School: Ballinahowen (roll number 8646)
- Location:
- Ballynahown, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: T. Hanly
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0745, Page 071
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- XML School: Ballinahowen
- XML Page 071
- XML “Tinkers”
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- Oftentimes travellers or Tinkers call to our door. They sometimes have tin cans, saucepans etc. and sometimes they have floor carpets. They will ask you if you have got any horsehair that would exceed the price of the carpet or if you happen to have so much horse hair as the carpet they will the carpet in exchange for the horsehair. Or if you had any old feather beds, or any old mattresses, feathers, clothes, jumpers, rags etc. they will take them in exchange for something else. If they dont get those they will perhaps ask for a grain of flour, a drop of butter-milk, eggs, meat, bread, or whatever they lay eyes on they want to get it. Some of the tinkers have a strange way of travelling. Some of them have a tent which is made from canvas and there they camp themselves in sheltry dyke, or valley. Other tinkers have their caravans. It is made like a common horses cart, only that it is shaped like half a circle on the top and it is shaped like an arch in the front. In the side of it is a small window and also a small ladder going up to the door of the caravan from the ground.
- Collector
- Eibhlín Ní Dálaigh
- Gender
- Female
