School: Scoil na mBráthar Sligeach (Sráid na Céibhe) (roll number 16585)
- Location:
- Quay Street, Co. Sligo
- Teacher: An Br. Ó Cearbhaill
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0161, Page 239
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
- Some boys make their own toys and playthings out of wood and other materials such as flowers or rushes. There is a "scouting gun" made out of bootree bush.
There is also a "butterfly cage" made out of rushes for holding butterflys. A gun called a "porato gun" is made out of the feathers of a swan or a goose. There is a thing used for sucking up water from a well which is hard to get otherwise.
The "scouting gun" is made out of a hollow Boottree stick about a foot long and another piece of wood the same length. You shape the piece of wood in to a thin stick that will fit the hole leaving place for a handle like a pump of a bicycle. You wrap a piece of clothe round the top of the stick and put it hollow of stick. Then gun is finished and put the end of it in water and pull up the handle like a bicycle pump. It causes a suckage and when the handle is pressed down the water will shoot out.
The porato gun is by cutting three inches of the thickest part of the feather then make a ramrod to fit the hole and stick the feather in a slice of potato at both ends, then ram the stick down and the potato will fly out.(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Mr M. Mullaney
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- O'Connell Street, Co. Sligo
