Mixing Culm.
[graphic].
| Main Creator: | |
|---|---|
| Summary: | Mixing Culm, Johnstown, Co. Kilkenny. |
| In collection: | Irish Tourist Association Photographic Collection. |
| Format: | Photo |
| Language: | English |
| Published / Created: |
1942.
|
| Subjects: | |
| Notes: | Inscription on county divider: ''Kilkenny / Trench''. Additional information about this photograph is available on the National Library of Ireland's Flickr Commons photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/52561024425 Physical description: 1 negative ; b&w ; 6 x 10 cm. more |
Mixing Culm? I've managed to mix up my Colms and my Colmcilles from time to time but I must admit that I have never heard of mixing CULM before. This appears to be a well set up and practiced process where the horses hooves and strength are used to crush something. What is it and where was it done?
Photographer: Irish Tourism Association
Photographer
Date: 1942 - 1944
NLI Ref: NPA ITA 1254 (Box VI)
You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie
Tags:
National Library of Ireland, Ireland, b&w film negatives, glass negatives, Mixing Culm, woman, horse, crushing material, Anthracite dust, fuel for fires, coal dust, Irish Tourist Association, Irish Tourist
Comments
Deirge (Del)
If morning Mary was to take a wee trip over the Liffey to the Winding Stair bookshop she might buy Culm Crushers Array By Michael J. Conry. Broadly clum is anthracite slack. The pony I used to work would have had a go at pulling anything but would refuse to put a foot at anything like soft ground so probably would have refused this.
Posted: 13.12.2022
ɹǝqɯoɔɥɔɐǝq
Previously ... [https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/16512286932/]
Posted: 13.12.2022
Deirge (Del)
Picture is probably in County Kilkenny as Castlecomer is about the only place to dig decent coal in Ireland, Arigna's not got the quality. But hold it, I don't know what I'm talking about. Arigina on Wikipedia mentions "Seams of culm were worked by miners lying on their sides to shovel the coal out." (nb: uncited) So perhaps Leitrim or nearby possible also.
Posted: 13.12.2022
Niall McAuley
Duchas: But now the hardest part of the work remains to be done. The mixture has yet to be "danced". This means that the operator must get the mass spread out shallow and must then systematically and without missing any part of it, "dance" it all over. The operator pounds and pounds it with the feet, which are encased in old nailed boots. When thus "danced" all over, the mass is turned with the shovel, spread out, wetted if necessary, and "danced" all over again. This dancing and turning must continue until the mixed mass of culm, clay and water becomes plastic and adheres to the shovel.
Posted: 13.12.2022
National Library of Ireland on The Commons
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/gnmcauley] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/196366907@N03] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/beachcomberaustralia] Thank you gentlemen for your contributions.
As a matter of interest what is the metal object in the foreground? At first sight it looked like a set of fire irons but that curved part at the top is not flexible enough to make it the top of a tongs?
Posted: 13.12.2022
National Library of Ireland on The Commons
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/196366907@N03] The notes in the catalogue suggest Kilkenny.
Posted: 13.12.2022
Deirge (Del)
The The disambiguation page on Wikipedia indicates possibly slightly different uses of "culm" depending on context. This 1865 Lewis book book mentions culm quite a lot often in the context of burning of limestone. Unfortunately I've no clue what the metal yoke is about but it might be a yoke to prod into the culm to check its consistency or something.
Posted: 13.12.2022
derangedlemur
Here's the pit house from Niall's post: goo.gl/maps/iR6ZERUie6KkBf3E8
www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5162117/5155610/5196251
Posted: 13.12.2022
John Spooner
Kilkenny Moderator - Saturday 28 February 1920:
MARYBORO' TOWN COMMISSIONERS A special meeting of the above. was hell on Friday evening last for the purpose of trying to procure coal for the town. Dr. Higgins presided, and there were also present :—Messrs J. Healy, Meehan, J. Meehan. E. Shelly , and J. Lacey. The Town Clerk said the complaint was that no coal could be procured by people in the town. The chairman said he had some correspondence with Mr. T. Dunne, manager of the Wolfhill Colliery, who suggested that a committee should be formed that would instruct the people how to mix culm with clay. This he could supply at 15s. per ton. An instructor could be sent over to give instruction in the plan if any general demand was shown. In ordinary grates it could be used. [and later] With reference to the Wolfhill proposal, it was decided to consider what could I e done with reference to getting the culm and having if made into bombs for disposal.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culm_bomb
Posted: 13.12.2022
John Spooner
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/196366907@N03] Reference to lime burning in an 1844 court case, in which William Fury was accused of adulterating the coal he supplied to credit customers (especially bad payers) with culm.
Witness: My lord, I was frequently obliged by Mr. Fury to make 6 tons of coals out of 4, putting 6 stones of coals instead of 10 in each of the bags. I also frequently mixed culm-coal (which is only fit for lime-burners, and for which Mr. Fury paid but 6s. per ton) with Whitehaven coal, for which the public were charged 16s. 5d; per ton.(Freeman's Journal - Saturday 28 September 1844)
Posted: 13.12.2022
National Library of Ireland on The Commons
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnspooner] I would say Mr. Fury was in a fury on hearing that evidence!
