School: Kildavin, Ferns
- Location:
- Kildavin, Co. Carlow
- Teacher: Tadhg de Brí
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0911, Page 091
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- XML School: Kildavin, Ferns
- XML Page 091
- XML “Thatching”
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- About a hundred years ago when men wanted to thatch they first had to sow the corn to get the straw. Then one man had to pull the straw in bundles while another got on the house. The man on the house had to have a stick called a thruster and a mallet. Then the straw had to be brought up on the house and the thatcher made fangles with the straw and made a hole in the roof with the thruster. Then he shoved in the fangle and hammered a sally or oak switch around the fangle and he kept on doing the same thing for four or five feet across and in that way he got over one side of the house. Then he got eight or nine buckets of water and threw them on the house. Then he got a rake and sleeked the straw down. When he started the other side he had to make two nobs one on each end of the house and started the same work again.
In earlier times men used thatch with rushes, and those rush roofs were much stronger and better than the straw roofs and the birds would not attack them also. Rush roofs were nobler and fancier.
- Collector
- Matty Roberts
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Kildavin, Co. Carlow
- Informant
- Mr J. Coogan
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 69
- Occupation
- Farmer
- Address
- Ballypierce, Co. Carlow
