School: Mullinahone (C.) (roll number 15363)
- Location:
- Muileann na hUamhan, Co. Thiobraid Árann
- Teacher: Máire Ní Shéaghdha
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0560, Page 365
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- The cause of the famine was this: the year before the potatoes were so plentiful the people heaped them along the ditches and put them in the garden for manure, so that brought a scourge on the country.
- Collector
- Mary Madden
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Cluain Guas, Co. Thiobraid Árann
- Informant
- Mrs Lawrence Madden
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 52
- Occupation
- Labourer's wife
- Address
- Cluain Guas, Co. Thiobraid Árann
- The blight came so strong on the potatoes that they all rotted in one night, and the very smell of the rotting potatoes gave rise to a small-pox and Interic fever. How blight came remains a mystery.
The grandfather of John Cantwell, Graigue, Callan, Co. Kilkenny was found dead in a field with grass in his mouth as a result of the famine. - My Great Grandfather told a story about the time when potatoes were getting back to normal again.
He passed down by a garden one day where a man was digging potatoes. He said to the man: "Well, Mick, how are the potatoes?" The man answered: "Ah! they're fair enough. Some are as big as gooseberries and others are like yellow whate." i.e. Indian Corn.
