School: Muff

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1. Old Houses

   

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   The old houses were mostly build with stones and mortar. They usually had thatched roofs.
   The roofs were thatched with rushes, straw or bullrushes. The people never used grates long ago. They just put the turf on the floor and burned them with wood there. There used to be a bed always kept in the kitchen, it was called the settle bed. It was folded up by day and served as a seat, and at night it was unfolded out into a bed on the floor. The matresses for these beds were filled with chaff.
   The floors of the old houses were hard soil and a stone hearth at the fireplace where the fire was kept. The people used home-made candles for lights in this district. They melted the fat from the pork into tallow, when the tallow was soft, they cut it into long pieces. They put a piece of cord into each piece of tallow and rolled them together leaving a piece of the cord out at one end of the roll to light it.

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   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

   Jerry Mc Connell

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Ardmore, Co. Donegal