School: Newtownanner, Cluain Meala (roll number 1559)

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1. The Famine Times (continued)

   

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   winter of 1845. They had to eat raw turnips, weeds and seaweed. They go through the fields and gather the wild weeds. They boil them with salt and they live on them without a potato to eat along with them. The southern and western countries suffered even more than Wicklow. When the potato failed, the hens ceased to lay and the mothers had to sell them to buy food for their children. The next winter 1847 was far terrible than the last. Roads and fields towns and villages were thronged with dead people and dying people in that year. It was called the Black Forty Seven.

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2. The Famine Times

   

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   In the year black 1847 and 48. There was a total failure on the potato crop. For the want of food a disease set in among the people, and all the hospitals were full with sick people, but most of them died by the roadside with it. They had to use turnips and yellow meal porridge for food. Relief work was given then what they call public works and other things. There were relief houses in towns and villages distributing porridge to people and they used not give them half enough of it to eat. The yellow meal was three shillings a stone and the oaten meal could not be had at all it was too dear. The average

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