School: Tíréaltan, Maghcromtha (roll number 13286)

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1. Famine Times

   

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   In this part of the country the disease on the potato crop called the blight was first seen about the middle of September 1846. The stalks till then green and healthy and loaded with blossom crumbled and withered beneath its touch: the leaves looked as if acid has been sprinkled upon them : the burned spots grew larger until leaves and stalks were decayed and the fields lately vigorous with vegetable life became a putrid mass of vegetable matter. When the potatoes were dug up it was found that the fatal disease had penetrated beneath the soil and that a large part of the crop was rotten. Worse than all when the sound potatoes having been separated from the unsound ones were deposited in the pits and the pits after a time opened it was seen that the blight had entered and laying its awful hand on the sound potatoes rendered them unfit for human food. The peasant with blanched face saw his food thus disappear and as he looked at his children shivering with fear at what they saw and as he thought of the many months before him during which the

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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

   Joan O' Riordan

   Gender

   Female

   Informant

   Eugene O' Riordan

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   65

   Address

   Cooldorragha, Co. Cork