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History at Home

Here are some of the things we brought in to school on our "History at home" day. We all looked in our houses, sheds and Grandparents' houses for old items that were interesting and that you would not see in use today. Here are some of the things we found. We showed the other classes in school and got them to try and guess what they were used for.

This is an old revolver. My uncle found it in a very old house in Lorrha, Co. Tipperary. It is about 6 inches long and 4 inches wide. It could have been used by the old I.R.A. It would hold six bullets. I wish it could tell its story!

This is an old slan. I got it in my Grandad's house. It used to have a wooden handle like a shovel. it was used for cutting turf in the bog. You would press down on it and cut a sod of turf and throw it to another person who would put it into a wheelbarrow and take it to a dry part of the bog and spread it out to dry.

 

This is a cut-throat razor. The brand-name was "Crown & Sword". There was a handle and a blade for shaving and it folded up flat and was stored in the box that came with it. You would use a leather belt to sharpen it before you shaved. I don't know how old it is. the man would make a lather using soap and water and rub it on with a brush. Then he would carefully shave with the cut-throat razor.

This is a butter pat. I got it in my Granny's house. It is made of wood and it is cracked now. you would use it to shape butter into rectangular shapes when you took it out of the churn. you would need two of these to make the shapes properly. The ridge-shapes on the wood would leave marks on the butter.

These are two box irons. The left one was found in a press in an old house.It works by heating the iron pieces (which were found inside the iron) on the fire, removing them with a tongs, placing them inside the iron and then shutting a door at the back of it. This would have to be done repeatedly to keep the iron hot. The second iron was simply heated by leaving it on the fire, so the person ironing probably had two or more of them on the go at once.

Ifound this old wind up clock in my grandparents' house. If you wind it up the alarm will ring on the hour. If you don't wind it, it doesn't work at all. There is a door at the back that you can open to see inside. Inside, you can see a small hammer that makes the alarm ring. There is a design of the petals of a flower on either corner.

This is a piece of an old plough. I got it from Peter Flynn who lives at the head of our road. It is a number 6 plough. There were only two ploughs back then, a number 6 plough and a number 2 plough. It is very rusty now though it is about a hundred years old. Peter Flynn was only 6 when his grandfather gave it to him.

This is the inside of a churn. A churn was used for making butter. Almost every family had a churn. You put milk in the churn and you spun it around and the milk turned into butter. What was left over was the buttermilk.

 

This is a gold pocketwatch. It is about 100 years old. It belonged to my Grandmother who passed it on to my mother. You can open the back of it to see the workings inside. The hands have broken off by now. People wore it on a chain connected to a buttonhole and tucked it into a pocket on their waistcoat. It had a glass dial to protect the hands.

This is a holder for tea-leaves. You put the tea-leaves into the holder which was a bit like a double-sided spoon with a spring on it to keep it closed tightly. You put it into your tea-cup and poured boiling water into the cup. This made a cup of tea and you didn't have tea-leaves floating around your cup. It was a bit like an old-fashioned mechanical tea-bag.

This is a last. It was used to mend shoes. It is made from iron. it is rusty now. The shoe on it now is on the part for fixing the sole and there were also pieces for fixing the heel and the toe of the shoe. Nowadays, people just go out and buy new shoes but in the past, they mended them a lot instead.

This is an old pair of glasses. They belonged to my Grandfather. They are made from wire and they are very bendy. People used to pass around their glasses as they were not very common, and sometimes if someone died their glasses were passed on to someone else.

Here are some old coins and paper money. There was no pond coin before the late eighties, there was a pound note instead. the notes were bigger than our notes now and the colours and design were different. We also had a half crown fron 1902 and a 1928 penny which was very big.

This is an old horseshoe. Daddy found it in our sheds. It is very rusty and it is made of iron. It was used on the horse's foot - maybe a small foal or a pony. the blacksmith would probably have made the horseshoe in his forge and put it on for the farmer.