There were two years famine one after the other and the people were dying in hundreds from starvation. In those days the Ballina Workhouse was on the top of Ard-na-re and they had a large boiler and they used to boil Indian meal porridge to give to the starving poor. It was so thin that they had to measure it out in pints and quarts to each person. The poor had nothing to eat but young turnips as these grew no potatoes during that time. The people were so worn out for the want of natural food that an awful disease broke out among them and all over Ireland (called the plague) and they died in thousands.
The country was so poor and so many died that they could not afford to put coffins on half of the dead. The corpses were