food at that time. She sparked the song we used to sing as children " with cockles and mussels, alive alive oh."
The second is about how in Ireland in years long gone in the past, it was illegal to teach children to read or write. There were many ways for the public to sneak children into places of learning such as the ship captain who had a house in the shape of a ship which you can still see on the Ring of Kerry. They called him the kidnapper because he used to sneak the kids on board and then bring them to school.
Well, in the cities they developed many ways to help people who couldn't read deal with life's chores. One way was to decorate the front doors of their houses with special and elaborate designs so that the delivery person could be told to "find the black door with white trim and red leaves all around." In Dublin today toucan still see how the front doors in certain parts of the city are still very decorated and colorful.
The 3rd story is about 4 children who many years ago in history had a father who tried to raise his children after losing their mother during childbirth of the set a twins. Later, he ended up marrying the sister of the children's mother and as a stepmother, she was very jealous of their relationship with her new husband.
She took them out to the lake one day and was going to kill them but found that she couldn't. So instead, she turned them all into beautiful swans and doomed them to remain so for 900 years. She convinced her husband that they had drowned.
The Irish are hugely superstitious and have several of these stories about all kinds of things but this one helped to create a sculpture of the swans and is now set in a park in Dublin which is called "The Park of Remembrance." It is to help remember all those who have been mistreated or killed.
