School: Michael Str., New Ross (roll number 12372)

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1. An Old Story

   

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   Once upon a time there was a blacksmith in Horetown at the time of the Rebellion. He was a good smith like Páid Ó Donncada. He forged some steel for freedom. He made plenty of pike-heads in that old forge and it is a well known fact that he used to make them after his day's work. This smith had a large tank or stone trough in which he used to hide the pikes.
   One day he wasn't too busy in the forge and he said to himself that he would spend the day making pikes. About the middle of the day a little boy came into the forge and he was greatly interested in the pikes that had been made. The smith had the all laid out on a bench and there were surely forty of them in it. The boy wasent long in the forge when the smith was called to his supper.
   He went in and left the boy in the forge. The lad was delighted with the pikes and he was examing them all. It was fairly dark when he was looking at them and he took up one of them and brought it out to the door to see it better. When he went out to the door the first thing he done was to look down the road and what did he see coming towards him from the
   direction of Tottenham Green only an English soldier. He knew him when he saw the red coat although he was surely two hundred yards away. The boy rushed into the forge and collected up all the pikes he could see and threw them all in the tank. Of course there was plenty of water in the tank and it wasn't very clear water as the smith used it for cooling the

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Informant

   William Roche

   Relation

   Parent

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   60

   Address

   New Ross, Co. Wexford