School: Gurteen (roll number 586)
- Location:
- Gurteen, Co. Tipperary
- Teacher: Richard B. Bracken
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0530, Page 286
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- XML School: Gurteen
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- XML “Homemade Toys”
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- Scarcely any children make toys at home nowadays. Long ago they used to make dolls out of small potatoes with a piece of stick driven into it for a body. Then they used to make clothes for the doll until it looked as the present day dolls. Children now buy dolls in the shops but, they make clothes for them themselves.Boys and girls practised making cribs out of hazel rods to catch birds when the snow was on the ground. They used to make the trap for the birds in the middle of a snowcovered field and they used to put breadcrumbs under it so that some bird would go into it to get the crumbs. Then the crib would fall and the bird was a prisoner. Girls used to make daisie chains out of little white daisies.
Boys used to play with tops. They used to make some of them out of a block of wood in different shapes and sizes. Below are a few sketches showing the shapes they gave them. The first one is called a pegging top, the second is called a flogging top, and the third is called a "castle top". The flogging(continues on next page)
- Informant
- James King
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 70
- Address
- Lord's Park, Co. Tipperary
