School: Málainn (roll number 13949)
- Location:
- Malin, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: Eilís Nic Uilcín
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1124, Page 281
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: Málainn
- XML Page 281
- XML “Thatching”
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
- In olden times people thatched their houses with straw, rushes, flax and bent. The bent was found growing on the sandy soil along the sand.
The people grew the flax themselves. When it was ripe it was pulled and put in stooks. Then it was steeped in a dam and finally dried and made ready for use.
The men themselves thatched the houses. There was one ladder going up to the roof and another which the men sat on to thatch. The thatch was laid on in the way you would make drills. When the thatching was finished it was roped with hemp ropes. The ropes were fastened down tightly to little pegs in the wall. They were put across and up and down making little regular rectangles. The houses were always thatched and made secure before the wintry weather set in.
- Collector
- Jim Logan
- Gender
- Male
