School: Cloughjordan (C.) (roll number 11544)

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1. The Famine Times

   

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   The Famine Times. March 18th 1938

   There was a farmer in Ireland in the year eighteen forty six and eighteen forty seven. Ireland was thickly populated at that time there were eight and a half million people in it while now there is only the half of that four and a quarter million people. Most of the people had to eat potatoes and buttermilk. The Irish husbandman had to go to his work barefoot and covered with rags. His ruinous hovel covered with weeds. He was seated at a table sharing with his family his dry and scanty meal. His payment was usually sixpence halfpenny a day. They had only an acre of ground and they had potatoes sown in half o it and corn in the other half which they had to sell the corn to pay the rent.
   They then depended on the potato crop, but the potatoes took the blight and they decayed in the ground. The people nearly starved and they took diseases and most of the people died. They died in the fields, on the roadsides and in the towns. They even shut the doors of their houses and whole families died. They were not even put in a grave or a coffin. When the English saw the people dying they were very glad, because they thought they could get Ireland all for themselves. Then they gave employment in every parish and this made an improvement. Some of the people went out to America and they died in the ships and they were thrown out into the ocean for the sharks and other kinds of fish to eat them and they had a watery gravy. The people now are able

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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

   Kathleen Guest

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Coolnagrower, Co. Tipperary

   Informant

   John Guest

   Gender

   Male

   Occupation

   Farmer