School: Castletown
- Location:
- Castletown, Co. Meath
- Teacher: Owen Maguire
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0711, Page 304
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- (continued from previous page)he raised the price to three shillings per stone and the people were not able to buy it. He left it in the granaries until it all went wrong, then he became poor himself. He had to leave the place. Then the people had to eat turnips and cabbage. The year before the famine the people had too much potatoes and they were throwing them behind the ditches and it was because the people abused them God sent the famine. The potatoes rotted in the ground when they were planted. It affected this district very much. Some of the people that had a few pounds survived and the rest had to go to other countries. They had no money to buy seed. Then a disease called Cholera broke out amongst the people and killed the people in great numbers.
- The great famine of 1847 affected this district very much. The district was very thickly populated before this time. When the famine came the people went to America. The failure of the potato crop was the cause of the famine. The following year the seed potatoes were sold at a penny an eye. The people used turnips instead of potatoes.
- Collector
- Betty Duffy
- Gender
- Female
- Informant
- Miss Mary Markey
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 73
- Address
- Leggagh, Co. Meath
