Glossary of Terms
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
| Airways | Tunnels made for the sole purpose of carrying fresh air to the miners |
| Anthracite | The type of coal found in Castlecomer |
| Bank | The surface at the mouth of the mine |
| Baths | Showers, lockers and changing rooms that were installed to improve working conditions |
| Bells heap | The large heap of slack and stones that were of no commercial value (at the time) |
| Big flat | Large Underground roadway where trams converged from smaller tunnels before being sent to the surface |
| Bobs | Walls built with stone where the coal is taken out. |
| Bore hole | Exploration hole that was drilled into the earth to determine the mineral / coal content |
| Breaker | Large machine for breaking coal |
| Buffer | A piece of hard timber on both ends of the trams or road maker. |
| Bull | A bar fitted to the back of a team to keep it from slipping back down the pit. |
| Buzzer | The buzzer or hooter was a siren that sounded when the shifts were changing or when there was an accident. |
| Candles | Wax candles provided the miner with light |
| Cannel | Small particles of coal and stone in one lump |
| Car men | Men who transported the coal by horse & cart to the customer |
| Carbide | Chemical / mineral which emits flammable gas when mixed with water. Used in lamps. |
| Carred | Transported by horse & cart |
| Cart | A wheeled vehicle for carrying loads, pulled by a horse |
| Carter | Slang for car men , coal carter |
| Catbrook | Name of a section of a mine |
| Chain | The chain was attached to the trams and would be hooked onto the endless rope. |
| Coal | A hard black fossil fuel |
| Coal bumb | Oval shaped, handmade fuel made by mixing coal dust & yellow clay or cow dung |
| Coal cutter | Mechanical implement used for cutting a coal seam |
| Coal face | The actual part of the mine where you meet the coal |
| Coal seam | A layer of coal |
| Coil | The coil on the drum of the hauler would tell the hauling man where the rounds of coal were. Sometimes the rope would be nearly a mile long and this was the only way they had of tracking where the round was |
| Colliery | Another name for a mine |
| Colm | Small particles of coal |
| Company | The owners of the mine |
| Conveyor belt | A continuous moving belt on which coal was carried |
| Coupling | Used for attaching one box to another until you had 34 boxes coupled together. That was called a "round" of coal. |
| Creeper | The creeper was the gadget that carried five boxes of stone up to the top of Bell's Heap. |
| Crusher | The crusher was used to crush the soft slate into culm. |
| Cutter | Mechanical "saw" like implement for cutting the coal. |
| Cuttermen | The men that cut the coal. |
| Dancing | Jumping on a mixture of culm and yellow clay to make bumbs |
| Deerpark | One of the main mines in the Castlecomer area It lasted longer than any other mine 1928-1969 |
| Detonator | Put into the gelignite stick (explosive) and set alight. |
| Drift | Drift or tunnels to different sections of the pit. |
| Drill | Implement for boring holes into the coal or stone. |
| Endless rope | The endless rope was a continuous steel rope which hauled the trams in and out of the mine |
| Fault | A fault was where there was a movement in the earths crust causing a break in the layer of coal, one part of it moving up or down. When working on a seam of coal the miner would suddenly meet rock and would have to tunnel up or down to meet the continuation of the seam |
| Fireman | The foreman or man in charge. |
| Firing | Men delivering coal with horse & cart were said to be "Firing" |
| Flat sheet | 3ft. square piece of iron used for turning boxes in roads near the coal face. |
| Fillers | Men who load the coal into the trams. |
| Foreman | Person in charge of a workforce |
| Forge | Place where a blacksmith worked |
| Fork drift | Another name for Copley's, the last work area in the Deerpark. |
| Gelignite | Explosive used for blasting coal. |
| Generator | Machine for making electricity |
| Girder | A metal beam supporting structure |
| Glade | Store down in the pit |
| Gobbin road | A gobbin road was a worked out area in the pit used as a toilet |
| Greaser | Built in between the tram rails to grease the trams. |
| Grids | For screening coal. |
| Gum | A sticky substance beneath the coal seam that had to be removed before the coal could be extracted. |
| Gunning trams | When the place of work was hilly, a gun, was a poker shaped bar stuck in the wheels of the trams to slow them down |
| Hand-winch | A device on which there was a rope that was wound by hand to pull trams out of the mine. |
