The beginning of the building.
A different view.
The building progresses
Here is the completed outside.
Construction begins on one of the practice roofs.
This section will provide a hip and valley.
A view down the straightwork section showing a valley and a barge-end with chimney.
This building will become the Rope thatch practice section.
Roof completed with scraws, removable gable end and chimneys.
Showing pegs for roping down in Donegal style.
The removable barge end.
Following Donegal tradition the scraws are supported by laths, ribs, and couples.
This section allows for practice thatching a hip.
The full hip also has a higher eaves, and connects to a straight section to it's right with a valley.
Here is a straight section with a right hand overhanging barge end, which can also be configured with an add-on cement barge simulation.
Coming off the straight section into a valley, and swinging into a left hand barge with chimney.
A closer view of the valley.
There is storage space under the practice roofs for materials, in this case locally cut water reeds.
At the rear is a section for straight work, and a right hand cement barge. This can be removed to allow a right hand overhanging barge to be formed.
Showing the rising eaves, and the connecting valley.
Thatching course, 1980/81
In contrast with today's facilities, those of us who trained in 1980/81 around Ardara will remember how it was then, although there aren't many of us left!
Jack (John) Meaney, a traditional thatcher from County Limerick taught us for 6 months, on various roofs.
Making scollops, dipping reeds in bluestone solution, stripping old worn material off the roof to make a firm base for the new coat, and eventually we would get a turn on the "bat" and do a stroke of our own.
Many a day was spent sitting in a cow byre splitting, pointing and twisting scollops, throwing reed up to the thatcher, and clearing up underneath.
We had a couple of wild heavy ladders, a bag of straw to kneel on, a knife, and a piece of 3 by 2 with a waney edge as our legget.
Jack was a brilliant thatcher, one of the old school, and left a top class finish behind him as we moved along the roofs a ladder's width at a time. He passed on his skills and experience to us all, and most of us went on to full time thatching.
Our Tutors are driven by the same intention: to pass on the skills learned from their own training and many years of experience on the roof, to a set of new Thatchers, able to upkeep and renew Ireland's remarkable stock of thatched properties.
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