School: Scádán

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1. Horrors of the Famine (1847)

   

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   During the year eighteen forty seven there was a complete failure of the potato crop in Ireland and it is continued on until the following year.
   The potatoes were doing very well until one night there came a terrible heavy blight and it destroyed the potatoes in every part of Ireland. This was a great misfortune to the people because there was from eight to nine million of a population in Ireland at that time and of course this was a big population for to get food. The people were dying every day in great numbers on account of having no food. This was the first time that potato blight was known in Ireland. Men going along the road would not be surprised for to find thirty or forty people lying dead on the roadsides with grass and nettles in their mouths to try and keep the hunger away. England was worst country to Ireland during the famine because she never helped it in any way by sending shop loads of wheat and corn in order that the people might not die of starvation. From hunger also started fever because the people could get nothing to eat to keep the fever away. About one thousand people gathered into the work-house of Roscommon to

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Proinséas Ní Duibhgheallac

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Tromaun, Co. Roscommon