School: Keelagh
- Location:
- Keelagh, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: Ellen Reilly
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1025, Page 100
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: Keelagh
- XML Page 100
- XML “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
- Long ago people gave very little care to their feet. Some of them would not wear boots until they were twenty years or more.
When the girls were going to a fair or market they brought their stockings wrapped up in a large handkerchief. When they reached the road they would wash their feet in a pool of water and dry them in their handkerchief and put on their boots and stockings there. These stockings were hand - knitted and the boots were home - made. A shoemaker who could make these boots lived in a place in Ardamagh called Grove's Turn and another lived in Drumcondra. The boots which these men made were far cheaper than the factory boots which we now get.
They used to wear slip - soles of hay in their boots and when they would be renewing them they would spit on the old ones and throw them behind the fire.
They used to wear clogs every day in winter time and of course these were home - made also. The uppers of them were made of leather and the soles were made of wood with iron shods and tips to keep them from wearing.
When they would wash their feet at(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Eileen Smith
- Gender
- Female
- Informant
- Mr James Walsh
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Keelagh, Co. Cavan
