School: Summerville (roll number 622)

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1. Old Houses

   

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   This is a description of an old house. The walls were made of clay. The floor was made of yellow clay with paving stones around the fireplace. It had a thatched roof. Going in there was a porch called a puitín. From that into the kitchen was a parlour and below two bedrooms. The fireplace was in the kitchen at the middle wall between the kitchen and parlour. Over the fire at the back wall was a small loft called a crandy. There were three windows in the front of the house and sometimes a small window at the back. There was two panes of glass in each window and sometimes only one. There was a small chimney in the middle of the house made of brick, or wattles plastered with yellow clay. Most of the houses were thatched but there were a few slated ones. The houses were thatched with wheaten straw, sedge, reed or rushes. The wheaten straw was grown on the farm. The old houses had beds in the kitchen. The bed was against the back wall. It was called a settle bed. Some chimneys were built with brick and others with yellow clay and switches. The people do not remember houses with no chimneys or the fire in the centre of the floor. The people don not remember houses with no glass for the windows. Poor people had only one very small window with one pane of glass. Half-doors or hatch were common in the district. Turf and furze bushes and sticks were used for the fire. Cow dung balls and boriáns were used also

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. objects
      1. man-made structures
         1. buildings
            1. residential buildings (~2,723)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Kitty Quann

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Ballyshoneen, Co. Waterford

   Informant

   Mr Patrick Quann

   Relation

   Parent

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   70

   Address

   Ballyshoneen, Co. Waterford