School: Carpenterstown (Templefanum) (roll number 5415)
- Location:
- Carpenterstown, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: Mary Smyth
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0722, Page 110
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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
- Long ago people sought cures for their ailments in different ways. There were not many doctors and people had not much belief in them.
Warts were cured by dipping the affected part in the water which was held in a hallow stone. They were also cured by dipping them in the water which the irons were cooled in a smith's forge.
Chilblains were cured by going into a house they were never in before and rubbing their hands and feet on the hearth stone. The whooping cough called "the chin cough" by old people was cured by giving a ferret some milk to drink and whatever he would leave over would be given to the person that had the whooping cough to drink. Some people believe in this cure yet.
A sty on the eye was cured by putting gooseberry thorns to it nine times for three mornings. The people cured headaches and teeth aches by going to St Fechin's well at Fore and drinking some of the water. Cuts were cured by putting an ivy leaf to them. When old people get a cut on the finger they look for a clean cobweb and put it on it. This is supposed to stop the bleeding and heal the cut. Other old people put a plantain leaf to the cut. This(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Helen Cooney
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Carpenterstown, Co. Westmeath
