School: Rassan
- Location:
- Rassan, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: Agnes Shaw
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0993, Page 277
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: Rassan
- XML Page 277
- XML “Herbs”
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
- Herbs
The most harmful weeds growing on the farm, are Thistles, Dalkenseed, Crowfoot, Ragweed, and Lamblac. They are harmful because they spread so rapidly and impoverish the soil. The Ragweed, Thistle and Dalkenseed grow in good rich land. The Crowfoot and Lamblac grow in poor bad land.
There are certain herbs that have medicinal properties, these are Dandelion, Water Cress and Tern Roots. Dandelion is good for a bad cough. The plant is washed, cut up and boiled on milk and then it is let cool and drank when going to bed. Water Cress is gathered early in the morning and given with salt and bread to people suffering from a bad appetite. Fern Roots are gathered, washed and boiled on water. When quite soft it is strained and this water is given as a drink to cattle sufering from " Mourn."
Herbs were used extensively in former times as cures for certain diseases. These were used by people locally known as "Quacks." The sufferers were cured within a certain period from the time they started to use the medicine.
- Collector
- Kathleen Conlon
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Carrickatober, Co. Cavan
- Informant
- Thomas Gaffney
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 60
- Occupation
- Farmer
- Address
- Carrickatober, Co. Cavan
