School: Bellanagare (roll number 2968)

Location:
Bellanagare, Co. Roscommon
Teacher:
Seán Mac Dochair
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0244, Page 155

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0244, Page 155

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Bellanagare
  2. XML Page 155
  3. XML “Composition - Lime-Kilns”

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

  1. Lime is a white powder got from heated limestone in a large hole called a kiln. It is not used so much now as it was in olden times and most of the lime-kilns are now dis-used. There were about seven lime kilns around my village long ago, but there are only two used now. When a lime kiln was to be made a large circular hole was dug in the ground. A hole was left in the bottom out of which the lime was to be taken. The hole was then filled up with coal and limestone. A layer of coal was put on a layer of limestone and so on until the hole was filled.
    Then the turf was then lighted and left to burn for about three days. Then the line was taken out and sometimes sold. It was also used for white-washing making mortar and the most important being to reclaim bog land and to scatter over the manure on the ridges for the purpose of killing certain slugs. For certain kinds of ailments the fresh lime was steeped in water and this drunk. It was also mixed with sweet oil to form a dressing for burns.
    The old lime burner was a man named John Nolan who is now dead. He generally burned the lime twice a year. He earned considerable some of money from the sale of the lime.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. activities
      1. economic activities
        1. trades and crafts (~4,680)
          1. lime-burning (~280)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Peg Cahill
    Gender
    Female
    Informant
    James Finnerty
    Gender
    Male
    Age
    80
    Address
    Knockroe, Co. Roscommon