School: Gortermone
- Location:
- Gort ar Mónaidh, Co. Liatroma
- Teacher: Mrs A. O' Reilly
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0229, Page 192
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: Gortermone
- XML Page 192
- XML “Making of Linen”
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
- (continued from previous page)Remember a camp, as also do I remember to see ‘the scutchers’ eating or drinking flummery on this particular occasion, no tea, as also making (possets – locally called) each girl warming milk on her turn with sugar, caraway & etc. mingled with it.
Scutching. The staff stood erect out of a piece of board flat on the floor on which ‘the scutcher’ stood thus holding the staff in position. The streak of flax was thrown across the top of the staff & scuched, shooves[?] taken or beaten off it with the scutching handle.
Now tow was left which was spun on wheel into linen thread, wound on reel into hanks of linen, scoured & bleached, then sent to Weaver – Pat Donnelly, generally called “Batty” was local weaver in Gortermore district now dead about three years. The men wore this linen made into shirts, the women died it for dresses, children’s overalls etc. as also were sheets, towels, table cloths etc made out of it.
I should say here that some of the tow was kept for making cords – later generally used at threshing for tying hands and suple[?] together.(continues on next page)
