School: Drumgownagh
- Location:
- Drumgownagh, Co. Leitrim
- Teacher: Dominic Ó Huiginn
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0222, Page 601
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- XML Page 601
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- XML “The Famine”
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- (continued from previous page)then into the town.
- A man named Thomas McKenna lived in Mullaghbrack in the Famine years.
In the year 1845 every farmer had a lot of potatoes. They were so plentiful that the people threw them in the ditches.
This particular man had a lot of potatoes also but he did not throw them in the ditches as his neighbours did. He made a heap of them in his garden.
In 1846 the Famine came and the people ran to him for potatoes. They gave him any money he asked. Some people offered him an acre of land for a creel of potatoes.
In the same year the potatoes were only the size of haws and the people did not bother digging them.
Thomas McKenna dug them all and he would only have the full of a four quart gallon for his day's work.
He set the little potatoes in the spring and he had a good crop of potatoes in the year 1847, while other people were pressed hard on by the Famine. - Collector
- Cáitilín Ní Ghiollariabaigh
- Gender
- Female
- Informant
- Mrs Higgins
- Occupation
- Múinteoir
