Wooden pumps

Although wooden pumps for raising water from wells were formerly common throughout Ireland, being erected by both private individuals and public authorities, they have been largely superseded by iron ones and, in more recent years, by piped water schemes. Raymond Grace of the Coombe, Dublin, whose family for many generations carried on the trade of making and erecting wooden pumps and whose equipment was acquired by the National Museum of Ireland when he gave up the business in 1956, said that people in certain localities preferred wooden pumps because they believed that the mineral content of the water in those districts reacted on iron pumps to give the water an unpleasant taste. The last wooden pumps which he made were for customers who held this view.