School: Cill Thiomáin, Durrus, Bantry (roll number 15989)

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1. Horrors of the Famine (continued)

   

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   with a population of about 16,000 still living containing the villages of Goleen and Schull I did not see a child at play in the streets or on the roads. No children are to be seen outside the doors but a few sick and dying creatures. I made this same remark in Bantry and along the road for twenty miles leading to it it, and this I remarked to several persons, clergy and magistrates, whose experience was the same as my own. In the districts which are now being depopulated by starvation coffins are only used by the more wealthy. In every village the manufacture of coffins was remarkable at the door of carpenters' houses and in the country parts I often met coffins carried by women on their backs and also the boards to make them. At Glengarriff, strange to say, the Roman Catholic Chapel is turned into a place for making coffins. Seeing two men at work there, I went in, in company with Rev. Mr. Morgan the curate of the parish. I said to one of the carpenters : "What are you making boy?" "Coffins and wheelbarrows, sir," he answered respectfully, and I saw the planks marked out for the sawyer, to the length of coffins. At Bantry I saw lying at the corner of one of the streets two coffins for the use of the poor; they call them "trap coffins" the bottom is supported by hinges at one side and by a

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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

   Collector

   Eileen O' Driscoll

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Kilcomane, Co. Cork