School: Liath-Mhuine

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1. Famine Times

   

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   Famine Times

   I have heard my Grandfather say that the people of this district suffered much from the Great Famine. My great Grandfather was working at relief work on an old road which is there still. It is leading to an old house where people lived long ago and it is passing by my house but it is now a drain of water and the food they had for their dinner was raw turnips and other weeds that was in the ground which was poor food for hardworking men. He often said he saw men dying at their work and had to be carried to their homes and from that to the graveyard because there was no other way of carrying them. In this way many bodies were laid in the fields or in the ditches because the people were too weak to carry them any farther. There is a person buried not far from my house and there are two stones to mark the place and a few yards from it is a ruin of an old house. The people who lived there were a family of the Mac Donnell's. There was only an old man and his friend who was evicted and put out on the roadside and his wife was there also.

   There are a lot of little gardens there still which belonged to the people who lived there. My Grand father said he saw all those houses filled with people which are now in ruins that shows us that there were far more people in Ireland then than there are to day. The first year of the famine the Blight

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. am
      1. tréimhsí staire sonracha (~25)
         1. an gorta mór (~4,013)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Charles Gibson

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Liafuine, Co. Shligigh