School: Stonepark, Longford (roll number 14386)

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1. Old Crafts

   

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   Burning lime is an old craft in the Parish of Ballymacormack Co Longford, and the people long ago must have used a lot more lime than they use now, as old kilns are very much in evidence as one travels along the roads. A lot of people used to have small kilns on their own land to burn lime for themselves but the people now think it is handier to go and buy the lime than go to the bother of burning it.
   Kilns vary a lot in size some of them holding about five bushels while the larger ones where lime is burned for sale, hold everything up to eighty bushels.
   A kiln is round in shape and lined with fire brick on the inside, and the walls are very wide, there is a pass up to the top of the kiln for the purpose of filling it up.
   A kiln is filled first with a layer of coke, and then with a layer of lime stone, then coke again and again until the kiln is fully packed, then the coke in the bottom is set on fire, and there it burns out, the fire lasting for maybe two or three days.
   Then the hard work is over and the kiln is full of lime, so the owner will be rewarded for his labour.
   About seventy years ago everything that the

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. activities
      1. economic activities
         1. trades and crafts (~4,680)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Annie Clancy

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Trillickacurry, Co. Longford

   Informant

   Mr F. Clancy

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   55

   Address

   Trillickacurry, Co. Longford