School: Ballymore (C.) (roll number 7444)
- Location:
- Ballymore, Co. Westmeath
- Teachers: K. Kavanagh Mrs Kearney
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0743, Page 380
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: Ballymore (C.)
- XML Page 380
- XML “Old Houses”
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
- People lived in small mudwall houses in former times. Some of these houses were thatched with oaten straw and others of rushes and reeds which were got from low lying lands. Sods of earth were put on the top of the roof to keep the straw or reeds from falling in.
The old house had a bed in the kitchen called a settle bed or a press bed. The fire was nearly always set on the centre of the floor. The front of the chimney was made from clay and wattles. There was not always chimneys in the houses. Not many of the houses had windows. The floors were made of yellow clay mixed up, just as the concrete is mixed now. Half doors were very common in the district. Turf was used for fire.
The lights that were used were used rush candles. Rushes were got and the skin peeled from them, then they were dipped in grease and the grease was let harden around the rush. When it was hard it was hard used for a light.
- Collector
- Esther Mahon
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Ballymacallen, Co. Westmeath
