Second line, second verse:
"With me turf and me primer to school I did go."

My mother in law, God rest her soul, was one of ten children growing up in North West Cork in the 1920s. She used to tell us how the children would walk, without shoes, the 3 or 4 miles to school winter and summer, and that in winter they would be expected to take a sod of turf for the fire.

Can anyone explain what the 'primer' refered to in the lyric refers to?

Rog