School: Boston (roll number 10212)

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1. Famine Times (continued)

   

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   people here to skin the potatoes and sow only the peel with the eyes in it. This they did the second year and some kind of potatoes grew. Some people were able to buy meal at the enormous price that time of three shillings a stone and they eat porridge three times a day, Others eat grass, turnips nettles and even dogs cats and frogs. At first they peeled the turnips and threw away the peels. Later on they were glad to eat skins and all. They had to sell all their corn to pay the rates. They died in the ditches and out in the fields. Around and beside this school there were numerous houses and huts of which not even the ruins now remain. All Pluckerstown Bog, Kilmeague Naas, was covered with houses and each house had a little field or garden attached. Now the place is bare of houses and an odd bush or hill marks the site of a dwelling before the Famine.
   Another account also said that an instrument called a Dib was used to pick the 'eyes' out of the potatoes and this little pick was planted. Scotch seed came in eighteen hundred and forty nine, but

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

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

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Bridie Heffernan

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   13

   Address

   Feighcullen, Co. Kildare