Browne — Ethnography of Inuhhofin and Iimhshark. 355 



homespun, buttoned up the back, and reaching well below the knees, 

 until they reach the age of ten or eleven years. The dyes for the 

 homespuns are obtained from plants growing on the islands ; the orange 

 used for stockings being got from a lichen {Ramalina scopulorum) ; black 

 and brown from the purple loosestrife {LytJirtmi saUcaria) ; blue from a 

 small cruciferous plant ; and red usually from imported madder, but 

 sometimes from water-lily roots. Alum is used as mordant. 



5. Dwellings. — A house consists of a kitchen, and one or two bed- 

 rooms ; and it is, as a rule, built of dry stones without any mortar, 

 though this is used afterwards for stopping chinks, and plastering the 

 walls internally. Most of the houses are not whitewashed, with the 

 exception, of a belt around the small windows, but lime- washed houses 

 are becoming more common than formerly. The house has two doors, 

 front and back, both opening directly into the kitchen; and the 

 windows are situated only on the front of the house ; they are of very 

 small size, and seldom made to open ; yet, often, small as they are, they 

 are nearly filled up, so as to leave only from six inches to a foot 

 square of glazed surface. The chimneys and fireplaces are of the 

 usual type found throughout the rural districts of Ireland, except that 

 in some cases the chimney, after rising perpendicularly nearly to the 

 top of the wall, turns outwards and opens as a square hole in the 

 gable. The roof is straw thatch, laid on over " scraws " of grass 

 turf, and held down by a net- work of sougans (straw ropes), to the 

 ends of which heavy stones or long pieces of timber are attached. The 

 gable of the house is stepped, so that the thatch when laid on does 

 not project over the end wall, and is sealed down, to prevent water 

 getting under it at this part, by a plastering of clay.^ The thatch is 

 put on fresh every year, a new layer being laid over the older ones, 

 until the lowermost layer is thoroughly saturated with smoke, and 

 quite rotten, when the whole is stripped off and used as manure. The 

 floor is of beaten clay in the kitchen, but the bedrooms are sometimes 

 boarded. The most expensive material used in building a house is 

 wood, which is very scarce, and is usually obtained from drift wood, 

 washed up after a storm, in which way large beams often reach the 

 islands. It is owing to this scarcity of material, and the people 

 having to build their own houses, that there are so few outbuildings 

 or cattle-sheds, and that the dwelling-houses are so small. The 

 furniture is scanty, and testifies to the poverty of the people. A few 



1 " Houses thatched in this manner ai'e called on the west coast tighthc croithtc, 

 i. 6. ' shaken houses,' in contrast to the tighthe fuaighte 'stitched houses,' in which 

 the thatch is tied on hy ropes or cords." — Rev. E. O'Ghowney. 



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