School: Errigal Trough (roll number 15565)
- Location:
- Emyvale, Co. Monaghan
- Teacher: Saragh Gillanders
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0958, Page 285
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Errigal Trough
- XML Page 285
- XML “Famine Times”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- The famine years of 1846 and '47 had a very bad effect on this poor mountainous district, several of its peasantry dying of starvation. This district being thickly populated aided and assisted the ravages of the hunger which followed in these famine years. The British Government caused what was known as "Broughan Houses" to be established for the relief of the peasantry.Indian meal was introduced into this country in those years and these Broughan Houses were equipped with large boilers of over 100 gallons in capacity. The government had men employed there making thin porridge which the peasants carried home in tin cans. Each peasant was allowed a quantity in ratio to the family which he or she had to support. This porridge was not half boiled and when the peasants came home they re-boiled it which then thickened up, and far more sustaining for their hunger pangs.
