School: An Clochar, Gráig na Muilte Iarainn

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1. Famine (continued)

   

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   of Upperforge, whose death occurred only about ten years ago at the age of ninety six years; remembered many sad events around the district at that time. She often saw the poor people coming into her own yard to pick up the skins of turnips and mangolds in order to eat them. She also saw them entering a field and making a meal of raw turnips. Some of them would eat too much and she often saw them taking fits and dying from the effects.
   When the famine first visited the district some of the people had a supply of oatmeal in their homes so they used it to make porridge and have it for all their meals. They used wooden noggins shaped like a jug for drinking purposes.
   Then in later times owing to the failure of potato crop some of these people we[re] unable to pay the rent of their little homes. In that case the Landlord would send an emergency man known as Fredrick Carroll to tumble the house to the ground. It was often known to occur when they would have the porridge cooking for the breakfast or dinner.
   The ruins of some of these houses are still to be seen; one of them in Lowertown Woodford, known as "Quirk'es Old Walls" and a few more in Upperforge. There were also the ruins of houses on Bark-Hill when the

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. time
      1. historical periods by name (~25)
         1. the great famine (~4,013)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Denis Malone

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   72

   Address

   Woodford, Co. Galway