School: An Geata Bán (roll number 11992)
- Location:
- Whitegate, Co. Cork
- Teacher: Mícheál Mac Cárthaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0393, Page 025
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- In the years 1846-1847 there was a great famine in this country due to the failure of the potato crop. The people had high rents to pay so they had to sell their cattle and the produce of their farms in order to be able to pay them. They themselves lived on the potato crop so when the potatoes got blighted the people were starving. They became blighted the second year, then the people got weak and died in great numbers. So many died that the people had not time to make graves for them all and they buried them in one big grave.
There are not many old people here and they do not remember very much that they heard about the famine. It is said that the people lived on yellow meal when they had nothing else to eat. When they had that all eaten they ate grass and when they died it was discovered that their bodies were green.
There was a soup kitchen here and if anyone wanted soup they should become a Protestant. An old woman became a Protestant and when she died a black moth flew into the room and quenched the six candles that(continues on next page)
