The earliest surviving house in this parish is probably the old glebe house which is behind the Rectory. It dates from around the beginning of the eighteenth century. Previous to this we can only guess at what the housing may have been like.

It is probable that pre-plantation dwellers would have built houses of post and wattle. Since we know that raths were prevalent in this area, variations on the type of houses common to this type of settlement are likely to have been found here.

After the plantation and with the help of settler influence people began to build with stone. They are likely to have continued to use wattle and earth for a considerable period probably for the poorer people of the area. In fact we know that the Presbyterian Church at Knockinkeeragh was made of sods and this was built late in the seventeenth century. Even the little cabin which the locals built for Minnie Walker (a local beggar), in the early twentieth century was made of sods, so the tradition must have remained in the community for a very long time.

There was very little improvement in the sizes of houses until the twentieth century. Plantation houses were said to have averaged 12 metres by 6 metres for two rooms. In 1835 the Dunboe average for poor farmers was 9.7 metres by 4.88 metres. The gatehouse for the rectory was, in 1975, no more than 6 metres by 6 metres and there were three rooms in this. Today the tenants in the labourers' cottages complain of lack of space and they have at least 6 rooms of which the living room alone is 4 metres by 5 metres. The farmhouses, by contrast have many more rooms, but surprisingly each one is not usually any bigger than the cottage rooms.

The housing in this parish, although still very meagre and primitive, was not as bad as might have been expected for the nineteenth century. There were 279 houses according to the 1841 census and of these 4 were first class, (included probably Brookhall, The Rectory and Ballyvelton House), 95 second class houses, 131 third class and 49 fourth class. According to A Gailey, Rural Houses of the North of Ireland, class 1 have more than 10 rooms, class 2 have between 5 and 9 rooms, class 3 have 2 - 4 rooms and class 4 have a single room. This means that the majority of the population were living in cottages with less than four rooms. However, when we compare these figures with the average figures for the county of Londonderry, Ballyrashane is quite well off. The average for class 2 was 23.2% (Ballyrashane 34%), class 3 was 41.1% (Ballyrashane 46.9%) and class 4 was 34.&% (Ballyrashane 17.5%).

The Labourers' Acts of 1883 and 1885 had been passed to improve the conditions of the landless labourer in rural districts, but there was little action taken on this legislation. Landlords were given the power to repossess a portion of a tenancy to build a labourer's cottage. Along with the cottage they were to be given sufficient land for vegetables and to keep a pig. This land usually was around half an acre. It was as a result of persuasion by Presbyterian minister, Reverend Alexander, that Ballyrashane was the first place to get some form of public housing. It was not easily gained as the Guardian of the Poor Law claimed there was sufficient housing available. On enquiry into the refusal Reverend Alexander is stated to have said that the housing available was thatched cottages built from the stones taken from the fields. This housing was only available on condition that the tenant supplied two women to help with flax pulling and harvest. [Mullin. Coleraine in Modern Times]

After much wrangling from the Guardians the issue was taken from their hands and the cottages were built in the early years of this century. They were built and designed "to be model cottages built according to patterns devised by theorists both on practical and aesthetic grounds." [Man and Landscape] These designs were fairly substantial for the late 19th and early 20th century. Gailey states that these cottages cost all of £126 to build. Presumably there was not much spent on buying stones, since they were made of field stones with packing of random rubble and held together with lime mortar. Many of the tenants testify to the difficulties caused by this combination of building materials.

When the cottages were built it was hoped that the farmers would buy them from the Poor Law Union and use them for their labourers. The aim was that this would encourage people to stay in the rural areas. The cottages were numbered from 1 to 600 in the order that they were built. In the event the farmers did not actually buy them and they were taken over by the local council in the 1920s. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive took over in 1972. The first cottages to be built were on the Ballyrashane Road.

In the last ten years many of these cottages have passed into private ownership and as a result it has virtually put an end to the movement of the population which has remained almost static over the last ten years. The problem with this is that the population as a result is ageing. The people who have bought their cottages from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive are staying and growing older while their children are growing up and moving away.

