School: Freshford (C.) (roll number 797)

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1. Famine Times (continued)

   

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   turnips as food. They used to go out in the fields when the blight was on the potatoes and gather the black potatoes for food for their children.
   At the entrance to Uppercourt, there is a ruin of an old house which was inhabited during the famine times by a man named Will Dunne and his wife. The present creamery was known as "the old still" during the famine times. There is another ruin of a house on the road to Ballylarkin which was inhabited by a man named Walsh during the famine. But nothing is now left of these homes but four walls.
   During the disease which followed the famine, a young man named Glendon, who, with his father and his uncle, lived in Boherglass, was a victim of famine fever. He was in the hospital but when he was scarcely dead he was put into a coffin. His father and his uncle, there being no one else, carried the coffin to the graveyard where they laid it beside one of the many freshly
   made graves. Scarcely had they done so when they heard a scratching on the inside of the coffin. The father, horrified, ran away

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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

   Rita Kennedy

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   16

   Address

   Freshford, Co. Kilkenny

   Informant

   Edward Kennedy

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   60

   Occupation

   Labourer

   Address

   Freshford, Co. Kilkenny