School: Borris (C.)
- Location:
- Borris, Co. Carlow
- Teacher: Bean Uí Loinneáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0904, Page 462
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Borris (C.)
- XML Page 462
- XML “Famine Times”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- During the years of the Great Famine - '46 & 47, caused by the blight on the potato crop, the people of Borris and of the neighbouring Townlands had their own share of suffering.
Lady Harriet McMurragh Kavanagh opened two Soup Kitchens in Borris. Outside each every day was a queue of people, each person with a can or a mug in readiness for a ladle of soup. This Lady also opened a protestant school in Marley & by promising food induced several Catholic pupils to attend. During the famine years the school was thronged but, when the good potatoes once more appeared, it was deserted & had to be closed for lack of pupils.
America sent cargoes of Indian meal to the starving Irish but its distribution was badly organized. The meal depot for this district was at Arthur Murphy's (now Ogle's) Kilcumney about 3 miles from Borris - a long tramp for famished people.
Several small farmers with their families left this district and, in(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Kitty Byrne
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Borris, Co. Carlow
