Utility in an Unusual place

Straw, hay, and rushes. Normally, you might not think of these materials as significantly useful for everyday life. They seem comparable to regular grass, have no easily discernable strength characteristics, and are solely food for animals. At the start of the semester I would have agreed with you. However, reading Straw, Hay, and Rushes in Irish Folk Tradition by Anne O’Dowd has shown to me the extent I was wrong.

Rural Irish people in the 18^th, 19^th, and early 20^th centuries used straw, hay, and rushes to improve numerous aspects of their everyday lives. They found a wide range of uses for these materials, such as:

• Tools like fishing nets, containers and ropes to ease carrying large loads, and straw chicken coops
• Everyday items like clothing, even lifebuoys for people learning to swim
• Household objects like seats, thatched roofing, and mud walls
• Religious and tradition-based objects like St. Brigid’s crosses to bring fertility to the harvest every year.

You can view a few of these examples in the slideshow below.

O’Dowd presents each of these uses with extensive research mainly derived from the Irish Folklore Commission Archives, of which O’Dowd was a curator for some years. The vast resources provide her a considerable number of firsthand stories of people using these simple materials to produce remarkable artifacts.

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Do you have any relatives or know anyone that may have used straw, hay, and rushes to create one of these various objects?

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Reading O’Dowd’s book has given me an appreciation for the Irish people’s ingenuity to use something as ubiquitous and practical as straw and rushes. It has also made me wonder what resources around my home I could use to improve my life.