School: Gurteen (roll number 586)
- Location:
- Gurteen, Co. Tipperary
- Teacher: Richard B. Bracken
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0530, Page 293
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- XML “Famine Times”
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- In eighteen hundred and forty six the great famine began. This affected this district very much. The people still tell stories about the famine. This district was thickly populated before that time because there are ruins of houses mostly found in bogs and backward places. These families who lived in these houses emigrated and some of them died. The failure of the potato crop was a great loss to the people, because in those days potatoes were their chief food. There was one sort of potatoes that did not fail. These potatoes were called "the Reills". The people that had not these potatoes used to dig every second one on those who had them. People say that the fields used to be black with people picking presaugh. They used to boil this and they used to drink the water off it, They used to take turnips at night and the farmers had to build houses to protect their turnips. These houses were called "mud houses.(continues on next page)
- Informant
- James King
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 70
- Address
- Lord's Park, Co. Tipperary
