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It’s time for a little eye candy for all you cottage enthusiasts out there, I came across this beautiful Thatched cottage for sale in Lissycasey, Co. Clare this week. It ticks all the right boxes with its neat thatch, half door, sliding sash windows, barge and rough render – and that is only on the outside!

The news that the 1901 census has been released online will come as good news to some of Ireland’s huge diaspora – considered to be somewhere in the region of about 80 million – more than 14 times the size of our population. However it will also come in handy for members of this site who may be trying to track down the history of their cottage.

New Cottageology Logo I hope you all like the new logo and banner for Cottageology! It was time the blog got a little bit of a spring clean…

‘The Wexford Thatcher’ episode from the Hands series is a tale of thatching in the South East of Ireland, taking the us right through from the harvesting of the straw to Paddy Casey the master thatcher applying his craft.

I was delighted recently to obtain a copy of the fantastic box set ‘Hands’. It is one series that I have been talking about for years and was always on the look out for. If anyone hasn’t seen this series on RTÉ then you are in for a treat. It is a collection of 37 documentaries produced by Sally and David Shaw-Smith for RTÉ – “A series of fascinating documentaries on traditional Irish crafts and lifestyles, where the emphasis is on the skills of human hands rather than on machines”.

One thing I really missed when I was living in the US was good old fashioned soda bread. There was never a shortage of it in our house – every Saturday morning after the cleaning was done my mother would start the baking – soda bread, curney loaf and maybe queen and butterfly cakes if we were good! That smell in the house – of clean and baking is one of the most enduring memories of my childhood.

On my recent rambles around Dingle I came across The Famine Cottage in Ventry. After paying the 3 euro entrance fee to the roguish and chatty landowner – Gabriel we set off up the hill to see what it was about. Set on the edge of the Atlantic ocean almost directly across the road from Dunbeg Fort, the cottage faces the wilds and backs into the hill. Built in the 1840’s by the Earl of Cork, the original cottage was constructed using mud and stone and consisted of two rooms and a loft. It was extended to include a further bedroom beyond the hearth by the Earl who also installed a slate roof on the property – one of the first slate roofs to be installed in the area. The original thatch has since been reinstated giving the cottage back its rustic charm.

I know many of you will be saying this is something to hate about Ireland but it’s just a laughable fact of Irish life that has shaped who we are. I figured that I’d be better tackling it early in this series! At the moment there is a t-shirt, wind breaker, wool coat, flip flops and a pair of wellies in the boot of my car, most people I know are the same – the saying ‘better safe than sorry’ should have been invented by an Irishman trying to prepare for the weather! The guy in the picture above wasn’t affected by the changeable conditions in the Dingle Peninsula this weekend – one minute I was gasping at the beauty of Dunbeg Fort, the next running for cover to avoid being washed off the edge of Ireland! Click on the title to read on…

It has become a national pre-occupation to denounce Ireland and its many evils these days. This series of posts is about the things about Ireland that are great – a bit of positive thinking for these dark times! I will post photographs, stories, people, music and just about anything that inspires me from week to week. This first post is a picture of the Nuns beach, Ballybunnion, Co. Kerry taken in March 2010.

Many people enlist the help of a qualified professional to carry out all the works on their renovation project however there has been a growing movement towards self-builders in an effort to drive down the costs of renovation. While this provides immense personal satisfaction and hands on experience with the project one of the biggest problems encountered is that of safety on site – both for themselves and their property. The following are some of the safety issues and precautions you should be aware of before taking on your renovation. As always I would urge you to engage a fully qualified Engineer to evaluate the structural integrity of the property before you begin any work.