School: Cill Bheoláin (C.), Áth an Mhuilinn, Ráth Luirc

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1. Local Houses Long Ago

   

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   The houses in Milford long ago were slated and thatched. They were sometimes thatched with reed by the farmers, but the houses of the poorer classes were thatched with straw. There were beds in the kitchen, called settle-beds, which could be closed up during the day and left down at night. The chimneys were made of clay in some of the houses, but other houses had the chimneys made of mortar. The walls in many cases both in the farmers and labourers houses were made of mud and were very wide. In better thatched houses the walls were of mason-work. The roofs - inside the thatch had what were called "scraws" laid on rafters. "Scraws" were flat pieces of "turf" about two feet long by one foot wide. There was no ceiling underneath this roof. The fire was mostly in the "cross-wall" of the house. The cross-wall was that which divided the kitchen from the room near it. There is no account of a house without a chimney. The floors were of mud or paved. The windows were small sometime consisting of only one pane of glass. The slated houses were mostly belonging to the gentry or well-to-do farmers.
   Many of the houses had no back door

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Bridie O' Donnell

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Laragh, Co. Cork

   Informant

   Julia O' Donnell

   Relation

   Grandparent

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   91

   Address

   Milford, Co. Cork