School: Moyvoughley (roll number 7249)
- Location:
- Maigh Bhachla, Co. na hIarmhí
- Teacher: C. Ní Fhlannagáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0743, Page 019
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- XML “Old Crafts”
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- Long ago people made their own cloth, candles, soap dyes, flowerpots, ointment and "besoms".
They made their own candles out of fat of the sheep. They had rushes for the wicks and sometimes cotton threads and they melted the fat. They put the wicks in the middle of the moulds and then they poured the grease in. When they hardened they took them out and they were long thin candles. As they were stuck to the moulds they put the moulds in hot water to loosen them.
They made soap out of fat melted and wood-ashes which they boiled together. They made toilet soap in the same way but added to it was the juice of elder berries. When it was boiled they poured it into different shaped moulds. It was a wine coloured soap.
They made flower pots out of clay baked in ovens until they hardened.
They used besoms instead of brooms. They made them of heath (or rushes) tied tightly to a long stick.
"A woman bought her first broom,
Her husband was in the room,
When she brought it to him,
Indeed he said you've little to do
And soon you'll have less to do
And yet the little besom
Won't do you".
