura Mallon’s memories? ..