School: Tobar Rua (roll number 15427)

Location:
Toberroe East, Co. Galway
Teacher:
Eibhlín, Bean Uí Mhuireagáin
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0016, Page 244

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0016, Page 244

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Tobar Rua
  2. XML Page 244
  3. XML “The Famine Times”

Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.

On this page

  1. The famine times
    The famine in this district was caused by the failure of the potato crop. The old man who told me about the famine said that it was sent as a punishment from god on the people, because the year before it happened potatoes grew very well, so well indeed that the people could not use them and they were left to decay in the pits. The next year however the blight destroyed the whole crop in one night. When the farmers awoke they found they stalks and leaves withered and blackened as if by frost but this was impossible as it was the month of June. Anybody who had any potatoes to sow the following year were awarded by a fine crop. The people died of hunger and of course their half starved relatives were not able to bury them properly. They graveyards were filled to overflowing and many were buried on the roadside or in the fields. The poor houses or work houses were also filled and the people were turned away to die by the roadside. Disease spread with the famine an those who did not die from starvation died of disease. Many people are buried along on the Keelogues road
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. time
      1. historical periods by name (~25)
        1. the great famine (~4,013)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Margaret Joyce
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Lisnageeragh, Co. Galway