School: Balrath (1) (roll number 9770)
- Location:
- Balrath, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: C. Ní Pharthaláin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0719, Page 323
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Balrath (1)
- XML Page 323
- XML “The Famine”
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
- There was a great famine in the year 1846 and '47 caused by the of the potato crop in the Summer of '45. About a million are said to have died of hunger. The people depended mostly on the potato crop for food.
A lot of people went over to America and other countries to escape death from hunger at home. The people died not only in their houses but also on the road side, in the fields and on the streets of the cities.
Some people were not able to pay their rent and the Land Lord threw them out of their homes to die along the road. In some places the people lkilled the donkeys and ate them. Some ate grass; some roots. Some pulled the turnips and ate them.
The English passes a law that anyone who would be found outside his own house between sunset in the evening and sunrise in the morning would be sent across the sea for fourteen years and put in prison there.(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Brigid Hand
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Balrath, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- John Hand
- Relation
- Parent
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 60
- Occupation
- Farmer
- Address
- Balrath, Co. Westmeath
