Cures

Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

A cure for warts

The person with the wart should steal a piece of fat bacon and hide it. When the bacon rots, the wart will rot also.

Collector: Unknown

Informant: Frank Donoghue, Dunlo Street, Co. Galway

Place: Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

Footnote: Duchas, http://www.duchas.ie


 A cure for the eyes

If a person has a sty in the eye a gooseberry thorn can be used. You stick the thorn in the sty and then burn it.

Collector: Unknown

Informant: Edward Rothwell, Dunlo Street, Co. Galway

Place: Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

Footnote: Duchas, http://www.duchas.ie


Local Cures

In olden times when the people were poor and doctors where scarce, some people, country people in particular discovered or invented certain cures for different ailments. For instance, a person suffering from ringworm of travelled a long journey to find a man who was the seventh son of a seventh son, as this man who was said to have a cure for ring worm or any such sores or rash. A person born after its father’s death is supposed to have a cure for “thrush”. There was a cure for the whooping cough, it is the food that was left after a ferret. There was also another cure, it was to ask the first man the first man they met, who was driving a white horse, for advice as to how they would cure it. They often watched for days for a man white horse.

Goose grease

There is also another cure which was used most, it was to crawl in and out under an asses legs. There was a cure for warts. If you found water in an unusual place on a tree or rock or stone, this was supposed to be boiled in milk was a cure for yellow jaundice. Garlic was used for a sore throat. Goose grease was used for swollen joints and sprains, it was a great cure. White bread and water was used for sore eyes and the first water that was found on May Day was also a cure. Bruised mash mallow was used for sprains and strains. Dandelions was used as a cure for kidney trouble. Nettles boiled were used for purifying the blood. For stings of bees or wasps a cut onion was used, and for nettle stings a dock leaf was ribbed into the sting. For burns, flour was used, first it was burned brown and put on the burn. Honey was used for colds in the chest. Holy wells were used for many cures.

St. Gellan’s Church

There is a well in this district known as Tubber Grellan from which the town land gets its name. It is situated about two miles west of Ballinrobe on the main road to Killconnel. This well is used for a lot of cures. In former times people used to visit it frequently to pray and leave little religious objects on a white thorn tree beside the well. It is said that attempts were made to close this well but each time the water gushed up and kept the well open. There is also another well, known as Tubber na Sul. This well used for sore eyes that is the reason it got its name. It is only a few hundred yards south of St. Gellan’s Church at Kilclooney, and it holds constant running water during the dry summer.

Collector: Unknown

Informant: Miss Eily Ahern, Garbally Demesne, Co. Galway

Place: Ballinasloe, CO. Galway

Footnote: Duchas, http://www.duchas.ie


A cure for toothache

An old cure for a toothache was to roast a fig and place it on the tooth immediately. This would kill the pain and will burst a gumboil or abscess on the tooth. Another cure is to put a piece of tobacco down in the whole of the tooth.

Collector: Unknown

Informant: Mr. J.H. Ward, Derrymullan, Co. Galway

Place: Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

Footnote: Duchas, http://www.duchas.ie


A cure for toothache

Long ago when there were not many doctors to be found, the old people had to have their own remedies. For a toothache, it is said if you lick a frog, or fill your mouth with water and sit by the fire till it is hot.

Collector: Unknown

Informant: Miss M. Morrissey, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

Place: Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

Footnote: Duchas, http://www.duchas.ie


Local Cures

People say that if you take some clay of St. Kieran’s grave in Clonmacnoise, that there is a cure in it for a bad stomach. There is a cure in elder leaves and pig’s lard for infected soars. The elder leaves are ground and are cooked with lard, strained and put into glass jars and in three days after it is ready for use. There is a cure in ferret’s milk for ring worm.

Collector: Unknown

Informant: Mr. W. Greene, Society St., Ballinasloe

Place: Ballinasloe, Co. Galway

Footnote: Duchas, http://www.duchas.ie

This page was added on 16/05/2017.

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