School: Drumshanbo (C.) (roll number 12873)

Location:
Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim
Teacher:
Margaret Flynn

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Stories Connected with the Famine

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0207, Page 101

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Here is a story of the Famine Times in Drumshanbo which has been told by Fr Butler.
During that time there were not many houses in Drumshanbo but there was a large number of people living there.
Owing to the failure of the potato crop hundreds of people died of hunger. There was nobody to minister to the people in their last agony but a young priest named Fr Flynn who went around among them administering the last sacrament and burying them as when they died.
He had no coffins to put the dead bodies into.All he could do was put them on a wheel-barow and wheel them to the grave yard.
One day as a man named OBrien from Corlaugh was coming from Sligo with a cart-load of meal he saw the priest trying to put the dead bodies on the wheel barrow. He offered him help and

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Informant
Father Butler
Gender
male
Address
Drumshanbo, Co. Leitrim
Language
English