School: Ballydurrow
- Location:
- Ballaghdorragh, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: S. Ó Hadarnáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0998, Page 323
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: Ballydurrow
- XML Page 323
- XML “Old Crafts”
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 chief trades or occupations carried on in this district long ago, but discontinued now a long time were candle-making and lime-burning
The making of candles was done very long ago and in a very primitive way. The chief candles were rush-candles. The rushes were cut on the moorland and left to season for a few days They were then gathered, taken home, and both men and women sat round a pile of them and removed the bark with their fingers. The rushes were then dipped into grease, tied in bundles and hung in the chimney to dry.
A block of wood two feet high with a tin holder was placed in the middle of the floor. The rush-candle was lit and placed in the holder where each one burned for about twenty minutes. The idea of the holder placed on the floor was to avoid accidents.
The grease used was the fat of the sheep or the pig. After some years the tallow candle came to be used and the rush light died out.
About 70 years ago a great occupation or trade in Ballydurrow was lime burning. There is a quarry in Ballydurrow(continues on next page)
