Some schoolyard games are timeless. What follows is a description of a game called 'Tig and Cock-a-Rooshkie'. Here Mrs. Elsie Cullen remembers playing the game in the schoolyard in the 1920's:
"A crowd lined up at one wall and two stood in the middle, and then they would be called to come across and everyone would rush and the two in the middle would try to grab a few of them as they came along and that was it. It was great excitement to try and get across. They would always catch the slowest ones first, so I don't know when the game finished, probably when the master came out and said, "Come in, that's enough of that." I'd imagine the half hour lunchtime would be up by the time we'd finish."
Do you play any games similar to Tig and Cock-a-Rooshkie? How would you describe your favourite schoolyard game to someone who had never played it?
Like today, children often make their playgrounds in the most unlikely of places. Michael Madden, who was born in 1910, has fond memories of walking long distances to use the airport as his playground in the 1920's:
"I played out where the airport is when the British left it in 1920. We went out as kids ... we walked from North Strand out to there, a crowd of us, and we were looking round the place and there were pieces of aeroplanes and everything. We used to have great fun out there. The journey was very long to walk and we'd walk back again in the evening."