We are pleased to launch our podcast with an episode on Living in a Thatched House. Thatched houses are to be found dotted around the Irish countryside, and particularly in west Galway. Evelyn Stevens has lived in a thatched house in Annaghdown since the 1980s, and here she joins Paul Greaney to discuss the joys and challenges of living in a thatched cottage. This complements our recent videos John Joe Duggan: Thatching / Tuíodóireacht and Thatching at Cloonboo with Marika Leen.
This is our first podcast in what we hope will be a regular series. We welcome suggestions for future topics and interviewees. Keep up to date by following us on your usual podcast provider for future episodes! You can find us on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.
We are grateful to Galway County Council for supporting this project under the Community Enhancement Programme 2020.
Pity this is not a video! Enjoyed it though.
Evelyn, you spoke very eloquently about your thatched house.
I have owned a a mud walled thatched house in Co. Waterford for 50 years and live in it for about 4 months of the year. I have kept it very traditional but have electricity and water now. I turned the attached lean- to hen house into a bathroom. I have a small thatched barn outside.
Like you, I have had to use reed for the thatch for a number of years. I still have the original wattle and daub chimney breast and wheel bellows and working fireplace. However the mud chimney needs urgent attention as the brick chimney stack on the outside has taken a lean so it appears that the support for it on one side has sagged inside the chimney. I am endeavouring to find some who know about mud chimneys so it can be rebuilt.
Even when I first bought the house, no one local seemed to know much about the chimney. There are some other thatched houses nearby but they have all been modernised for quite a long time and none of the original families live in them.
I was wondering if the man who did your chimney would know anything about repairing my sort of chimney?