School: Listowel (B.) (roll number 1797)

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1. The Famine in Listowel

   

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   (1) The old mill by the river in Listowel (once N.K.M. factory) was built out of the stones of the part of Listowel knocked by Sir Charles Wilmot in 1600. The time of the famine the mill was full of corn and soldiers were placed on guard to mind it. Leonard was the man in charge of the mill. They used the bags of wheat inside and there were soldiers outside the door and the people used to go down to get the wheat and they used be fighting the soldiers. Finally the wheat went bad and had to be thrown out in the River Feale. Cars used go out every day from the workhouse in Listowel to collect dead bodies & they used be carried to Gale Churchyard. But as Gale church was too far from Listowel they got a field near the town on the road to Ballybunion now known as Teampulleenbawn where they buried the bodies in pits or else with coffins with sliding bottoms, & used the coffins all over again. There were auxiliary workhouses: St.Milo Coll. Listowel, was an hospital; [Stalls in Cluivragh?] known now as "The Barn" was a workhouse & "The Model Farm" on the B.bunion Rd. "The Model Farm" is so green amid a stretch of poorland. The people say that it was the sweat of the paupers carrying manure on their backs that made it green. You'd get £33 for a pig.

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

2. The Famine in Listowel

   

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   There was a poor proud woman who wouldn't give in she was hungry the time of the Famine. A rich neighbour knew she was badly off though she let on not to be. He came on one day at the time people in this part put down the dinner to laugh at her for he knew she had nothing to put down. She went out in the yard, filled the pot with water and put stones in it, hung it on the crane pretending they were spuds. He saw through the trick, waited until time when spuds would be boiled. "Your spuds'll be in Brúscar Mary" he kept saying until finally she had to take the cover off the pot by the way to try

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   Topics

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

   Language

   English

   Collector

   D. Byrne

   Address

   Listowel, Co. Kerry