School: Liath-Mhuine
- Location:
- Leaffony, Co. Sligo
- Teacher: Bean Mhic Fhionnlaoich
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0163, Page 340
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- XML “Famine Times”
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- The great Famine took place in the summer 1846 and again in the summer 1847 so that the two years after each other were a great blow to the Irish people. When I was but a child I often heard my grandmother tell about the famine years and also the old men round the fireside at night.
As I had already said the famine first began in the summer of 1846 when the blight destroyed the potato crop which was the chief food of the Irish people in olden times. So when the potato crop failed the people saw nothing before them but starvation. All the potatoes they used to grow in olden times would not amount to half of what we grow nowadays. What they had during the famine years were not worth digging. They would start digging in the morning and they would not have the fill of a bucket in the evening which was a very small supply for a big family.
Some people dug them and as they were too small to plant as usual they shook them as we shake oats nowadays and covered them with a grape.
It is said that those who sowed them in this manner had a fair crop the following year.
The famine affected this district in this way, hundreds died from hunger and from the effects of the famine and fever which always follows hunger(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Charles Gibson
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Rathlee, Co. Sligo
