School: Dean Kelly Memorial (roll number 16639)
- Location:
- Athlone, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: D. Cahalene
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0748, Page 190
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- (continued from previous page)people hire boats and go up the river for a day. That "craft" is mostly carried on in the Leinster side of the town. Considering it is the most important craft of all there are not many people employed at the work. Another very old craft is the making of baskets. This is mostly carried on to the west of Athlone. Every Saturday there are home-made baskets for sale outside the court-house. Basket making is a very nice craft and every farmer should be able to make them. Baskets are made from twigs woven into one another. It is very nice to see a man making baskets. First he has to get some strong twigs for the frame of the basket. Then some other twigs are woven in and out through those.
When the basket is made it can be used for bringing turf out of the bog, for picking potatoes, for holding clean clothes or for putting waste paper in.
Lime during is another old craft being carried on to the west of Athlone. Men from the vicinity of Clongowna bring it into the market on Saturdays and sell it as rock and slack lime. People buy it to white-wash their houses or to throw on their gardens to kill certain insects. Contractors but it also for making plaster when they are building houses. Young people should watch bigger people working at those crafts and they would be able to work at the crafts themselves when they grow up.
