School: Gortnaskeagh (roll number 16321)
- Location:
- Gortnaskeagh, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Anna Nic Aodha
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0199, Page 199d
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- XML School: Gortnaskeagh
- XML Page 199d
- XML “Homemade Toys”
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- Every boy and many girls find amusement in spare time in making toys. Boys make dancers from thread spools and spinning it on the floor. Children also make guns from elder branches by taking the heart out of them. They then wet a bit of paper and put it into the gun and blow air into it, then they put another lump of paper in the other side and push it out. This causes the last lump of paper to fly off with a big shot.
In winter boys make bird cradles and set them under a hedge with a bit of bread inside. They set snares in the mouth of the holes where the rabbit lives.
Other boys make a man's head out of a turnip. They light a candle and cut out two eyes and a mouth and set the candle inside it. It is then called a false head. A bird cradle is made with a lot of rods. First of all there is a square made out of rods and then there are rods running every way through it. It is set out in the field and a piece of bread in it. And when the bird is coming into it she steps on the rod that holds up the cradle it then falls on her.
- Collector
- Patrick Kelly
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Gortnaskeagh, Co. Leitrim
- Informant
- Mr Patrick Kelly
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 65
- Address
- Gortnaskeagh, Co. Leitrim
