School: Cloonacool (roll number 4802)
- Location:
- Cluain na Cúile, Co. Shligigh
- Teacher: Seán Ó Blioscáin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0171, Page 110
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- XML “Notes - The Famine”
- XML “The Night of the Big Wind”
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- (continued from previous page)definite that there was no cholera between Tubbercurry and the Ox Mountains. Asked why it was that the great famine had not made more impression on the people's memories Patrick Mullarkey said that from his grandfathers talk he gathered that famines were occurring so frequently that the famine 1845-'1847 was in a way not a new experience - it was merely the worst of many. The only other thing told[?] by the old man was to do with the potatoes. These, he said, were so small that the youngster to peel them placed them between knuckles as in firing marbles and fired the potato clean out of its skin.
- The big wind seems to have made a more lasting impression here than the famine. At any rate it was used much more frequently as a point to date from. One often heard people speak of events as happening so many years after this night of the big wind but rarely heard the famine years so recalled. The accounts however brought in by the pupils about this storm were equally bald with those of the famine. The only one who seems to have any account of local happenings was Patrick Mullarkey whose grandfather told him of an incident that occurred in his native village. He lived in the townland (?) where there was a cluster of houses on the mountain side. The owner of one of these had been looking after his thatch during the Christmas time - a rather unusual performance at the time. When(continues on next page)
