School: Ráth an Bharraigh, Clanna Caoilte (roll number 9067)
- Location:
- Ráth an Bharraigh, Co. Chorcaí
- Teacher: Seán Ó Grífín
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0316, Page 022
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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
- The chief pastime of the youth of this district is a game called Bowling, and which is mostly confined to the County of Cork and one or two districts in Antrim.
Every Sunday if you walk along the road from Milltown to Gahanive you would be certain to meet a score between some two or four opponents. A round iron ball called a bowl is used. This varies in weight, for adults it is 28 ounces and for children it is from 16 to 24 ounces. The length of the local scores is from Mrs Mac Carthy's corner to Mary Footman's Cross which is a distance of about two and a half miles. The opponents start at one mark and if A threw the bowl 100 yards and B 80 yards then A would be "fore bowl" by 20 yards and B would be "hind bowl" by the same amount. Another point of the score is "The Loft". This arises when the opponents are throwing from near a corner. They then throw the bowl high into the air and from where they throw to where the bowl strikes the ground again is called "The Loft. The loft is very important and a first class bowler is likely to have a loft of from 70 to 80 yards. The winner may win by fore bowl or may win by a bowl(continues on next page)
