School: Drumatemple (C.) (roll number 7055)
- Location:
- Drumatemple, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Treasa, Bean Uí Chuinn
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0260, Page 282
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- Long ago it was a very frequent sight to see people begging alms from house to house. Some of them sold small articles such as needles, pins, laces and little pictures. But the majority begged alms as they went along. If they were were known in the district they would be given a night's lodging in a country house. Generally they travelled singly and they walked from place to place as their poverty prevented them from travelling by any other means. In Summer they went barefooted. Some of them had peculiar habits such as writing letters and putting them under a stone, and they thought by doing this that the letter would be posted. They also wrote letters to themselves in a language only known to those who wrote them.
In a little thatched house in Ballycaher there lived a man named Johnnie Hester who travelled about in summertime. In payment for the alms he got he thatched the houses of those who befriended him. It was usual for people to give him shelter for the night and during his stay in the house he entertained them by telling them of Columcille's Prophecy(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Rita O' Brien
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Cloonagrassan, Co. Roscommon
- Informant
- Mr Michael O' Brien
- Relation
- Parent
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Cloonagrassan, Co. Roscommon
