School: Ballivor (roll number 9380)
- Location:
- Ballivor, Co. Meath
- Teacher: T. Ua Conmhidhe
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0694, Page 304
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- XML “Memories of the Famine”
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- There is no one alive now in the parish who remembers the famine, but many have tales about it from the old people.Old Mrs Walsh, Coolronan who is dead ten or twelve years was old enough to remember it well. She told Mrs. Conway (Ballivor) that she remembered when there was a soup kitchen in Ballivor where the Court is held now (Mr Patk. McGearty's) She also remembered that the poor people used to get leave from the big farmers to dig over the fields from which the potatoes had already been dug for any that were left in the ground. She herself did this as a girl. There were so many poor that each only got a section of a field.The relief works started at the end of the Famine included the sinking of the Boyne. Old Frank Glennon of Glack, Ballivor was a kind of foreman of the workers. It was very cold weather and they had to get in to the deep water to do the work. They were standing on the bank afraid to face it, and Glennon said to them "Come on- we may as well die this way as die of starvation". (His daughter-in-law, Mrs Glennon, and her family still live in Glack)Rathkeenan Bridge on the Stoneyford is dated 1848, and there are several roads called "The New Line".
