School: Baile na n-Éan (Birdstown) (roll number 16090)
- Location:
- Birdstown Demesne, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: P. Mac Fhlaithbheartaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1109, Page 411
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Baile na n-Éan (Birdstown)
- XML Page 411
- XML “Famine Times”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- In the year of the great famine in 1846-1847 they were far more people and houses around here then, but the most of the ruins are all carried away to build others houses this districk was badly hit by the potato blight John Ramsey who lived here in Sappagh told my Granda that when he went out to mould his potatoes the tops were all breaking in front of the plough they were not just like frost, he said, far worse than any frost ever he seen and from they were cut away they never grew any bigger. The people were in great distress, they would be digging from early morn and would not have a bucket full for dinner. The house down below us made porridge, everyone was allowed a noggin each, those who had plenty of money bought Indian-meal half-a-crown for ten lb. of it and it was very bad meal too. A old man who lived here called Willie Brown was in Derry one day he saw a man going from door to door in Great James St. and got nothing. So he sat down and(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Maureen Mc Colgan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Soppog, Co. Donegal
- Informant
- Mrs Mary Mc Colgan
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Soppog, Co. Donegal
