School: Cluain Catha (roll number 16291)
- Location:
- Clooncah, Co. Roscommon
- Teachers: Dll. Ó Módhráin Ss. Mac Eoghain
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0252, Page 437
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: Cluain Catha
- XML Page 437
- 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
- Famine Times.
In 1846 and 1847 there was a terrible famine. Many people died of starvation.
The district was very thickly populated before the famine but hundreds of people died and others went on emigrant ships and were drowned.
There are traces of houses pointed out by the old people then occupied and now in ruins. The blight fell on the potatoes on the 11th of July and never left a stalk.
The potatoes decayed in the ground but they grew in abundance the following year.
The people who had oat-meal made bread out of it and those who had none died of hunger.
During the famine period great numbers died of starvation and sickness.
The roads were covered with dead and dying and great sickness followed the hunger.(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Una Collins
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Clooncah, Co. Roscommon
- Informant
- Margaret Cuffe
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 65
- Address
- Clooncah, Co. Roscommon
