School: Ballintotas (roll number 15165)
- Location:
- Ballintotis, Co. Cork
- Teacher: Tadhg Ó Coileáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0395, Page 325
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Ballintotas
- XML Page 325
- XML “Cures for Piles”
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
- (continued from previous page)to the affected part, brough relief to sufferers from piles.
As a corollary to "the tobacco spit" theory he told a custom which used be practised in connection with "the fasting spit." This was the spittle one had in one's mouth on waking up each morning or up to the time of taking food. At that particular hour many people found it difficult to open their eyes: not in the sense of wanting to relapse into sleep, but in the literal sense of separating the upper from the lower eyelid. The lids became stuck together with a pus which came from the eyes of the sleeper while asleep. By morning this had hardened on the eyelashes, and opening the eyes became a painful and prolonged process. But when the eyelids were moistened with "the fasting spit", relief came.The natural reply to his story, that the spittle of the affected person was the moisture nearest to hand, brought from Mr. O'Donovan the reply that the relief so brought was in most cases permanent. He maintained that bathing with any liquid would bring relief but not permanent relief.
- Informant
- Edmond Carey
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 55
- Occupation
- County council worker
- Address
- Midleton, Co. Cork
- Informant
- Patrick O' Donovan
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 80
- Occupation
- Shopkeeper
- Address
- Midleton, Co. Cork
