School: Cloonmagunnane (roll number 13114)
- Location:
- Cloonmagunnaun, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: T. Rogers
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0238, Page 151
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- XML “The Care of the Feet”
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- Children begin to wear boots or shoes at a very early age nowadays and they wear these almost the whole year round. In summer many of them wear sandals to protect their feet from injury by thorn, glass, sharp stones, etc. but most boys like to go barefooted in the fine weather. In the cold weather they wear clogs or boots and woollen stockings which are made at home.
In former years people did not wear boots till they arrived at the age of sixteen or seventeen years and the women hardly ever wore boots except when going to Mass, to town, to a corpse house or funeral. It was no uncommon thing to see big boys and girls going to mass or to school barefooted. Before retiring to rest the feet had to be washed and the water used for this was left in the vessel in the house till morning.
There is not even one shoemaker in the district at present and boots or shoes requiring repair are taken to Frenchpark or Ballaghaderreen or Boyle. Some years ago there were two very good shoemakers in the locality and these made and repaired boots for most of the people in the parish. Nowadays all boots and shoes are purchased in boot-shops in the towns. These boots and shoes are made by machinery and they are cheaper but not nearly as good or durable as those made by hand.
Clogs were worn in former times. Boys and labourers(continues on next page)
