School: Convent Girls' School, Ballymote
- Location:
- Ballymote, Co. Sligo
- Teacher: Sr. M. Patrick
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0183, Page 136
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- The Famine was in the year 1846. There is a story told of a man who had hundreds and hundres of potatoes and instead of giving them to the poor and to those who were hungry, he made a big hole in the earth and put the potatoes that he did not want into it, and the people say that was the cause of the Famine. I know an old woman here who was about four or five years old the year of the famine (she is now 95). She told me that the old people were dying along the road and wisps of grass in their mouths.
There was a man living here at this time and he was very kind. He used to come to the houses and give soup to the poor. When going away he used to tell them to keep the doors closed to keep out the dogs as they were hungry as well as the people and sometimes when people died of hunger the dogs used to eat the dead bodies.
- Collector
- Nancy Carr
- Gender
- Female
- Informant
- Katherine Carr
- Relation
- Grandparent
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 87
- Address
- Bellanascarrow West, Co. Sligo
