School: Mohill (2) (roll number 8673)
- Location:
- Mohill, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Éamonn Bairéad
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0215, Page 187
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- XML “The Famine Times”
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- Nearly every one over seventy or eighty years of age is able to give a description of what the famine was like. Before the famine there were three times as many people in the district. There were more houses also because the ruins are to be seen yet. When the potato stalks were about one foot high the blight came and cut them from the ground then the new potatoes were only like marbles. When everyone was starving the people would go to potato fields searching for poiteens and eating them as they got them. The year after the famine there were no potatoes in the country so they had to import them from England. I hear of some family who riddled real small poiteens and soured them and they grew as good as if they were big ones. The people used to eat horse flesh and rats. Also they used to bleed the cattle and(continues on next page)
- Collector
- John H. Mee
- Gender
- Male
- Informant
- James Mee
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Drumboher, Co. Leitrim
