School: Culmullen (roll number 1904)

Location:
Culmullin, Co. Meath
Teacher:
M. Mc Carthy
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0689, Page 139

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0689, Page 139

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  3. XML “On Candles”

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  1. Long ago before candles were made the people made a "rush light". The rush was got from the marches and swamps. The people gathered the rushes and peeled the skin off them and dipped them in grease. This made a reasonably good light, but someone had always to be sitting beside it taking the burned part away.
    Then came the "tallow" candle. There was a certain kind of mould for the purpose into which the hot tallow was poured in. There was a hole in the middle of the candle and there were several pieces of material like ordinary tea twine plaited. This gave a very indifferent light, and someone had always to be sitting beside it lifting the wick with a small tongs.
    Georgie Downes Bogganstown, Drumree, Meath, age 13 yrs.
    Got from Ed. McKeever (73)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. activities
      1. economic activities
        1. trades and crafts (~4,680)
          1. candle-making (~728)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Georgie Downes
    Gender
    Male
    Age
    13
    Address
    Bogganstown, Co. Meath
    Informant
    Edward Mc Keever
    Gender
    Male
    Age
    73