School: Béal Átha 'n Fheadha (B.)
- Location:
- Ballina, Co. Mayo
- Teacher: D. P. Ó Cearbhaill
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0146, Page 307
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: Béal Átha 'n Fheadha (B.)
- XML Page 307
- XML “Old Crafts”
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
- Candle making by hand was carried on in Ballina as late as 1876 and afterwards by use of machinery. The first candle maker locally called a "Chandler" was Mr. James Coolican and the sort made was known as the "penny dip" It was made of tallow rolled around a wick by hand. What was known as green soap was also made by Coolican and those manufactures were the foundation of a great business in other goods.Hand loom weaving was in other years a thriving industry in and around Ballina. There were over fifty weavers plying their trade here up to about 1860 but they gradually died out for want of trade due to the importation of cheap foreign cloth and ready made clothing. In 1896 there were only two working weavers in this town Martin Madden and Peter Reilly but they had to give up the work. When the trade was in a flourishing condition all kinds of woollen cloths including blankets were woven by them. A large Woollen mill operated by water power was started by a local company about 1879 for the manufacture of cloth and blankets but it went out of business after twelve years. About 20 hands were employed during the time it was working.
- Informant
- Patrick J. Dunphy
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 73
- Address
- Ballina, Co. Mayo
