Old Crafts
The following crafts were carried on Candle-making, basket making forge work, spinning and weaving both wool and flax, rope making pottery work, burning of lime in kilns, fresh water fishing and fowling. Only basket making and rope making and wool spinning to a small extent are carried on now-a-days.
Linen Spinning and Weaving:
Every farmer in this district set 1/2 acre of flax and on the produce made his year's rent. When the flax crop was ripe it was pulled, stooked, bogged. After ten days in the bog hole it was lifted and left in heaps to drip. It was then spread out on the ground to bleach and dry. It was then tied into sheaves and stooked.
The people then brought it to a little kiln on their farms and dried it there. It was then beatled with a beatle (a beatle resembled a cricket bat I am informed). It was then scutched with a scutcher ( a scutcher is also made of timber but is much lighter than the beatle, it is almost as thin as a knife).
The next process is that of hackling. The hackler was a wooden bench with iron teeth. Through these teeth the flax was drawn, this left the flax threads quite clean and ready for the spinning wheel.
When the flax thread was spun it was measured into hanks by means of a Jack-reel. There were four linen weavers in the immediate vicinity of Prizon school namely Patsy Kennedy, Tom Morris, Dominick O'Donnell and a man named Brady. These men wove the coarse flax into ticking for beds and into sacks for meal. They also wove material for sheets, towels pillow-cases table cloths and finer stuff for shirts.
There was a bleach mill at a place called Ballinamilla, between Turlough and Castlebar, the finer linen was brought there to be bleached.
There was a Linen Hall in Castlebar, to this day one of the streets bears the name Linen Hall St. The manufactured linen was sold in that Hall. The owner of the mill was a man named Strickland. If people need flax-seed on credit, he gave it to them until such time as they would have linen to sell.
Candle making.
Candles were made from rushes and bog-deal. The green skin was peeled off the rush almost to the butt and it was steeped in grease for a few minutes and then allowed to dry. It was then put in the sconce and lit. Such a candle lasted two hours.
Bog-deal made excellent candles. They took chips about 3' long off the deal, allowed it to dry and lit it. When the women were cloving flax they used to hold a bog deal candle between their toes.
Cleaves for turf.
- Stick five sally rods in ground leaving the space of your four fingers between each pair of rods. The rods are sometimes struck double.
- Stick five others opposite ti these and four on the remaining two sides. These rods are called "saúcháns" and form the frame work for the cleave.
- Take two sally rods and weave them in and out on this frame work as darning is done until the cleave is the required height- about 1 3/4' 4. The saucháns which are then left projecting upwards are stretched from side to side of the basket and those on the opposite sides are woven into them thus forming the bottom of the cleave.
There is another method of putting a bottom in the cleave namely instead of stretching the saucháns from side to side, they are turned down and woven into a rim round the edge of the basket work. Then strong sticks are inserted from side to side and these are interwoven with sally rods.
The cleave is next pulled up out of the ground and the saucháns which went in the ground are interwoven with sally rods until there is a good "bunna" on top of the basket. To finish cut off the points of the saucháns which were stuck in the ground.
Cleaves are used for carrying turf out of the bog.
There is a stradle placed on the donkey's back. This stradle consists of two straw mats placed in a canvas bag and left on the back of the donkey. On top of the stradle is a piece of timber from which two pegs project upwards. These are called scuppógs. The cleaves are hung on the scuppógs by means of handles which are called "epishes".
Pardógs are made in the same way as cleaves except that the bottom of the pardóg is separate and only hinged on to the inside of the basket by means of rods. There is a forked stick fastened to the outer side of the bottom, this is called a sluidín and it acts as a kind of Y bolt for fastening the bottom of the pardóg. This kind of basket is used for putting out manure on ridges or drills. The loops which hold the sluidíns are slipped, the bottom drops and the manure falls on the ridge.
Scib.
Six rods of equal lengths are taken. Three of them are slotted in the centre. The other three are inserted in the slots thus making a frame work on which to weave the basket.
Then get a hoop and fasten the ribs to it and weave sally rods in and out until it is completed. This skib is used for holdings eggs; but there is another basket which has a caisín about four inches high and it is used for straining potatoes or for carrying turf.
All these baskets are used by the small farmers in this district and many of them are able to make them still. Years ago certain men went from house to house to make these baskets and they were paid 1s for making a pair of creals or paidógs.
There was also a little cleave used for picking the potatoes, it was called a gurngín, there was another basket which was called a cleavín. It contained four or five stone and was used for carrying potatoes to the pit and spilling them into it.
Forge work.
There was a forge in Tavanaugh Mór for about 200 years. It is only about a mile east of the school. It was owned by people of the name of Bourke and was worked up to about eighteen years ago. They used to make spades, shovels, hinges, slains, bucáns for gates, fire cranes, ploughs and they used to shoe horses and asses.
Thatching.
Until quite recently all the houses in the school district were thatched. There is a foundation of scraws left on the roofing timber for a thatched roof. I have been informed by two old people that the first coat of thatch was always sown on the roof by means of a needle and thatching cord. One man inserted the needle in the outside of the thatch and a man on the inside pulled it through secured the stitch to the timber and put it out again.
When re-coating a thatched roof, the straw is secured by means of scallops which are pointed sally or hazel rods. Two of these are used on each streak of straw. The ends overlap in the centre of the streak and are secured by means of a forked rod which is called a keeper. The straw laps over the scallops so that nothing appears on the surface of the roof but the smooth straw.
Dyeing.
Some of the people in the district still dye homespun wool with a moss that grows on trees and rocks.
Rope -making.
Súgan ropes are still made by all farmers for their hay cocks. Spanshal ropes were made long ago of rushes for curinasks and side-lamp for animals. The making of theses ropes has been described by one of the pupils.
Pottery work. The peoples had moulds for making crocks. These they lined with red doab and baked until the doab became hard.
Lime burning. I find that forty years ago every farmer in this district burned his own lime. This industry has now entirely died out here. There is only one lime kiln in use near Balla. As the lime-burning has been described by many pupils I shall not repeat.
“COLLECTOR
Mary A. O’ Doherty, female
INFORMANT
Patsy Ansbro; Gender; male, Age; 84, Tawnagh More, Co. Mayo
”