School: Carrowrile (roll number 10396)

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1. The Famine

   

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   Between the years 1846-'47 there was a great famine in Ireland. people died along hedges and from hunger. At night when all the ramblers used to gather in I used to hear them tell stories about it. That was in my young days long ago. The potato crop failed with the blight and rotted in the ground. There was plenty of wheat and corn in the country at the time but the people sold it and paid the rent with the money. Thereabove on the roadside beside Michael Hamiltons a poor man died with hunger and his poor wife had to beg a few fellows to bury him. The roads leading into Cartys was made at that time to give employment. The people who worked on it only got twopence a day. The people at that time ate nettles, cabbage and grass. There lived in Rinbone at the time an old woman named Siby Gilmartin. She had a little garden and in it used to grow cabbage. The old woman never refused anyone for the cabbage. The people used to pick the cabbage to the stumps and the next morning they were covered over with cabbage again. The population was reduced to about half of what it was. Those

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Anna Finn

   Gender

   Female

   Age

   14

   Address

   Rinbaun, Co. Sligo

   Informant

   Pat Waters

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   75

   Address

   Rinbaun, Co. Sligo