School: Cluain Abhann (roll number 16127)
- Location:
- Cloonown, Co. Roscommon
- Teachers: Seán Ó Riain Máirtín Ó Riain
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0270, Page 152
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- The great famine occurred in the years of 1846 and '47, caused by the blight which destroyed the potato crop in the summer of 1846. As the people unfortunately left themselves dependent for food on the potato crop, the result of the potato failure was starvation among the people. In this district of Clonown it is said to be not as severe as in other districts. The following is an account of it given to me by my father.
The population at that time was almost double what it is now, and a good many people died of hunger, whilst others of emigrated to England, Scotland, Canada and the United States, to escape death from hunger at home. At the start it was not so bad as the people could eat porridge. When all the oat meal was used up the(continues on next page)
