School: Corlis

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   “Corliss School is about two miles from where a hedge school was conducted by a man named Spurry...”

   

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   Corliss School is about two miles from where a hedge school was conducted by a man named Spurry [?], who in his declining years begged from door to door and is believed to have died in Cavan Workhouse, about fifty years ago. Spurry was a very good teacher, had his classes in an old barn, used the Spelling book, Superseded, and Goff (Arithmetic), taught fine penmanship, and charged a couple of pence per week. He is said to have been a strict disciplinarian, and to have used the cane freely. The last of his pupils died a year ago. Big boys and girls attended his school, especially in the Winter. The big boys wore corduroy trousers and frieze or home-spun tweed coats, and wore clogs or went barefooted. The boys wore petticoats and overalls until they were twelve or thirteen years old, and were not dressed in knickers or trousers lest the pull of the braces, would retard their growth, or make them round-shouldered.
   The best men to wear the old Irish costume were two men named Cullen and Doyle, who died about 1885, and who always dressed in long tailed frieze coats, tight corduroy breeches with brass buttons at the knees, hand-knitted grey stockings, low hob-nailed shoes, and tall flatbottomed hats. These were very tall athletic men, had been hurlers in their young days, and Doyle asked to have his "tamán", put in his coffin.
   Bally-Douglas Bridge crosses a little stream, half

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      1. historical persons (~5,068)
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