School: Cloghan (B.), Banagher

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1. The Famine of 1847 (continued)

   

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   coffins would not be procured for all. Numbers were wrapped in shrouds and carried in trap coffins to the cemetery and buried. The trap coffin was made like the ordinary coffin with the bottom on hinges closed on one side with an iron clasp. The corpses were put into this and lowered into the grave. The clasp was then released and the body left behind.

   Assistance officers were set up in towns who distributed indian meal porridge to the most deserving cases. Each morning at 9 a.m. crowds of the Famine stricken people could be seen trying to secure the meagre supply of food which would tide them over another day. The "soupers" were very busy at work also offering bribes of soup and meat to the starving people if they would give up their faith, but this they refused to do. In some cases through sheer necessity the people ran amok and took by force whatever they could find in the shape of food. Three cars owned by Mr Perry Belmont Mills were held up at the Rape Mills midway between Cloghan and Birr by a crowd of starving people and all the flour with which they were loaded taken away. The cars afterwards travelled protected by an armed police escort until the times became normal again. Sheep stealing that year was also very much indulged in but the law punished this

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   John Robinson

   Gender

   Male

   Collector

   Kieran Colgan

   Gender

   Male

   Informant

   James Leonard

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   50