54 [Pioc. B.N.F.C, 



seem a long step from its ever-welcome light to the concen- 

 trated flicker of a farthing rush-light, yet such was the substi- 

 tute used by the majority of the peasantry when they desired 

 either for work or pleasure " to steal a few hours from the 

 night." In preparing this paper I made an effort to procure 

 as much literature as possible on the subject of rush-light 

 candlesticks, as it is now about half a century since they were 

 in common use, though isolated cases occur in Co. Antrim, 

 and no doubt in other districts, where they are still in use. 

 I saw one in use in Co. Antrim about two months ago. So 

 the last embers of the rush-light are dying in the full glare of 

 the electric light. As there is little printed matter on the 

 subject I procured as many specimens as I could, together 

 with as much information as I could get from old inhabitants 

 who remembered them in use. It may seem a misnomer to 

 call an iron stand a " candlestick," but common usage has 

 made the term acceptable, for even in the Holy Scripture 

 candle and lamp supports which were made of the precious 

 metals are spoken of as candlesticks. No doubt the term 

 originated from the fact that the earliest specimens were made 

 of wood. In a paper read before the members of the Koyal 

 Irish Academy in 1891, by the Rev. J. F. M. Ffrench, 

 F.R.S.A.I., on " A manner of lighting houses in old times," 

 a description is given (by a County Carlow man, then over 

 eighty years of age) of a candlestick of a type which was old 

 when he was young. A wooden shaft the size of an ordinary 

 spade-handle, let into a solid block, with a hole cut in an 

 upright piece to contain a candle, and a piece of wood at right 

 angles with a notch for rush-lights. The Rev. Mr. Ffrench 

 says : " It must have been a candlestick such as this which 

 the Hon. Emily Lawless describes as having been found in a 

 Kerry bog under sixteen feet of peat." He also says : " The 

 earliest mention I have been able to find of the preparation 

 of rushes for lighting purposes is in a pretty story in the life 

 of Cormac MacArt, King of Ireland, about the year A.D. 200 

 or 227. The story, as related by Keating and others, tells 

 us that Cormac, riding through a wood, came suddenly upon 



