School: Ínse Cloch (roll number 7101)
- Location:
- Inchiclogh, Co. Cork
- Teacher: Diarmuid Ó Críodáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0284, Page 095
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- XML School: Ínse Cloch
- XML Page 095
- XML “The Local Forge”
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- (continued from previous page)medium - sized solid, concrete building, having an zinc roof. The door of it is rectangular in shape. There are two fire - places within, in which a blazing peat - fire is continually burning. The interior of the forge is dark and smoky. Smiths were always looked upon as being very strong, as the poet says:- "The smith a mighty man is he, with large and sinewy hands". Forges are usually centres for story - telling. Outside of the forge - door is a small well or pool of water into which the smith puts the red iron in order to cool it.
Children on their way home from school visit the forge. They love to see the sparks that fly like chaff, and listen to the bellows. There is an old superstition about these sparks. When people visit the forge while the smith works on the anvil, these sparks if they fly toward him, represent money coming to him from across the sea. There is a disused and derelict forge in Skahanac.
- Collector
- Kitty Sullivan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Dromsullivan South, Co. Cork
- Informant
- Mr O' Sullivan
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 50
- Address
- Dromsullivan South, Co. Cork
