School: Ballinvally (C.) (roll number 932)
- Location:
- Ballinvally, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: S. Nic Shiomóin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0724, Page 103
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- XML “The Famine”
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- During the famine of 1846-47 there would be a big boiler that would hold five gallons for making porridge. The English government gave them help and anyone that had a cow got no work. There was eight million in Ireland at that time. They sowed potaotes that year and they got all black and they had no potatoes to make colcanon hollow-eve night as it was the custom. Then they had no potatoes to sow the next year and some of them got seed and the next year the potatoes were very small. They were so scarce that the people that had them had to bury them under stacks of oats or they would be stolen. A lot of people died that year and a lot emigrated. The whole district was starved. The year before the famine the people had too much potatoes and they threw them in the ditches. They say that God(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Mary Black
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Cummerstown, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- William Gibney
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Cummerstown, Co. Westmeath
