School: Durrus, Bantry (roll number 13023)

Location:
Durrus, Co. Cork
Teacher:
L. Blennerhassett
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0285, Page 245

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0285, Page 245

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: Durrus, Bantry
  2. XML Page 245
  3. XML “Old Houses”

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. In former times mostly all the houses were thatched and there are still some to be seen in the district. The material used for thatching was straw and rushes which grow in marshy land. Some houses were roofed with corrugated iron and slate. Slate roofed houses are most commonly used at present.
    The thatched houses were one storeyed, small and the walls which were built very thickly were composed of stones and mortar made from mud. There was a bed in the kitchen usually know as a settle-bed. It was a wooden affair and it was placed beside the fire. It was two feet high and approximately six feet long. The bedding was not as comfortable as nowadays. It was used for other purposes during the day.
    The floor was earthen but some people put large flags on it which made it very tough and uneven. Some of the thatched houses had no chimneys but the smoke was allowed to go out the door and windows. Bags were used as a substitute for glass in the windows.
    Lights from bog-deal splinters were used for giving light at night. These were got in the bog when cutting the turf and when they dry they lit easily.
    Susannah Jane Pyburn,
    Dunbeacon, Durrius, Co. Cork
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. objects
      1. man-made structures
        1. buildings
          1. residential buildings (~2,723)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Susannah Jane Pyburn
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Dunbeacon, Co. Cork