My great grandfather carted limestone from Ballymascanlon

In the corner of a little field that I know very well, just where the loanin strikes out from the road, is a stone built ‘cave’.

The cave has an entrance about the size of a good size fireplace and its roof is now part of the loanin itself. It’s a lovely little warm place where I’ve often found a ewe and a new lamb, and where I’ve on occasion smoked a cigarette. It’s a lime kiln and the country is peppered with them.

Humble structures where quarried limestone, layered with cheap coal, was ignited, and ‘cooked’ for a week or more, to produce burnt lime.

They have never been used (around my locality) in living memory, nor have I heard anyone speak of them from the generation before that.

However I do remember the last lorry load of burnt lime to arrive with us. It came from an industrial kiln. I gather it was a Government Land Improvement scheme. The lorry was tipped up and we sliped the burnt limestone out into wheelbarrow sized piles all over the field; then we slaked it. Pouring water from a bucket on each clump of stones, there was much combustion and effervescence and chemical activity until it broke down into dust that could (with a long handled shovel) be spread on the field.

On looking back I gather only so much water was used, too much and the lime would have been muck. The next load of lime that was to arrive (years later) was ground lime.

It was lime stone quarried and broken down in a big crusher and spread with a huge tractor - and old men said it was no good. It must be good because I see they’re spreading lime still.

I mentioned my interest in lime kilns to a friend in Dundalk Library and was directed to Don Johnston’s book ‘Post-Famine Flurry Valley’. It’s a great book.

I had known that my great grandfather carted limestone from Ballymascanlon and that that seam of limestone appears again at Carlingford. Up on the hill facing Grange parochial house; theres quarries there.

What I didn’t know was the extent of the limestone quarries at Proleek. Nor did I know that half the output was transported to Newry docks.

The book further told me that local carters got 3s 6d for drawing a load to Newry; 6s to Warrenpoint; and 7s to Rostrevor. Knowing what I do of my great grandfather I can see why he drew the limestone himself.

I find it hard to accept that in the mid to late 1800s, we in the hills above Rostrevor would have gone to all the trouble and expense of burning limestone in a kiln just to spread on the land. I’m inclined to think it would have been more for building.

A friend of mine worked with lime plaster in listed buildings. He tells me its not so enamel hard as cement plaster.

That with no damp course in old buildings the lime plaster absorbed the damp taking it in and breathing it out. Old plastered ceilings had horse hair and other supplements added to give adhesion and strength.

We reminisced about whitewashing and its use as a disinfectant – hen houses, pig houses, byres.

And of course on the stones around the well. Bluestone was added to the lime wash to give it an extra sparkle for dwellings; a brilliant white.

Then there was the contrasting eighteen inches or so of tarred border along the bottom of the house; and not just aesthetics; this was to deter rats.

And free range hens picked at the whitewash, this was to give them extra calcium to shell their eggs. I recall planting cut seed potatoes (dropping spuds). The fresh cut side of the potato was dusted in lime; I gather to seal it from infection.

And only the other day a wise old head told me that if a freshly cut potato is rubbed on warts on the back of the hand and the hand then dipped in a mix of burnt lime and water its a sure fire cure - but not one I recommend.

Brendan Behan whitewashed the lighthouse in Donaghadee in County Down in 1950. He caused a suitable furore and by all reports enjoyed himself working for ‘The Commissioners for Irish Lights’.

Then there’s the matter of Major General Ross. In 1814 he was in charge of the British troops that burnt The White House. An act that prompted his American adversaries to whitewash its charred remains.

There’s a monument to him along the Lough on the Warrenpoint Road. Its very visible from the Omeath, Carlingford side . I see him as - The Rostrevor man; who; made them whitewash; - The White House!