School: Whitecastle (roll number 10231)
- Location:
- Whitecastle, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: George Mc Cahey
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1116, Page 259
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Whitecastle
- XML Page 259
- XML “Houses in Olden Times”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- In olden times the houses were not at all like the houses we live in now-a-days. The houses in olden times were built of rough stones and then plastered with mud. The walls were about three or four feet thick. The roofs were made of rushes or heather, or straw, or flax. The best of these roof were made of flax or heather. The floor was made of clay that was tightened down. There were one, or two, or three apartments in each house. The windows were very small. There were half doors on the houses in olden times. These half doors were to let the light into the house. There were no two story houses in olden times. There was a hole in the roof to let out the smoke. Sometimes the smoke went out through the door. The houses were low in olden times. They were all built together because if any people came to attack then they would not have to go far for help. Sometimes there was a wall around the houses to keep wild beasts out.
- Collector
- Alex Carlin
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Whitecastle, Co. Donegal
- Informant
- Mrs Carlin
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 60
- Address
- Whitecastle, Co. Donegal