| Haulers | Men or boys that hauled the trams of coal to the surface or a machine for winding a rope to pull the boxes of coal. |
| Head gear | The tall pulley like structure at the mouth of a mine |
| Helmets | Head protection hat worn by miner |
| Hurriers | Men or boys that helped the haulers by pushing the trams of coal |
| Jigger | For rooting out the coal where there was no coal cutter. |
| Jobbing | Carrying out various tasks as requested by boss- mostly light jobs |
| Jowling | The miner would tap the roof with his hammer to check it for safety. |
| Lamps | Light giving objects |
| Lids | Small bits of timber that the miners sat on when having their lunch to keep their backsides dry. |
| Landing | Level area at the mouth of the mine where trams were hauled to and the coal graded for sale on the market. |
| Lockers | Closets where the miner kept their clothes, one for clean clothes, one for pit clothes |
| Magazine | This was the strong shed where the caps, detonators and gelignite were stored |
| Marine band | A thin layer of coal about 10yds above the main seam. |
| Meet | A man-made hole in the side of the road where the miners would stand in to let the trams go by. |
| Miner | Person working underground extracting minerals |
| Miners disease | A breathing disorder caused by continuous inhalation of coal dust - known as "Pneumoconiosis" |
| Mining agent | Person in charge of the sale of coal |
| Mining office | Office that dealt with sales and wages |
| Mouth | The entrance to a mine. |
| Nosebag | A sack or bag tied around a horses' head containing food |
| Open- cast | Form of mining where the earth was stripped back with large machinery and the coal dug out |
| Park yard | The coal yard at Deerpark mines |
| Pick | Miners tool for loosening coal and earth |
| Pit | Another word for mine |
| Play | When the steel rope hauling the trams out of the mine breaks |
| Prop | Timber support used for keeping up the roof of a mine |
| Pump house | Building where water pumps were operated |
| Pumpways | Pipes running along mines for the purpose of extracting water |
| Rat | Rodent, generally a pest but also the miners best friend |
| Ration | A free allowance of coal given to miners as a bonus |
| Rock pit | The name of a local mine |
| Roadmakers | Men whose job it was to actually make the tunnels to the coal face where the trams could travel |
| Rope-man | The rope-man was the man who put the trams on the endless rope and brought them to different sections of the pit. |
| Rounds | 34 boxes (trams) of coal. |
| Scraper | Used for cleaning the roads. |
| Screening plant | Area where coal was separated into different sizes |
| Shuttin | Term that described a roof collapse |
| Slate | Form of rock |
| Sledge | A heavy hammer |
| Sleepers | Heavy lengths of wood on which rail tracks were placed |
| Squeeze | When the roof was bad on the coalface a "squeeze" would take place. It was very dangerous! |
| Surface Hand | Person who worked over ground |
| Switch | Part of the tramline where trams could be switched from one track to another. |
| Sylvester | A hand held "lever like" implement used for moving a load |
| Tail rope | Used when there were hills on the road to hold back the boxes from running into one another. |
| Time Office | Office where hours worked by miners was recorded |
| Top switch | A particular switch where trams were moved from one track to another |
| Tracks | Steel rails on which the trams traveled |
| Tram | Container on wheels used for transporting the coal to the surface |
| Tram- rail | Steel rails on which the trams traveled |
| Tramline | Steel rails on which the trams traveled |
| Trammers | Men or boys who push, load and empty the trams. |
| Tunnel | An underground road or passage |
| Tunnell hill | An area just inside the mouth of the Deerpark mine going straight down to the Big Flat |
| Undermining | Digging out the substance that lay beneath the seam of coal so that the coal would drop down |
| Wagon | Carriage pulled behind a train filled with coal |
| Wagon master | His job was to position the wagons under the landing where they were loaded with coal |
| Wandesforde | The name of the Landlords that owned the mines |
| Wash-out | At some time in the past when the coal was still vegetable matter, a lake or an old river flowed in, pushing out the material which could have become coal and laid down sand which became sandstone. This is common in coal-fields and a ‘’ wash-out ‘’may be quite small or very large |
| Washer | Area for washing the coal. |
| Weigh Bridge | Place where cars and carriages of coal were weighed |
| Workers voice | A Trade Union magazine |