Shoemakers, Blacksmiths, and Hedge Teachers: Hidden Professions of 19th-Century Creggan
In the great sweep of Irish history, the focus often falls on major events — rebellion, famine, emigration, and political upheaval. But in the quieter corners of the past, daily life was sustained by a host of modest professions that rarely make it into textbooks or public commemorations. In the 19th-century townlands of the Creggan Parish and the Barony of the Upper Fews, local economies and communities depended on the skill and resilience of people whose work was both humble and essential.
Shoemakers crafted sturdy boots by lamplight, blacksmiths kept the wheels and tools of rural life turning, and hedge schoolmasters taught generations to read and write under trees or in barns — all often without formal recognition. These were trades rooted in necessity, handed down through families, and closely tied to the rhythms of farming life and parish society. Their legacy, while less visible than stone ruins or parish registers, remains etched in memory, folklore, and sometimes even in the tools left behind in sheds and attics.
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