School: Easgéiphtine (C.) (roll number 2040)

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1. Famine Times (continued)

   

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   This "dish" was taken for breakfast, dinner, and supper. Nettles, turnips, and even grass were eaten raw, and those who could, escaped the famine by deserting "Róisín Dubh" and going across the broad Atlantic to America, in America they got work a most of them got on fairly well, and there is scarcely a family in Askeaton who have not some relatives in America. This district was much more thickly populated before the famine than it is now, and even yet the older people can still tell us where a house, or houses once stood before the famine. This is one of the periods of distress of which the people speak, and the old people had many interesting stories which however we have lost by their deaths.

   A notable fact was the plentitude of every crop in the year preceeding the famine. The potatoes were so numerous that they were not pitted, they were just heeled against the wall like dung and the prices offered for them ranged from 1d to 3d per stone. It was as if Nature was trying to be generous before she inflicted such pain as want always inflicts. The wheat crop was quite good during the famine years, but it had to be sold before the landlord came, because despite the state of the poor the landlords still demanded outrageous rents. The famine affected only the poor, therefore 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

   Maureen Stokes

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Ballyhomin, Co. Limerick

   Informant

   Mr Stokes

   Relation

   Parent

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   58

   Address

   Ballyhomin, Co. Limerick