School: Irishtown
- Location:
- Milltown, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: Margaret McNally
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0742, Page 166
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- Folklore Famine TimesThe Famine
When the potato crop failed, the oats crop was the main support of the people. The potatoes rotted in the ground. When the Autumn came the farmers cured the oats very well and threshed and sent it to the mill and got meal made from it. Some of the people sold it mixed with sand so as to bring up the weight.
Men went to the places where they expected the meal to be very plentiful and bought it from the people at low prices and sold it at higher prices. These men were called "Meal Mongers". People, from starvation, went out and ate the grass and cuckoo sorrel and and salt and water cress.
As well as the oats crop the milk of the cows was never known to be as rich or as plentiful. After the famine the terrible disease called "cholera" came on the people, and no fewer than twenty six funerals went into Piercetown churchyard in the day. When the people were taking(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Maureen Kelly
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 14
- Address
- Irishtown, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- John Mullally
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 76
- Occupation
- Pensioner
- Address
- Corkan, Co. Westmeath
