School: Castletown
- Location:
- Castletown, Co. Meath
- Teacher: Owen Maguire
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0711, Page 282
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- XML “Local Cures”
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- (continued from previous page)to cut a raw potato in three peices and rub it to them. A cure for the pain in the head is vinegar and brown paper put on the place affected. The cure for a thallagh in the wrist is to tie an eelskn round it. A cure for the chin cough is to get a donkey, give him a plate of meal to eat, which must be procured from three different houses, while he ate the meal the child was brought out and put under him three times. Long ago when a child had the mumps the parents would take him out to the pig sty & put him out under the pig three times saying at Hugnamucka Lecknaleckna. After a while the mumps are supposed to dissappear.
Another local cure for the whooping cough was when two people got married of the same name to get a peice of bread from them & eat it fasting & will cure the cough. A weed know as marchmallow is supposed to cure a swelling. A cure for a pein in the head is to eat a wild parsnip. A cure for ringworm is to boil the root of a weed called the farafan & rub it on the ringworm. A cure for the whooping cough is for the Godmother to tie a red string round the child's neck. The cure for a sore throath is to hold the person affected over a pig-sty, and one person to hold the sufferer & another to hold the pigs in order to frighten the child, and when it is removed(continues on next page)
