School: Bohermeen (roll number 3115)

Location:
Bohermeen, Co. Meath
Teacher:
Aindrias Mac Gabhann
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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0702, Page 061

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The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0702, Page 061

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  3. XML “The Story of the Famine”

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  1. The following true tale comes to us from the year 1847. At that time the population in Ireland was very large. The people had to sell their wheat and with the money pay their rents to the landlords. So they had to depend on the potatoe crop to feed them. At this time about the month of August a blight fell on the potatoes so that when the beginning of July came the stalks had completely withered away. Now the people had nothing to feed them but cabbage and buttermilk. The result was that thousands of people died with starvation. Also at that time a sickness broke out namely the yellow plague. So the people died from sickness as well as hunger. Often two or three people in the same house dropped dead. The people would be found lying dead
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Language
    English
    Collector
    Kathleen Gibney
    Gender
    Female
    Address
    Bohermeen, Co. Meath
    Informant
    Patrick Brien
    Gender
    Male
    Address
    Nugentstown, Co. Meath