School: Benbawn

On this page

1. Old Houses

   

   Share Share Post

   Te houses were made of yellow clay long ago, and the walls were called mud walls. The people dug up the clay, and picked the stones out of it and wet it and tramped in it, and turned it and put rushes in it.
   The roof was made of wood and thatched. First the roof was covered with light sods called scraws. Then the first row of thatch was sewed to the scraws. The chimneys were made of wattles, and covered over with clay and cows' manure.
   The floors were made of clay long ago. There was generally a bed in every kitchen. The bed was called a settle bed. This bed could be shut up in the day-time, and opened out at night. It looked like a large box when it was shut up. Most houses had half-doors long ago, and there are a lot of half-doors yet.
   There was no glass in the windows, and a mare's cleaning was spread out and dried and put on the windows, but it would not show much light.

   (continues on next page)

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. objects
      1. man-made structures
         1. buildings
            1. residential buildings (~2,723)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Sarah Wall

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Drummartin, Co. Cavan