School: Athlone (Mixed) (roll number 16092)
- Location:
- Athlone, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: T. Hunter
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0748, Page 073
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: Athlone (Mixed)
- XML Page 073
- XML “Local Cures”
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 had various ways of curing diseases that we have not got now. Usually herbs were used.Ground ivy was used to cure a cold. It was made into tea and taken after every meal. Leeches were used to cure boils by putting the leech on the boil and it would suck the poison out.
Birch bark was also a cure for boils and eczema. The bark was put on the spots.
Soap and sugar mixed together was a poultice which cured boils. Linseed boiled down was a poultice for boils also.
Black-currants put in hot water was a cure for whooping cough and catarrh. The food left over by a ferret is a cure for whooping cough. Another cure for whooping cough is to go to another man's house three days after each other, to get some bread. Another cure is by walking through a donkey's legs four times. A child when suffering from whooping-cough should be passed three times over and under a donkey's foal and will grow better. People used to give chickens salts(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Kieran Hannon
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Retreat, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- Mrs Dowdall
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Athlone, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- Mr W. Taylor
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Athlone, Co. Westmeath