In general the farmhouses that are in use today are being extended and modernised rather than replaced. Most of the farmhouses date back to the first 30 years of this century. Very few of the previous ones remain and they must have been demolished to allow for the newer ones. One large farmhouse which has been modernised in the last ten years is said to have been built in 1900 and cost £500 which nearly bankrupted the farmer concerned. A few farmhouses remain in disuse where the farms have been taken over by bigger farmers, e.g. Lyons in Ballyversal and Hill's of Gorticloughan.

In some areas, e.g. Ballyversal and Articrunnagh a new house has been built beside the older one. This has happened where a son has been given part of the farm from his father. One of the oldest houses must be what was Ballyvelton House. Although it had been partly renovated and rebuilt in 1840 the lower part is based on the original, built long before that. Unfortunately, much of its character quality was removed in the early part of this century, when its walled garden was removed to make way for barns and outbuildings.

There are several farmhouses remaining which are now being used as stores and out-houses of various kinds. Most of these are of lower standard, being one storey and containing no more than three rooms. These were owned by smaller tenant-farmers who have been bought out by the big farmers which dominate the parish today. The exception to this is what must have been an impressive house in its day, that is Lyons' house in Ballyversal. It has two storeys and has at least 5 rooms. It has been left to fall into ruin.

Despite the good external appearance of these farmhouses they were, in general, fairly sparse inside until after the Second World War. Farmers did not always have the dry stores they have today and often the living room was used to store the bags of corn. The sow was brought in to the living room to pig. A corner was fenced off and in there she was watched for two or three days to make sure she did not eat or roll over on to the piglets. Each piglet was too valuable to a farmer to take the chance of losing them. There was no heating in the outhouses so this was provided in the house for the piglets and any delicate lambs.

Although a couple of the bigger farmers did not provide decent houses for their workers the tenancy was only available as long as t he occupant was working on the farm. When a man retired he was in the difficult position of uprooting himself and finding another house. Most of the houses which are 'tied' to a farm are now let out to students or other temporary tenants. However, there is still at least one tenant in a job with a 'tied' house.

Houses today are luxurious even compared to those of fifty years ago. There was no electricity in this area until 1957 and houses were lit by paraffin lamps. Women did their washing in a tin bath with a washing board.

There was very little furniture, usually a large wooden dresser and a settle bed, some sort of table and the milk churn which stood in the corner. The bed folded up and was used as a seat for the visitors or older people during the day. Children would have sat on t he floor or if they were lucky little wooden three legged stools.

This wooden seat folded open in the middle and was turned into a bed at night when it was needed.

This churn was about 1.2metres high and held nearly 15 litres of milk which had to sit for several days before it could be made butter.

In every house peat was burned. Everybody had their own peat bank and brought home their own supply to last them through the winter. If they were lucky they had some extra and these were taken into the market to sell for 1 penny each. Miss Cameron's father took his donkey and cart all the way from Ballyrashane to Ballymoney and back to cut and load his peats. Coal was burnt occasionally when the people could afford it, but it had to be collected by horse and cart from the coal yard in Coleraine. Coalmen did not appear regularly until the end of the 1960s. With an open fire anything could be burned and people were never stuck. There are some old ladies in the parish who remember their elders pushing a branch bit by bit into the fire because they could not get it chopped up. They simply let the other end sit in the middle of the sitting room floor and moved it when the other end had burned away.

A water pump, a griddle and several pots no longer used. Gorticloughan. There was no cooker of any sort until ranges began to appear in the fifties. Everything was cooked over an open fire in a pot oven or griddle. The pot might have been suspended from a crane or more likely among the poorer people, from a chain attached to a roof bar. This limited the ways of cooking and although food was simple nobody seems to have gone hungry.

Even during the depression in the thirties the people of this parish claim that food was plentiful. Although they were rationed like everyone else for meat, they were better off than most because eggs and butter and other farm produce was easily available.

