School: Loch Measca
- Location:
- Caherrobert, Co. Mayo
- Teacher: Máire, Bean an Bhrúnaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0103, Page 350
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- XML “The Famine Years 1846-1847”
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- These were bad years in every part of Ireland, but here in the west, where people were depending entirely on potatoes for food, their state was a sad one.
The year 1846 closed in gloom. It left the people round this district sinking into their graves in hundreds for want of food. It was in 1847 that the highest point of misery and death had been reached. Fever then set in to add to the horrors of famine.
My grandfather told me that there was not a domestic animal to be seen from Ballinrobe to Connemara - pigs and poultry had all died.
There were soup houses set up here and there, and soup could be got at one penny a quart, but many people died of hunger rather than go to the soup kitchens.
The soupers, as the people in charge were called, very often offered free soup to those Catholics who would change their religion.
One such soup kitchen was at Tourmakeady. There were soup kitchens in nearly every district, but in this district it was not made much use of as the people had a fairly good supply of oats, which they ground, and made oaten bread and porridge from it.
The Ballinrobe Workhouse was crowded and the deaths(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Tommy Lynagh
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Killour, Co. Mayo
- Informant
- Martin Brannigan
- Relation
- Unknown
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 86
- Address
- Killour, Co. Mayo
