1914 circa - Culla Hill Mary Carrucan nee Sweeney with oldest child Patrick

This photo shows Mary Carrucan nee Sweeney with oldest child Patrick, who was born in 1911. Mary was a grand daughter of Thomas Sweeney

Peter Cuffley discusses this photo as follows

It is a wonderful image and reflects the remarkable ability with wood the early Sweeneys had. The homemade seat is in a tradition of Australian bush furniture which Kevin Carney and I wrote about in our 1974 book ‘A CATALOGUE AND HISTORY OF COTTAGE CHAIRS IN AUSTRALIA.’ Not only is it a classic example of hand whittled ingenuity, in the background is a fine example of a picket fence which is entirely made of hand-split bush timber. The posts and the rails are all hand-split and not milled, but even better, every single picket is hand-split! To add further to the importance of the picture, the seat is actually in the Irish hand-made furniture tradition. In 1993 Claudia Kinmonth brought out a superb book called ‘IRISH COUNTRY FURNITURE 1700-1950.’ An up-dated edition was released in 2020 titled ‘Irish Country Furniture and Furnishings 1700-2000.’