Many travellers in Ireland have reported that the people lived on a very liquid diet - a typical day's menu being oatmeal and pigs' blood with regular butter, bacon buttermilk and tea. Tea, however, only became widespread around the 1830s. Previous to this, the only drink other than the occasional buttermilk, was water from the spring. A poem by Philip McClabber in 1807 begins,

It is said that wheaten bread and other more substantial food began to appear around the 1840s. There is no way of knowing how far this can be applied to this parish but there is no doubt that the people were always very fond of their butter, milk and tea. During the early part of the 20th century when meat was not so easy to get, the people here never went hungry because of the skill of the women in making various kinds of bread to go with huge mugs of strong tea.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs state that the food of the people of Ballyrashane was potatoes, oatmeal and milk plus some bacon and salt herrings. Wheaten bread was coming into use and tea was becoming indispensable. This was in 1835. There is no doubt that the population depended largely on the first four items but I have never heard anyone mention the herrings. It is doubtful if this was a regular item on the menu since the parish is at least three miles from the sea and the people only had horses and donkeys for transport. In general the people would have been so occupied with their land, and , in the first thirty years of the 19th century, on weaving that they would not have had time to go fishing. Philip McClabber again.

The most common foods that would have been eaten were potatoes, bacon, pork, cabbage, turnip, scones, porridge, eggs and buttermilk to drink. The people were always fond of strong tea which was often boiled on the fire. There were no sweet foods in the first half of this century although home baking was carried out every day in most households. Since this was limited to the pot-oven or the griddle there was a limit to the variety of sweet breads which could be made. As well as breads cooked directly on the griddle people used harnen stands to cook oatcakes. Today no-one bakes oatcakes and few people even buy them. Horse-drawn bakers' van and bread sellers began to appear in this area from the early days of transport but most people did not have the money to buy regularly. Families with a bit of money would have bought two loaves on a Saturday night as a luxury. The rest of the week they would eat soda or wheaten bread.

The pork and bacon which people ate was often their own. They would rear a couple of pigs and slaughter them themselves. After cleaning and cutting up one would be taken to the market and the other would be salted and hung up on the ceiling to cure it. This meat would be cooked in the pot-oven and a lid put on it. Hot coals would be heaped on the top of the lid so that the top of the meat cooked.

Beside the cooking pots stood a boiler which always had water on the boil.

Milk was used warm from the cow. Nobody worried about pasteurisation in those days and it is surprising that tuberculosis was not more prevalent than it was. Some of the older farmers can remember their fathers saying how common it was in 1900, but the instances of it must have decreased after this as no-one can remember anybody dying from it.

Sweet milk was not used often since it was more valuable when made into butter. churning would have been done at home regularly right up until the 40s with a plunge churn. Milk was sold in copper jugs and cost 1 penny per pint with 3quarters of a penny for 1 pint of buttermilk. After this time people would take their milk to the creamery where it was separated and the cream sold. The left over buttermilk was then collected and taken home again to feed the pigs with.

The Rectory had a walled garden which contained an impressive orchard up until the middle of this century and no doubt, added to the limited diet of the people. In 1915 when food was not so plentiful due to the war, the Presbyterian minister, (Reverend Hunter) erected a greenhouse to grow tomatoes.

Although all the thatched houses have gone now many of the people living today can remember when there were at least a dozen of them. One farming woman remembers the house she was brought up in. It was made of stones taken from the field and built up into two rooms. There was a window in each room and it had earthen floors. Rats frequently appeared through holes in this floor. The people tried to harden these floors by mixing the earth with lime or occasionally by other means such as in the following story. A house which stood at the corner in Kirkistown had an earthen floor. When the carts went by on the road they raised dust and rubble. The occupant would then go out and sweep this up and throw it on the earthen floor. This was within the last 50 years before earthen floors were replaced by the very common red clay tiles. These tiles were made locally after the second half of the nineteenth century and did appear in the living rooms of some houses where earthen floors did for the bedrooms. The coldness of this flooring was meant to be compensated for by the tiles having two parallel hollows running through them to provide insulation. In many of the houses in Ballynag there was no glass in the windows. When they needed to be closed grass sods were used to block up the space. The majority of the thatched houses disappeared round the 30s when the occupants were moved into labourers' cottages or moved into Coleraine. It is likely that many of the old disused houses that remain attached to new farmhouses, would have been thatched. A tell-tale sign is the corrugated sheets which are on some roofs today. This has been put on in more recent years to replace thatch.

