School: Carrowrile (roll number 10396)
- Location:
- Carrowreilly, Co. Sligo
- Teacher: Pádhraic Ó Coileáin
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- XML School: Carrowrile
- XML Page 298
- XML “Old Houses”
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- The houses of long ago were known as mudwall cabins built of clay worked into mortar with grass. They were roofed with timber and sods and thatched with straw as at the present day. As there were no chimneys being then built a hole in the roof along the gable served (for) as an outlet for the smoke. On the top of this hole a bottomless old can was set to carry the sparks away from the thatch. The old house had a bed in the kitchen and have to the present day. A pouch was left in one sidewall about six feet long to serve as a place for a bed. With the advance of years people began to pull down sections of the old side walls and began building new walls of stone and mortar instead. The windows of the houses of long ago were very small also having only two panes of glass. The door was only five feet high and a person would have to stoop to enter the house. These are the old cabins which many good men of by gone days lived and died and those are the cabins which make mention of in the following lines by our Irish poets.
("Out from many a mudwall cabin
eyes were watching through the
night"
"Many an Irish heart were throbbing(continues on next page)- Collector
- Philomena Gilmartin
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 12
- Address
- Rinbaun, Co. Sligo
- Informant
- Pat Gilmartin
- Relation
- Parent
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 60
- Address
- Rinbaun, Co. Sligo