School: Cloonsarn (roll number 16025)
- Location:
- Lisgillock Glebe, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Peter Kilkenny
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0221, Page 702
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- XML “Famine Times”
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- The old people of the present time in this neighbourhood can tell very little about The Famine Times of 1846-47. All I can get from them is "Oh: the people died in hundreds and thousands: Oh they they were very bad times" But some years ago I got some accounts of the awful times from a few persons who had been alive and were then nearly full grown in 1846. One was Michael Maguire Corroneary Aughavas Carrigallen Co Leitrim R.I.P. I once said to him "Michael do YOU remember the Big Wind of 1839
"Well do I remember it," said Michael, "I was able that night to go out and help my father to put ladders and timber to the thatch of the house to try to keep it from being swept away.""Then Michael," said I "Your remember THE BAD TIMES OF 1846-47!"Well, I think I should," said Michael "for I ate Cart Loads of Turnips that year. My father had a great field of Turnips. O a great field and I often ate them twice a day, And he never grumbled at a neighbour taking a couple now and again. But there was a man Thomas Abbott. He caught a poor hungry woman stealing two turnips and she was so hungry, that she was eating one of them raw, as she was crossing the fence, when Thomas met her. He was a hard, miserly beggar, and he kicked her and beat her so badly that she(continues on next page)
