School: Tullycasson

Location:
Ardvagh, Co. Cavan
Teacher:
(name not given)
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0965, Page 225

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0965, Page 225

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Tullycasson
  2. XML Page 225
  3. XML “The Care of the Feet”

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

  1. Long ago, the children wouldn't get shoes until they would be sixteen years of age. It is said that after a boy would be able to mow he would get a pair, even though they were cheap at the time. We are told that there lived a man in this townland who never wore shoes in his life. He lived till he was eighty years, and never suffered from colds or sore feet.
    In the middle of winter the boys and men of this parish used to be working on roads barefooted. They did not feel a bit cold, though the ground was often covered with snow and ice. Sometimes they would wrap pieces of bags or goats skin around their feet, and this was done but seldom. Old people say that the best wash for the feet is water that potatoes were boiled in. If one chanced to get burned ''Hemlock'' was got and mixed with butter. This was applied as soon as possible. For coins, the fat of bacon was supposed to be a cure and for sprains the person suffering went to a curer. He would tie a flaxen thread on the part injured and when this thread was lost, the sprain the sprain was cured.
    There were more shoemakers long ago than there are now, but they used to make ''clogs''. These shoes are not made at present. The shoemakers used to go from house to house with his ''kit''
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. objects
      1. clothing and accessories (~2,403)
        1. shoes (~1,841)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Jim Mc Govern
    Gender
    Male
    Informant
    James Mc Govern
    Gender
    Male
    Address
    Corneenflynn, Co. Cavan