School: Kilgobnet

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1. Old Houses

   

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   Old Houses
   The houses of long ago were not plastered like the houses now. The stones were placed on top of each other very roughly and layers of yellow mud in between them. Some of them were whitewashed.
   The roof was usually made of trees cut in the wood and prepared at home. Outside the sticks scrais were fixed on. A covering of either reed, straw, heath or giobrac was put on the scrais. The reed was bound with spars like the straw. The finest and longest heath was picked and brought from the mountain and it was bound with ropes. The giobrac was something like reed and it grew on marshy places usually near the sea. It was fastened with ropes. Some of the houses were made of yellow mud.
   Mostly all the floors were made of yellow mud called freestone which was got in the cliffs. It was wet with water and the children of the house or the old people danced on it to toughen it. When it was toughened it was smoothed with a board or sometimes the floors were

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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

   Norah Cahill

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Shanacloon, Co. Kerry

   Informant

   Mrs James Cahill

   Relation

   Parent

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Shanacloon, Co. Kerry