School: Séipéal na Carraige (roll number 5478)
- Location:
- Rockchapel, Co. Cork
- Teacher: Donncha Ó Géibheannaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0351, Page 256
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- The flax seed is sown in the spring. In August a nice blue flower and seed come on it. It is pulled from the roots before the seed gets ripe. It grows only about half the height of oats.
When cut the women bind it into sheaves and bury them in a pond of water. Stones are put down on the sheaves to keep them under the water. After about three weeks the hard part of the flax and the fibre can be easily separated.
When the sheaves are taken out of the pond, they are opened and spread out to dry in a fenced field. It is left out under the rain and sun for a few weeks, until it is well bleached, when it is again made into small sheaves.
These sheaves are put on sticks by the fire-side to dry, a few days the men pound the flax with a túrgín or bittle, to take away the hard part from the fibre. It is then cloven with a cloven tongs to separate the course part from the fine. After being cloven it is hackled with an thing called a hackle, out of which there are long nails sticking. The hackle separates the short coarse flax from the long, fine flax. The short flax is called(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Mary Curtin
- Gender
- Female
- Informant
- Mrs Nolan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Glennakeel South, Co. Cork
