School: Culdaff
- Location:
- Culdaff, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: Ailís Eibhlín de Brún
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1123, Page 044
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- (continued from previous page)The blacksmith shoes horses and donkeys. He also makes farming implements such as ploughs, spades. shovels, picks, axes, and irons for harrows. When the blacksmith is about to make a pair of horse-shoes, he first puts the irons in the fire, and when they are perfectly heated, he lifts it out, and beats it on the anvil until it is shaped into a horse shoe. He does likewise when making ploughs or any other kind of iron implement.When the smith is putting iron on cart wheels, he does it in the open air, outside the forge door. Sometimes he shoes horses outside the door also.Putting irons on cart wheels is called "shoeing". I have never heard of any belief with regards to forge water, or to the sparks which fly from the red-hot irons. In olden days the people may have looked upon the blacksmith as being a noble man, but he is not looked upon as anything different from the other people now. Undoubtedly he is always looked upon as being s strong man. The people may have sent(continues on next page)
