School: Birr (Mercy Convent)
- Location:
- Birr or Parsonstown, Co. Offaly
- Teacher: Sr. Flannan
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0821, Page 140
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- Old CraftsBrick makingThere are fields in Clonoghill called the Brick Fields owned by my grand-uncles the Stapletons. Up to about thirty or forty years ago my grand-uncles dug up the yellow clay in these fields and put it on a large table or sort of trough and mixed it with water. When it was mixed they got little frames of wood about six of eight inches long and about three inches wide and put some of this mixture into each frame. They then arranged the frames in arches some distance apart and heaped coal and turf all around them. Next they lighted large fires and left them burning until the mixture in the frames was quite hard. When they took them out of the frames they had become hard yellow bricks which were very useful for building purposes, and quantities of these were used in building the Cistercian Monastery, the Barracks as well as numerous houses.
