Galway Weights and Measures 150 Years Ago

The general weights in use were made of stone, which were nominally of equal weight with those made of metal. These weights measured potatoes, and varied in places from 42 stones weight per barrel to 64 stones, and 16 pounds to the stone. At Bunowen, in Connemara, the standard was 40 stone of potatoes to the bushel. A bottle of milk in Ballinasloe was three quarters, in Loughrea six quarters; in Eyrecourt four quarts; in Gort three quarts. In Loughrea eight quarts of oatmeal equalled a pottle, whereas a pottle represented five quarts in Eyrecourt, and seven in Woodford. Butter varied from eighteen, twenty and twenty-four ounces to the pound. Hay and straw were usually sold by the hundred weight, in some places by the bundle. Turf kishes and baskets for horse loads were of all and any size, although the standard turf kishe was four feet six inches long, two feet ten inches deep, and two feet four inches broad. Salt was the only commodity in which measure was assigned for weight. It was usually sold by the quart. The barrel of wheat was twenty stones; oats fourteen stones; barley sixteen stones; rape sixteen stones. As very few people had scales most things were sold by the stone. It was the custom to put into a sack the quantity the sack would hold. An earlier method of measuring corn was by the Cronnoge - a basket lined with a skin, holding the produce of seventeen sheaves, and equal to a Bristol barrel.