Browne — Ethnografphy of Inishbofin and Inishshark. 363 



The spinning -wheel and hand-loom are the same as those commonly 

 used on the west coast, the former, as usual, having no treadle. 



Querns are still in use, and in connection with them the boran, or 

 sieve of sheepskin stretched over a wicker frame, used for screening 

 the meal. 



Grain is still winnowed by shaking it in a sieve in a strong wind. 



The method of washing clothes is the same as that customary in 

 Connemara, the clothes being folded, laid in the water of a lake or 

 pool, and beaten with a club or paddle. 



The tailor, wben making clothes, does not measure Ms customers 

 with a tape, but takes all his measurements on. one sbeet of paper, 

 marking the lengths by cutting notches out of the edge. 



The curraghs, which are still in use, are of the usual form ; they 

 are rapidly going out of fashion, however. 



The anchor used for small boats is a stone, not fixed in a wooden 

 clamp, as in Clare and Aran, but having a groove around it for the 

 rope. 



As mentioned previously, the apparatus used for the shark-fishing 

 is very rude and primitive. 



2. Antiquities. — Inishbofin is not very rich in architectural antiqui- 

 ties, and th6 few that still remain are being rapidly destroyed ; some 

 ruins which were standing in the first half of the present century have 

 altogether disappeared, and the others are much shattered. 



In Inishshark, also, the buildings have sustained a great injury. 



It does not lie within my province to enter upon any detailed 

 description of the ruins ; but I desire, in the following notes (extracted 

 almost verbatitn from my Pield Note-book), to direct the attention of 

 archaeologists to the buildings of interest in these islands which are 

 being rapidly blotted out of existence. The number and nature of 

 these have been described by the late Mr. O'Donovan, Mr. Hardiman, 

 Mr. G. H. Kinahan, and others. 



In the account of their present condition given below, they are 

 arranged in the order in which they are described by Mr. Hardiman.^ 



Inishbofin. — (1). St. Colman's church, in Knock townland, built in 

 A.D. 667, is in a very ruinous state, and the interior is filled with 

 rough gravestones and weeds, and in a small recess near the east 

 window is a pile of crania and broken bones. In the enclosure around 

 the church the foundations of the cells (cloghans (?)) of the abbey, or 

 monastic colony, may still be traced, though with difficulty, but the 



' " H-Iar Connaught," p. 116, footnote. 



