School: Scoil an Chlochair, Cappamore
- Location:
- Cappamore, Co. Limerick
- Teacher: An tSr. Fionntán
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0520, Page 302
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- (continued from previous page)A great famine spread over this district in the year 1846-47. It was called "the black forty-seven". At that time, people had to drink sour milk and eat potatoes. Sometimes they had black tea.
In the year of the famine, the potato crop failed and at that time potatoes were the chief food of the people. Before the famine, people didn't know what bread or meat was.
First of all, a dark spot appeared on the potato leaf. After a while, the whole stalk withered away, and the potatoes when dug, were all black and rotten. When the potatoes failed, the people were starving. Then support came from foreign countries. Yellow meal was imported from Russia, and it was sold to the people, but some of them had no money to buy the meal, and they were starved, and then they died.
Great sickness and fever followed the famine, and the sickness spread from one person to another. If anyone was travelling through the cities in Ireland at that time,(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Peig Ní Bhriain
- Gender
- Female
