School: Árd-chill
- Location:
- Ardkill More, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: Bean Uí Chonalláin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0978, Page 222
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: Árd-chill
- XML Page 222
- XML “Use of Heather”
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
- In the townlands of Ardkill and Creamfield stands a very high hill, always spoken of locally as "the mountain".
On the mountain side grows shrubbery whins, ferns, and heather.
Long ago people made much use of heather. They pulled the finest and closest shrubs, tied them in little bundles called "beesums". With "beesums" all sweeping of rooms and kitchens was done, and brushes were never brought.
When the "beesum" was worn down & became shorter it was called a "scrub". The "scrub" was used to scrub all wooden utensils and articles of furniture: churns, milk-pails, tables, stools, and such.
Even after the factory produced brushes found their way to this district, "beesums" remained in use to sweep the ashes of the hearth and "scrubs" of heather are still in use.
People used to come long journeys to pluck heather on the mountain for "beesums". In Spring white-washing or lime-washing was done with "beesums", as was also spraying in Summer.(continues on next page)
- Collector
- James Corr
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Ardkill Beg, Co. Cavan
