School: Fothanach (roll number 7980)

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1. The Famine Times

   

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   1. Famine affected this district. The potatoes failed. The government relief reached the district too late because great numbers already died.
   2. Workmen at that time, instead of pay, received each fortnight a few stone of Indian meal to make porridge.
   3. A soldier was passing one day. He saw a family dying of hunger. There was a donkey on the road. He shot it and the starving people rushed on it and ate their fill.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

2. The Famine Times

   

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   4. The people were sent to the fever hospital in Ballinasloe. There were men employed there with carts, carrying corpses, some without coffins to a place called "Bully's Acre" on the McConnell side of Ballinasloe. Big trenches were opened there and when 18 coffins were in the trench it was closed. Many were brought for burial before they were dead and people robbing the place are said to have heard some of the ladies groaning.

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   Topics

   1. time
      1. historical periods by name (~25)
         1. the great famine (~4,013)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   James Miskill

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Doon Lower, Co. Galway