School: Ballyroan (Convent) (roll number 1556)
- Location:
- Ballyroan, Co. Laois
- Teacher: Mother Philomena
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0831, Page 286
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: Ballyroan (Convent)
- XML Page 286
- 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
- Basket-making was done by a man named Joseph Mackey who died in 1938 aged about sixty. He collected sally rods and made baskets for sale from these.
Linen-weaving was carried on in the village about 100 yrs. ago.
Nailmaking was done by a man named Paisley up to about 80 yrs ago.
Burning of lime in Kiln's Common up to about 20 yrs. ago.
There are two forges in the village, Daltons and Carrols. They make ploughs, harrows, wheels and gates. The forges have slate roofs with holes in the slates to allow out the smoke instead of chimneys. The smiths shoe horses and asses. The binding of wheels is done in the open air.
There is a local belief that forge maker cures warts (water in which iron is kept).
Up to about 30 yrs certain men used make what was called a "bezum" from heather. These they sold and they were used for sweeping until brushes came into use. I have been told that bezums are still in use.
