School: Ardagh (roll number 15035)

Location:
Ardagh, Co. Longford
Teacher:
L. Ó Maolghuala
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0768, Page 223

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0768, Page 223

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Ardagh
  2. XML Page 223
  3. XML “The Local Forge”

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

  1. There is one forge in the parish. It is Michael Greene's. Michael Greene and sons are the smiths. The trade is in the family for three generations. The forge is in Oldtown. It is built of stone and roofed with slates. It has a clay floor one window and a big door. It has one fireplace and one bellows. The blacksmiths shoe horses and asses and pares the hooves of cattle. The tools the blacksmith uses are :- the anvil, the vice, the rasp, the cold chisel, a hammer, a shoeing knife, a tongs, a pocker, a coal shovel and a bellows. The blacksmith only repairs farm implements. He does not make them. The shoeing of wheels is done in the open air. It is done beside a river. If you wash a sore in the water a blacksmith cools the iron in it is supposed that it will be cured. Smiths have no privileges more than any other tradesman. People send them no gifts. People get no work done free for them. They have no power to banish rats The smiths was always considered a very strong man.
    The smith a might man is he
    With strong and sinewy hands
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. activities
      1. economic activities
        1. trades and crafts (~4,680)
          1. smithing (~2,389)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Séamus Mac Aodhaghain
    Gender
    Male
    Informant
    Mr John Keegan
    Gender
    Male
    Address
    Ballinreaghan, Co. Longford