A lady who gave neither name nor address wrote to me to say that when her mother came to visit her recently, they discussed plans for an extension to her (the writer's) home. The older woman thought that this was a waste of money, and suggested that her daughter convert the farra instead. By farra she meant the attic.
I wish I knew where this lady came from. In the older Ulster houses the farra or farry was a half-loft. In houses which didn't have this loft, the roof-space above the ceiling was called the farra or farry, and this was used as a storage space. This much the Concise Ulster Dictionary tells me. But it doesn't say where in Ulster these words are used. They are from the Irish fara, a loft, that's for sure. Dinneen has the word, as well as its other meaning, a roost for hens. O Donaill, a Rossesman, does not give fara, a loft, in his dictionary. Nora O'Donnell from Dunlewy, at the foot of Errigal, assures me that the word fara, loft, was unknown to the monoglot native speakers she grew up with, and she herself has never heard farra or farry for a loft; she has the word aradh for a hen-roost. So, would the shy woman who posted her letter in Letterkenny please tell me where her mother comes from?
From Kildare came a letter about the word chin-cough. This word for whooping-cough is common in many parts of Ireland. It can be a devastating illness in childhood, and not so long ago we had a variety of interesting cures for it. To pass the child three times under the belly of an ass was a sovereign remedy in Wexford. Chin-cough is a common name for the ailment in Scotland and in England too, and kink-cogh is also common there. The folklore of England is rich in cures. A woman who has not changed her name in marriage can effect a cure by simply giving the patient something to eat. Fried mice was a cure known in Cheshire. A hair from the cross on a donkey's back was also administered, chopped up in a slice of bread and butter, in some places. Simmons, in his glossary of south Donegal English, published in 1890, speaks of a kink-well that cured chin-cough.
The origin of both chin-cough and kink-cough is in the Low German kinkhoost. Practically gone now through vaccination, thank God, but the old words survive.