cooperage

Great shot. Looking at the implement the man on the left was operating I suspect that it helped them to form up the cask? Any experts out there to tell us how it was done?

Swordscookie Would indeed welcome input from any coopers out there! It looks as if the foot pedal thingy (technical term) helped to increase pressure on the hoops??

Looks more like a fire, the foot pedal would pump air into it to increase the heat. The hoops are heated before they are put around the cask.

I think you're right Michiel! I was looking at the shape but when you view it at original size you can see it a lot better and it seems to be a portable furnace - for heating the rivets perhaps? I like the specialised anvil the other cooper is working on, specially adapted for his needs and no need for bending the back unnecessarily!

Michiel2005 Swordscookie Ah, that makes sense - a sort of brazier type affair...

Anyone know what kind of barrels those are behind the two small boys? They look like something for fruit, but they seem to be open-topped. Were they ordered specifically?

Maybe the cooperage made these wooden buckets just for sale and they weren't destined for a life of drink (in the distillery)?!

Thanks, they look like laundry basins or, as you say, buckets. I suppose they could have been used in various ways, from providing water for animals to scrubbing floors. No plastics back then, lucky sods!

This is a bit speculative, but the a search of the 1901 census for coopers in Killarney says most lived on Boherkeale Glebe. The OSI 25" shows trees on the right of that lane looking North. Streetview is patchy in these little lanes, but I think this streetview is a reverse view along that lane, which would, at the time the shot above was taken, have shown the photographer in the distance, and that horses rear in the foreground.

Here it is as of June 2014 www.flickr.com/photos/johnheff/14505758222

Excellent photo this. I followed the restoration of The Buttress on the other side of the steps from this building and recorded it inside and out with photographs. A good bunch of lads involved with that project..