School: Liath-Mhuine

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1. Famine Times (continued)

   

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   mother used to tell was one day a beggar man came into her and asked for food she gave him a meal of stirabout and he ate it all. He then went home. When he was going she gave him a young duck. When he went home he cleaned it and he had the duck in a noggin to boil but he had eaten so much of the stirabout he died before he had time to boil the duck.

   The year the blight destroyed all the potato crop, my grandfather was going to the fair of Boyle. He saw the grandest sight he thought he ever saw the blossoms on all the fields of potatoes. But when he was coming home in a day or two he saw the stalks burned to the ground with the blight.

   That year the people put the potatoes into pits and most of them rotted and the next year they planted them in ridges and to make them grow plenty they picked the eyes out of them with a large goose's quill and planted the eyes and then ate the rest of the potatoes.

   The people down near the shore ate periwinkles Báirneaic (limpets) and dilisc. Some of them ate the roots of the grass and after that time they used to make boats of their own and

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. time
      1. historical periods by name (~25)
         1. the great famine (~4,013)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Isabel Mc Kinley

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Leaffony, Co. Sligo