History

The house is a direct-entry house which was common in Donegal around the seventeenth to early nineteenth century and thatched. The house would have started as one room (the kitchen) about 5m wide by 4m long with stone walls 0.6m thick and clay mortar. A small window at the front and one at the back, the fire place set on the floor with no chimney and just a hole in the thatch to let the smoke out. The door placed at one corner away from the hearth.

The house would have been shared with the farmers milk cattle and a pig or goat in late autumn and winter. The animals were kept at the opposite end of the house away from the fire, which was common all over Europe at the time. The floor was a mud floor which the family would have slept on, sometimes they had straw beds.

This type of house was known as a "byre-dwelling" In the nineteenth century with growing pressures of hygiene and domestic standards the byre end was partitioned off from the living quarters but both animal and human still used the same door. The partition facilitated a storage or sleeping loft over the cattle, an early form of natural central heating. Entrance to the loft would have been by a ladder.

Due to massive population growth from about 1750 until the potato famine in the 1840s, and a rise in living standards a second room was added at the lower end of the house (the sitting room) and the thatch continued across to the new gable. Since the house was built on a slope, an attic room could be accommodated with entrance by a staircase from the kitchen dividing the loft area in two, underneath one side became the entrance hall and the other was used for storage. The new room was then used as a byre with its own door at the front plus a door to the kitchen area. A small fireplace was built into the gable and a small window in the attic gable for light. Later the lower room outside door was converted into a window and this area became the parlor. In 1876 the parlor, commonly known in many similar houses as "the room" was divided by a wooden partition screening off two small bedrooms and the walls were paneled with wood.

A separate byre was built at the upper gable which housed cattle with its own separate entrance and so the two gable chimney vernacular house with a shade at one side became the traditional Irish cottage.

The enclosed farm yard developed from here, a hen-house for chickens and ducks, a stable, a pig house and a byre this time as far away from the main building as possible, the byre gable had a hatch which was used for forking manure out into a midden where it remained decomposing until the spring at which time it was spread on the land fertiliser for crops. Finally a barn was built which housed a threshing mill for corn, the mill was driven by a horse attached to a shaft which walked around and turned the mill. Originally all of these outhouses would have been thatched.

Daily Life

During the course of time daily chores and duties changed rapidly but there was little change from the seventeenth century until early nineteenth century. Work on the farm was divided up between male and female, each with their clearly defined duties including the children. Females looked after the house and younger children, washing, cooking, often making and mending clothes, making butter and looking after farm animals e.g chickens, goats and pigs. Water for cooking and washing had to be carried from the well situated near the house as there was no running water. Milking was usually shared and was a daily task both morning and evening, and the man took care of crops and general duties around the farm.

Seasons played an important part in dally life, In spring fields had to be prepared for planting crops. First the manure well decomposed over the winter was spread on the land and plough for crops such as corn and potatoes, A horse and plough was used, great pride was taken in this work, and neighboring farmers would inspect each others work to check for crooked furrows and the like, when ploughed they were then harrowed; a horse would drag the harrow around the field until the soil had been broken up into small pieces suitable for planting. Potatoes were planted by hand and corn was sown by hand which took great skill on the farmers behalf to sow it evenly. Later there were some inventions to help such as the corn fiddle, again this required an acquired skill to use and would be subject to neighbor inspection when the corn started to grow.

A favorite task at this time of year was cutting the (following years) turf. It was used during the year for cooking, boiling water and heating. It was cut from the mountain behind the house, and involved of a number of different processes. First the heather was cut or burned away from the area to be cut (called a "bink") then the turf was cut with a peat spade which had a lip at one side to cut both sides at the same time, the turf was laid out in flat rows to dry, it was usually cut by males and again was subject to rigorous inspection by neighboring farmers, the turf had to be just right, not too small and not too big, and all equal in size to avoid a scandal! The next stage was to ”fit’ the dry turf, which ment setting three or four on their end, and with one on top to allow the wind to dry them completely. This was woman's and boys work, when dry they were stacked and later brought home and put in a shed for burning during the year.

A local market was held in the village once a month, all sorts of local produce was bought and sold, from eggs to cattle. Fruit from the farm such as blackcurrants, gooseberries and apples. Farmers would walk around the village examining each others animals and if they wished to buy, the dealing process would start. The buyer would offer the seller a sum of money, well below the sellers price, the seller would then drop his price a little, in response to this the buyer would throw a few insults about the cattle he was buying and then offer a higher price until they reached a happy medium at which point the buyer would make a final bid and if successful he would spit on his hand and slap the sellers hand to finish the deal. This spitting and slapping went on all day with a lot of drinking and lots of local gossip exchanged.

There were also hiring fairs where some children were hired out to other farmers for a period of time. This was a common practice in the north of Ireland.

Autumn was the harvest time, a most exciting time of the year and also an anxious time. Crops had to be harvested and much attention was paid to the weather, a bad autumn could spell disaster for the farmer, if he lost his crops. Neighbors would work to gether at this time. The corn was cut and tied and gathered into stacks and then brought to the farm yard where it was threshed to separate the corn from the stock. In the nineteenth century a threshing machine would go from farm to farm and all the neighbor farmers would follow it, helping each other until they all had their crops saved. At this point they would have a party at the last house which would consist of food, traditional music and dancing and lots of drinking all night.

If the harvest was successful then winter was a time to relax and prepare for the spring, tools were mended fences repaired, simple household furniture was made and animals looked after. A favorite pastime at this time of year was going "Recking". Neighbors would gather in each others houses, play music and tell ghost stories and exchange gossip.