School: An Drom Clochach (B.)

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1. The Famine Times

   

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   In the years of eighteen forty five eighteen forty six and eighteen forty seven the greatest disaster that ever came over any country came over Ireland it was the Great Famine. The people were dying very fast often when a neighbour went into another neighbour's house he was shocked to see what inside but a house of dead people. The chief food of the Irish people at that time was the potatoes. They failed in 1845 and in two succeeding years so that the people had no seed for those years because they had to eat them. The people died of hunger and of great sickness which followed the hunger. There was plenty grain in the country such as wheat, oats and barley, this food the English took away in order to starve the Irish.
   The country at that time was in big estates owned by English landlords who had large mansions and all kinds of luxuries while they enjoyed the Irish dying of hunger.
   On one occasion a man went into a farm which was owned by a man named Barton for a turnip and Barton caught him running with it and he shot him dead. On another occasion a man went into a garden which was owned by Elliot Mrs Cook's grandfather and he stole a head of cabbage to take the hunger off him and he got a month in gaol.
   During the Famine a man who had potatoes but who could not afford to set all of them cut the eyes out of the potatoes and set them. He was delighted at the harvest to see

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. genre
      1. poetry
         1. folk poetry (~9,504)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Robert Fitzgerald

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Mountcoal, Co. Kerry