School: Na Corráin (roll number 9938/9)
- Location:
- Currans, Co. Kerry
- Teacher: Cormac Ó Muircheartaigh
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0446, Page 178
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- XML “A Famine Story”
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- The terrible famine existed during the period 1846-1848. the famine was caused by the failure of the potato crop. During those two years the corpses were drawn by horses' cars to the consecrated ground but very often they were buried by the roadside or in the fields.
Before the people died they were worn to skin and bone and then they used to turn black; the dogs used to run through the country with their eyes outside their heads and when the corpses used not be buried quickly they would eat them. The famine took place the year before Daniel O'Connell died. Millions of the Irish died and a few more millions went to America and the couple that stopped were left poor and weak.
Potatoes and butter-milk twice a day was the food of the ancient Irish. When the pangs of hunger caught the people they ate all classes of wild birds until the potatoes grew again.
- Collector
- Tim Brosnan
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Reineen, Co. Kerry
- Informant
- John Brosnan
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- c. 50
- Address
- Reineen, Co. Kerry
