School: St Canice's, Aghaboe (roll number 16939)
- Location:
- Aghaboe, Co. Laois
- Teacher: Aine Ní Dhubhlaoigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0829, Page 449
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: St Canice's, Aghaboe
- XML Page 449
- XML “Homemade Toys”
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
- (continued from previous page)is continued until the necklace is completed. The children amuse themselves during the Summer making those. Some children make hair bands, banglets and necklaces, and they look very pretty indeed. On the first of May they look lovely put in and out through the May-bush.
There is a certain toy called the cat's cradle. This is made of rushes. The rushes are twisted and twined in and out through each other, until a cradle is completed. This is more of an ornament than a toy. John Flynn makes them. They would hold many small things such as needles.
Long ago the old people made beautiful toy-dolls out of rags, sticks and elder berries. Rags were put into a nice coloured cloth and the two sides were sewn up. Two sticks were then put into the bottom of the doll, and afterwards the legs were sewn tightly in. The head was sometimes made of rags and sometimes of blocks. The block is cut in the shape of a head. The eyes were put in likewise and the mouth is put on in the same(continues on next page)
