School: Castletowngeoghegan (B.) (roll number 2092)
- Location:
- Castletown Geoghegan, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: T. Ó Conaire
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0734, Page 338
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
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
- The Local Forge
There are two forges in this end of the parish. Gerld Keenan's and Micheal Connell's. Gerald Keenan's is situated in the village of Castletown and Michael Connell's on the side of the Adamstown road. The two forges have felt roofs. There are two fireplaces in Keenan's one of which is not in use. The blacksmith uses a hammer, a sledge, a shoeing hammer, a spanner, a botun, a pritchel, a stamp, a rasp, a pincers, a vice, a drill, a runner or a little round wheel for measuring the circumference of wheels, a buffer for taking of shoes, an anvil, a chisel and a hacksaw.
The fire is on a raised platform called a hob. The hob is made of stones and yellow clay because if lime and sand were used the fire would dry it all up and the hob would fall. The black-smith shoes horses and asses and he repairs all farm implements. The water in the black-smiths trough will cure warts if the person who has the warts dips his finger in the water but he must not let the black-smith see him or he will not be cured. The black-smith is supposed to have great strength. The forge is a great centre for story telling.J.E. issis
Author: John Daly.
- Collector
- J. Ennis
- Informant
- John Daly
- Gender
- Male
