School: Baile na Mín (roll number 14925)

Location:
Ballinameen, Co. Roscommon
Teacher:
Tomás Ó Conchobhair

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Care of Feet

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0238, Page 445

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In olden times people never wore boots or shoes until they came to the age of thirty and forty. Even then they seldom wore boots, except to the church, or to markets. They usually went barefoot carrying their boots in a bag or basket until they came near the church or market town. Then they put on their boots, and took them off again at the same place on the return journey.
The custom has been discontinued in this district for the past fifty or sixty years.
Still, children go barefoot in Summer. The old people say not to throw out water at night but to put a coal in it and leave it there until morning. Feet-water is used for putting on flower - beds. There are two shoemakers in the district who repair and make shoes. Their fathers and grandfathers have been shoemakers before them. Clogs were worn in olden times and are still worn. When the soles would be worn off the shoes bought in the shops, in olden times, the people would bring the upper part to the clogmaker, and he would put soles on them and the they would be called clogs.

Collector
Kathleen Tansey
Gender
female
Address
Sheeane, Co. Roscommon
Informant
Tom Duignan
Gender
male
Address
Sheeane, Co. Roscommon
Language
English