School: Killymarley (roll number 15398)

Location:
Killymarly, Co. Monaghan
Teacher:
Bean Uí Chléirigh
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0957, Page 338

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0957, Page 338

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  1. XML School: Killymarley
  2. XML Page 338
  3. XML “A Story of Famine Days”

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  1. During the famine years a man was found lying dead with an axe in his hand beside a withered ash tree. He had come to cut the tree, which was not too big, and carry it home for firing. This took place in the townland of Drumhirk. The farm is now owned by Mr. Charles Holland and it has belonged to his family for generations. The man was weak from starvation and the exertion of cutting the tree caused his death.
    Many stories are told round the district of strange noises being heard at this spot. Lights were often seen there and several people would not go past the dread spot after dark. Some people believed that he dropped dead as a just punishment for trying to steal the tree. Be that as it may the noise of an axe chopping is often heard at the place where the tree once stood and voices have been heard in loud argument there also.
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. time
      1. historical periods by name (~25)
        1. the great famine (~4,013)
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Harry Jackson
    Gender
    Male
    Address
    Corlat, Co. Monaghan