Most of the sites where thatched houses stood have been incorporated into the large fields which skirt all the main roads through the parish. One of the last thatched houses to be occupied was knocked down in the late 1930s after Mr Anderson watched its roof being blown off in a storm. It was replaced by a large corrugated shed which housed the creamery garage and is now used as a box store.

Many of the houses were not used just to house the people but were occupied by animals of various kinds also along with the usual rats. Another thatched cottage was still occupied in the first years of the 1960s by an old woman and about 20 cats. The memories of this house are strong among the parish folk who talk about being offered tea from cups which the cats had been crawling over. They talk about watching the cats and the rats chasing each other round the room and across the mantelpiece. The old woman wouldn't have harmed a thing and witnesses say she even left bread out for the rats.

Another notable family who lived in a thatched two-roomed cabin were the Wrights. They were very poor though they had a bit of a field behind their house. Mr Hamill remembers his father telling him that they 'wrought' to a farmer now and again. This family had nothing, not even a clock and one day Mr Hamill senior met one of the brothers on the road. He asked him the time and when told Mr Wright said, "I just thought it was about that time." Perhaps he could do as the Indians do, read the time from the sun! The Wrights shared their house with the dog, the donkey and the pig.

Everybody kept livestock of some sort in the first half of this century and long before that. Even the owner of the impressive Brookhall kept pigs, goats and hens. This was an economic necessity even to her and eventually even this was not enough and her lovely house became run down and passed out of her family.

The two large houses which remain, dating from the last century, had gatehouses which have now disappeared. The one at the foot of Brookhall, which was round in shape, was occupied until the 30s when its roof blew off.

It was later knocked down and the stones used in building the drain from the stream. The Rectory gatehouse which most of the population remember, was occupied at least from 1930. It was knocked down in 1976. It is likely, however, that there was at least one other house here before this since it appears on the Griffiths Valuation of 1859. The last house had a slate roof and a stone floor so it is unlikely to have been the original.

There are also references to another house existing on the Brookhall site built by Reverend Alexander for his sister. This house can still be seen today attached to the barn behind the dwelling house. The house has been a substantial one for its day and was two storeys high. It was slated rather than thatched and had large windows in both storeys.

Every householder owned a donkey up until the forties. This was a necessity especially for bringing the peat home. It was easily fed as were the cows on the turnips and cabbages which were widely grown by the farmers.

The majority of houses at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries would have had a tiny farm attached to them, but an occasional cottier cottage did exist. Mr Carson remembers the man who occupied one on his land. His little cot was just one room with a door and a window. The space which it occupied can still be seen. It is now a log store. It measures no more than 5 feet by 8 feet. Another two cottier houses remained standing on the site of Richmond's new bungalow in Articrunnagh,until around 1960. These types of houses would have been occupied often by weavers or by people who may have rented 'conacres', that is a piece of land on which to grow a single season's crop. The land may have been some distance from the house and the existence of this can be seen from Griffiths Valuation in 1859. John Simpson rented land in Knocknekeeragh which measured just over 1 acre. He probably lived in Gorticloughan where the Valuation mentions a Simpson with a house but no land.

Most of the farmhouses had inside toilets early in this century but they would have had to carry buckets of water with which to flush them. This changed when mains water was supplied in the fifties. The public tenants however, had to fetch their water in buckets from a well right up until the fifties and even early sixties in some cases. The houses owned by the County Council were provided a pump in the garden for most of their tenants. Cold water was then provided from a single tap inside the house. Bathrooms and hot water supplies did not follow, in many cases until 1981.

The lack of provision of adequate water supplies in the parish is ironic since it was until recently from here that Coleraine town was supplied with water. Eight miles of pipes were laid to Coleraine in 1879 from the springs at Kirkistown and Articrunnagh and then in 1901 from another reservoir at Ballyversal, and yet the houses within a mile of the springs and reservoir did not have a supply.

