School: Carraig Áluinn (roll number 16.474)
- Location:
- Carrigallen, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Pádhraic Mag Uidhir
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0228, Page 045
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: Carraig Áluinn
- XML Page 045
- XML “Foods - Boxty”
- XML “Old Crafts”
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
- A favourite article of food long ago was called "boxty" and indeed it is still made in many houses during the months of harvest and winter. It is made from potatoes and flour but it is not the same as what is called "potato cake." Boxty is of two kinds - "dumplings" and "pancake boxty. To make "dumplings" a number of specially good potatoes is picked out and peeled while in the raw state after being thoroughly washed. The "eyes" were carefully picked to remove all specks of dirty or anything else which might effect the quality of the boxty. The potatoes were then grated by means of a large tin greater. These graters were made by travelling tinkers and sold at the farmers' hoses. These graters were kept spotlessly(continues on next page)
- Informant
- Mrs Mary O' Dowd
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 58
- Address
- Druminuff, Co. Leitrim
- (continued from previous page)in order to have a good yield.
When a baby was being brought to the chapel to be baptised, a lump of "tow" was brought. This was made into 5 or 6 little balls which were used by the priest to clear the Holy Oils from his fingers and from the baby's face, shoulders &c. Oatmeal was used also to help to clear off the Oil when the priest washed his fingers. The balls of "tow" were then burned. Small balls of cotton wool are now used for the same purpose as no one has any "tow" to bring.
