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Years upon years ago, Travellers used to make kettles, pots and pans. The pots and pans were made of tin. The kettles were made out of copper. The men and the women would make them. The children would help by bringing the tools whenever they were needed. My Granny told me that her and her brother’s job when they were children was to sit by the tools and bring them whenever they were needed.

When the pots, pans and kettles were made the children would fill them with water and put them on the fire to make sure that they were not leaking. The family kept most of the big pots. The others were sold in the towns at the fairs. The children usually sold them. The children would bring the pots to the part of the fair where all the fancy people would be buying things and they would try to sell the pots to the rich people. Whichever child got the most money from selling pots to the rich people would be allowed to start making pots for themselves. Then they could keep the money they made for themselves.

We made wagons out of lollipop sticks, card and glue. First we made the floor for the wagon. We glued the lollipop sticks together. Then we put a few rows of lollipop sticks on top of each other. We left it to dry over night.

Next we put round card at either end to make the round shape for the top of the wagon. We glued lollipop sticks around this. We cut out wheels and stuck them on.When the glue was dry we painted the wagons.

 

 
 
Tinsmiths
Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin
Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin
Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin

To shape the tin, they used to put it in a fire to heat for a while. This would make it easy to bend. Then they would put it on a round stone and hammer it into shape with a tool called a pucker. The pucker looked something like a small sledgehammer. It was heavy to hold.

Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin Image courtesy of Pavee Point, Dublin

The way the contest worked was, when the women would go into the town they would go the different parts of the town, especially to a bridge or a street where lots of people would be passing. Then they would play music on the accordion or sing songs. Whoever collected the most money would buy the kettle for her wagon. (Larry Connors 5th Class)

The women would mostly make the pans because they were easier to make.

Sometimes the women would try to make really fancy shapes on the kettles. Then the children would paint them with flowers or copy off the patterns on the delph to decorate the kettle. Then there would be a contest to see which wagon would get the kettle.

The wagons took us a good while to make because we had to let the glue dry at every stage. We had to be careful making them because sometimes the lollipop sticks used to slip and slide on us.