180 Hedera helix
with fat, but in this case the Scottish instances (Ayrshire,^8 the Highlands^9 )
are joined by one from Devon.^10 Other uses which seem to have been pre-
dominantly Irish likewise crop up in the English records just here and there:
the plant’s reputed ability to staunch bleeding has led to its inclusion in an
ointment for suppurating wounds in Herefordshire,^11 while as a treatment
for inflammation it has found an outlet in Devon in the form of an infusion
of the leaves and berries taken for mumps.^12 Irish faith in the berries as a cure
for aches and pains is reflected by their being valued in Gloucestershire as
very good for the nerves,^13 just as Ireland’s valuing of the plant for coughs and
colds is seemingly echoed in a belief in Shropshire that an infallible remedy
for whooping cough is to drink from cups made from its wood.^14
Ivy has either been more especially an Irish herb or its former uses have
persisted there more obstinately than in Britain. No fewer than five of the
plant’s principal recorded uses—for corns, burns, eczema in children, inflam-
mation and cuts—are known from many more counties in Ireland; more-
over, except in the case of the last, the distribution of which seems to be con-
fined to the country’s central belt, the records are so widely spread as to
suggest that they were more or less general in the not-too-distant past. In
addition, ivy would seem to have been brought to bear on a considerably
wider range of ailments than in Britain. Uniquely Irish, apparently, has been
as a treatment for boils and abscesses: recorded from Cavan,^15 Longford,^16
Wicklow^17 and Limerick^18 as well as from Monaghan, where one side of a
heated leaf was relied on to draw out the pus and the other to do the healing,^19
a procedure known from Donegal^20 and Leitrim^21 but applied there to
extracting thorns from fingers. A boiled leaf also poulticed chilblains in
Meath^22 and Wicklow,^23 bad sprains in Donegal^24 and warts in Laois.^25 In
Wa t e r f o r d ,^26 on the other hand, a leaf had its outer skin scraped off and
applied to sore lips. So great was the plant’s reputation for healing skin dis-
orders that its use extended to ringworm in Leitrim,^27 measles in Tipperary^28
and skin cancer in the region east of Sligo.^29
That the berries were eaten in Offaly and its neighbours^30 for aches and
pains hints at an action akin to aspirin, which could account for the plant’s
popularity in Wicklow^31 and Kerry^32 for easing coughs and colds or, in
another part of the country,^33 for clearing the chest in bronchitis. It could
also account for the use of an extract of the leaves in Wexford^34 and Limer-
ick^35 for back pain, though that could mean kidney trouble, for which the
plant has also had its value in Roscommon^36 and for both that and jaundice
in Cavan.^37