School: Cill Chais, Cluain Meala (roll number 596)

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1. Old Houses (continued)

   

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   always made locally and people around here can still make them. There were also the three-legged stools which are still used for milking. There was also a "stelling" or very large flag either in the kitchen or in the dairy which the milking pans, pails or buckets of spring water were kept. Sometimes this "stelling" is to be found outside the door of the dwelling house.
   The cradles were wooden ones made locally also and are still to be seen in some houses round particularly up the mountainy districts.
   They had wooden rockers underneath.
   Up in Toor they had an old custom of knowing the time when they wanted to get up early on a fair morning. Clocks were to be found then only in an odd house. They knew how long it took a candle to burn out, so they would tie a straw around the end or middle of the candle. The the flame reached the straw it make a crackling sound which succeeded in waking up someone in the house.
   The houses were always whitewashed - sometimes inside as well as outside.
   They still use a piece of corduroy in lamps up in Toor as a wick in lamps.

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. objects
      1. man-made structures
         1. buildings
            1. residential buildings (~2,723)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   C. Ní Mhainnín

   Gender

   Female

   Informant

   Oliver Morrissey

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   64

   Occupations

   Farmer

   Road worker

   Address

   Toor, Co. Tipperary