School: Valleymount
- Location:
- Valleymount, Co. Wicklow
- Teacher: Dll. Ó Cochláin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0917, Page 046
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Valleymount
- XML Page 046
- XML “Ancient Crafts - Candle-Making”
- XML “Ancient Crafts - Candle-Making”
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
- One of the oldest industries around this locality was rush-candle making.
Bundles of rushes were gathered and peeled. a pot of grease was melted then, and one of the peeled rushes was dipped in it and was allowed to harden. This was repeated several times until it was the necessary thickness. Then it was passed through a "rush-runner" which is shaped something like the neck of a bottle. This gives the candle the required shape.
These candles were used in a festival on Twelfth Night.
This method of making candles has now died out.
- Collector
- Sally Tipper
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Valleymount, Co. Wicklow
- Informant
- Mr M. Tipper
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 55
- Occupation
- Smith
- Address
- Valleymount, Co. Wicklow
- Years ago there were no candles like what we have nowadays.
People used to go to where there were good strong rushes in the bog and select a tuft of strong rushes.(continues on next page)