Posted: 13.12.2022
Foxglove
another NLI lesson to broaden my knowledge ! I always believed that the only place with coal was in Tyrone - Coalisland... never heard of culm before
Posted: 13.12.2022
John A. Coffey
Dr. Michael J. Conroy has published two books Culm Crushers and Dancing the Culm
" The culm or duff ( coal dust) as it was sometimes called, was difficult if not impossible to
burn unless it was first made into culm balls or bumbs, by mixing the culm with water and yellow
clay (as the photo shows) and burned in open fires" The yolk in front is a double culm bumb
maker, at the end there were two forged mugs, they were pushed into the culm mix and
then pushed out as bumbs with the the middle handle, They were also made by hand, a real
messy job. The were stored in a dry shed, or on he fire hearth to dry, and made great firing.
North Kilkenny and Carlow had many coal mines in the early 1900s and culm was plentiful.
Posted: 13.12.2022
derangedlemur
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/foxglove] There's a Coalbrook northwest of Mardyke, with coal pits marked all over the 6" round there.
Posted: 13.12.2022
John Spooner
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/foxglove] Same here
Posted: 13.12.2022
Niall McAuley
Wolfhill Colliery was in Laois, it is marked as disused on the 1900ish 25" map. Google maps aerial view of the site.
Posted: 13.12.2022
National Library of Ireland on The Commons
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/65379774@N02] Thank you.
Posted: 13.12.2022
john durrant
My guess is that it is what we call Cob. A mixture of earth, straw and pretty much anything that will mix in that was trodden on to help the mix and then used to make wall for houses and barns etc.
Posted: 13.12.2022
derangedlemur
Based on the catalogue description, there's a lime kiln 100 yards from the road here: goo.gl/maps/QJA716X8KbsXQmx26. Maybe whatever preceded these two houses?
Posted: 13.12.2022
Niall McAuley
From wikipedia:
The Deerpark Mines (Irish: Páirc Na bhFia Mianach Guail), about 3 km north of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, were the largest opencast coalmines in Ireland, giving great employment to the area. The mines produced anthracite
The mines were connected to the railway system in Ireland in 1919. The connection was closed in 1962. At peak production in the 1950s, trains carried 300 tons a day to a depot at Kilkenny railway station.
Posted: 13.12.2022
derangedlemur
Also further to Niall's quote, from the same source: "Sometimes the working is done by spreading the mixture of culm, clay and water out in a big, wide ring, say 20 feet in radius, and walking one or two horses round and round, so as to make plastic the mixture. Those in charge of the horses take up a position in the centre of the ring and have long reins attached to the bridles with which they can guide the animals."
That seems to be what we have here.
Posted: 13.12.2022
John A. Coffey
The Castlecomer Plateau (Kilkenny ,Laois and Carlow) is rich in high quality
anthracite. In the early 1900s The Deerpark : Skehana: The Rock pit; Jarrow;
Monteen; Vera; Wolfhill; Hollypark and Rossmore were some of the larger
pits working at the time, lots of culm.I would guess that the photograph is
from this region.
Luke Brabazon made a short film about a man with coal in his DNA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pyi_O5cGAU
Posted: 13.12.2022
Swordscookie
What I have been wondering when looking at this was the effect on the horses hooves. Anthracite is a gritty material and trudging about all day in it could be very hard and get in to tender parts of the feet! Horses were a vital source of power and motion so it would surprise me if they would deliberately put it in harms way?
Posted: 13.12.2022
ɹǝqɯoɔɥɔɐǝq
Coal Dust + Horse Apples = Culm
CD + HA = C
Posted: 14.12.2022
National Library of Ireland on The Commons
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/beachcomberaustralia] Your knowledge of the Periodic Table shines through!!!!!
Posted: 14.12.2022
John A. Coffey
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/gnmcauley] . Niall, the Deerpark was a deep tunnel
mine operated from 1922 until it closed in 1969, The Miners walk to the coal face or
used a tram which was on a small rail.Opencast mining did operate in the area,
but the high quality anthracite was deep undergrouns two miles in some places.
Posted: 14.12.2022
tippjim
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland] When I was a youngster growing up in the Sixties , our form of domestic heating was Turf or Culm. I can well remember dancing the Culm in a pair of wellies. The Culm had to be mixed with yellow clay which we usually got from the bank of a local river. The metal item you ask about is what we used to have for shaping the Culm balls. They were in fact not balls but cylindric in shape ,approx 6" x 1 1/2" which were then left to dry. Our Culm / Anthracite came from the mines in Coalbrook, Ballingarry Co Tipperary.
Posted: 15.12.2022
National Library of Ireland on The Commons
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/tippjim] That's brilliant Jim, to get someone who has actually danced the CULM is wonderful!
Posted: 16.12.2022
tippjim
Whoa….I must be getting old!! A very nice book ( presumably still in print) written by Michael J Conroy called “Dancing The Culm”
Happy Christmas all.
Posted: 16.12.2022