The people of this parish were not very well served by public services at least until 1960. There were not, and still is not, much public transport. Bus services are few. Refuse collection was not started until about 30 years ago. This was not the enormous problem it might seem since most of the items used by the people were easily disposed of. Their diet did not include many tinned goods and open fires would deal with paper and other articles which could be burned. Anything which could not be disposed of in this way was dumped into he back garden, often a hole being dug first. Finds when digging gardens today often reveal what people used most. It would appear from finds that dry batteries were used in large quantities, no doubt showing how much the people valued the use of a radio. Also there have been numerous small bottles found. These generally have narrow necks and must have contained liquid. It is possible that these were age-old remedies for sickness such as quinine.

Recently the original reservoir at Articrunnagh has been drained and re-filled and stocked with trout. It is now a tourist attraction as a trout fishing lake.

Clothing was made to last in the years before the end of the second world war. People did not often make trips into Coleraine to purchase clothes. Before 1930 people can remember a travelling salesman coming around with his donkey and cart selling rolls of material to the women. This even might have occurred once a year. The supplies of material which were bought would have to provide clothes for the whole year. the material was taken to the local dressmaker at Gorticloughan or to the tailor in Ballybogey who made the men's suits. The dressmaker made the ladies skirts and blouses. These were always dark coloured and the skirts would have reached the floor. They must have been made of strong materials since Miss Cameron remembers her mother on her knees scrubbing the stone floor sometime around 1925.

Two former residents of Articrunnagh in early 20th century.

Nobody had any use for hairdressers until after the second world war. Even then it was a luxury and most young ladies would resort to using rags tied round their hair to make curls. Long suffering boys would go to visit a neighbour who was 'handy' with a pair of scissors. A story is told of a certain local 'barber' who used to sit a bowl on the boys' heads and cut or hag) the hair around it.

Despite the hard conditions the people rarely remember anybody suffering from illnesses. This does not mean they did not exist, of course, but a doctor was only called in extreme emergencies.

There was no such thing as prescriptions for medicine. In the years before the National Health Service people had to pay doctors' fees as they attended you and since very few people in the parish had sufficient money, illnesses were treated at home. Contrary to popular opinion flu is not new and the cure for flu in 1930 was hot buttermilk with pepper.

The lack of medical services could be a problem for people and instances of this are still talked about. There was a certain man who became mentally ill and his sisters could do nothing with him. There was no-one to adivse them properly and for years they had to resort to tying him to his bed to stop him climbing out of the windows. People today would have no hesitation in calling for psychiatric help. The Wrights mentioned above are said to have kept the body of their dead brother in the house for days because they did not know what to do about him.

In theory the Guardians of the Poor Law were expected to provide medical services for those in desperate need. The Coleraine Poor House and Medicity Association could send a doctor to Ballyrashane from 1834 onwards but since the member of the Association ordering the doctor had to pay for him, it is doubtful if all the needy were attended.

Despite what many people say about people being healthier in the years before medicine, there is no doubt that diseases existed which were simply put down to natural causes. The greatest killer in this parish was supposed to be consumption but it was more likely to have been caused by hunger and starvation. An example of how pride often caused this was told to me by an older inhabitant. The men took a piece to work with them and the tea was provided by the farmer. At lunchtime a certain man would take his tea and retire on his own to eat his lunch which was apparently tied up in a bit of newspaper. The other men could not understand why he should always eat on his own, but when they got a glimpse of the man's piece there was nothing in it but a bit of brick.

Babies were never born in hospital. The local handwoman came in if necessary. Otherwise you managed yourself. There is a tale told by older members of the parish that a certain woman was out gathering potatoes in the morning, went home for two hours and had her baby, and then returned to the potato field with it wrapped in a blanket, to get on with her work.

There ws some sick pay in the 1930s but it was so meagre that you were only off work if you could not stand up. Old age pensions were 10 shillings a week and for this you had to go the three miles to Coleraine since there was no Post Office in the parish. The postman often brought it out for the old people who could not get in themselves.

Today everyone is well fed, well housed and healthy. However, when we look around the farmyards we can see much of the evidence of when life was a lot harder and when we complain about rural depopulation, we must remember that if it had not happened, the present population might not be in the fortunate position it is now.