School: Naomh Bríghid, Blackwater (roll number 7036)

On this page

1. Manufacture of Linen (continued)

   

   Share Share Post

   (continued from previous page)

   (A heavy type) was substituted for the flax break. She remembers her father using the flail.

   Then when the flax was broken it was placed on the back of a chair and 'scutched' that is it was struck with a "scutch" a heavy wooden blade with a handle. What fell off at the scutching was called borac and incidentally she pronounced the (c) as correctly as a Blasket islander. The borac after the first operation of scutching was 'coarse borac, a second operation on the same material gave 'fine' borac

   Then came hackling or carding and then spinning. This latter was done in the winter nights 'when the [?] were all dug'. The light was very poor (rush-light) but she said the women did not mind as the 'spin was in their fingers'.

   She said that when very young she heard a travelling man remark to her mother one day that Cork County seemed as under snow he saw so much linen being bleached there as he came through

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Miss O' Connor

   Gender

   Female