School: The Vale (An Gleann)
- Location:
- Leiter, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: S. Ó Brolcháin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1010, Page 434
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- XML “The Famine Times”
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- The old people told many stories about the Great Famine of 1846/1847 but I think some of the stories were somewhat enlarged as it was not a general famine throughout Ireland. No doubt there were seven and a half millions of a population in Ireland at that time. The large or medium sized farmer did not suffer very much. Certainly the poor classes suffered much as their chief food consisted of potatoes in the Winter period and the potatoes were a total failure for a few years but the farmers grew corn, barley, rye, bere and other cereals so that they did not suffer much for want of food.The bere crop was ready to cut in the end of June so that the men with land always had food of their own. Of course the cost of living then was nothing in comparison to what it is at the present time. Clothing, tailoring, boots, farming utensils and in fact everything was cheap and very few in this district suffered from hunger. My father, one of thirteen in the family was fourteen years of age at the time and they were reared on a little over three Irish acres and I never heard him say that any of them were hungry(continues on next page)
