School: Meelick (C.)
- Location:
- Meelick, Co. Clare
- Teacher: Bean Uí Mhórdha
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0597, Page 207
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: Meelick (C.)
- XML Page 207
- XML “The Bad Times”
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
- When the potatoes failed the people in this place were ina bad way as they were their principal food, small turnips and Indian meal porridge were then the principal foods. When these ran short they often had to go days without any food.
Free porridge and soup were supplied to those who gave up their faith and turned Protestant. These were called “Soupers “ and “porridge’s”. Often people ate turkey weed (yarrow) and dandelion leaves and roots to keep them alive.
There is a story told of a family of seven and a poor travelling woman who sat down to eat. There were only about twelve potatoes in the house that day, they all ate enough and there were more than twelve left on the table when they were finished. Money was scarce as few had work.
The young people rising up after the famine got free passages to America nd they sent home their savings to help to pay the rent to the landlord
- Informant
- Mr John Mc Mahon
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 40
- Address
- Redgate, Co. Limerick
