School: Anabla
- Location:
- Anablaha, Co. Kerry
- Teacher: Seán Ó Súilleabháin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0454, Page 022
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- XML “The Famine”
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- The famine occurred in the years eighteen forty-six and forty-seven, and was caused by the blight that destroyed the potato crop. The blight came in the year eighteen forty-five and again in the year eighteen forty-six.
The food that the people had at that time was potatoes, and when the potatoes failed it caused starvation among the people. The population a that time was about double what it is now. A great many people died of hunger or of disease caused by hinger, and a great many people went to England, Scotland and American people sent foot to them.
People who were hungry and who had fever died in their homes, in the fields, and near the ditches. People unable to pay the rent twere thrown out of their houses to perish and die outside: So great was the want of good that people in some parts of Ireland were seen eating grass, and very poor people went into gardens looking for roots of turnips which were left.
People ate donkeys, horses, pigs, sheep and cows. People died in such great numbers that sometimes the dead were buried in trenches. The English government made a law that anyone, found out of his house between sunset in the evening and sunrise in the morning [?] given fourteen years transportation.
- Collector
- Pat Kerrisk
- Gender
- Male
- Address
- Inchicorrigane West, Co. Kerry
