Old houses. The ruins of many old houses are still to be seen although many of the ruins were brought away and the stones were used for other purposes such as for building out offices and for making roads. Most of the houses of long ago were thatched and it is said that there were some houses to be seen with big flags on them for roofs. Almost every old house has a bed in the kitchen. This is usually at the back of the house in a corner near the fire. In all the old houses the chimney was in the gable wall. There is an old house in this district which is built of bog sods and the roof is made of sods also. The chimney is in the gable and the smoke is allowed to pass to the hole in the roof along the wall. The floors of mostly all the old houses were made of clay and some of them were made of big flags. Long ago almost every house had a half-door on it. This door used to prevent the hens and ducks from going into the house. There used to be many kinds of lights used in the olden times. There was an articleSarah Goldberg