School: Béal Átha 'n Fheadha (B.)
- Location:
- Béal an Átha, Co. Mhaigh Eo
- Teacher: D. P. Ó Cearbhaill
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0146, Page 308
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: Béal Átha 'n Fheadha (B.)
- XML Page 308
- 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
- Ballina could boast of a large number of nail makers all doing a good business up to 1886, but the machine made foreign nails put most of them out of business. They made entirely by hand all sizes of nails used for every purpose. The method of manufacture was this - one fire made of coke accommodated up to four men each working at a separate block. The block was a square box about 3ft 6in high by 2ft 6in broad which was 3/4 filled with slack on which was placed a metal block with apertures for stake, hardy and tool bearers. The iron when sufficiently heated was hammered on the stake to form the tang of the nail then with a portion of the full iron to form the head was cut on the hardy, inserted in the tool and the head hammered into shape. Nailors in Ballina 45 years ago were Wm. Killigrew, Dan Walsh, John Smyth, Pat Convey, Pat Doherty, Michael Gallagher and Thomas Ryder. Those were employers who generally had a few men working. There are no nailers now in this locality Tom Ryder being the last one who worked the trade.
- Informant
- Patrick J. Dunphy
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 73
- Address
- Béal an Átha, Co. Mhaigh Eo
