Famine Times

transcribed at

Famine Times  [duchas:4360651]

Famine Times
It affected the village of Derryronane very much. Before that time the village was very thickly populated. There is one house in ruins to be seen to day Mrs Brennan Derryronane Swinford, who was evicted during the famine. She went to America and was never heard of since.
   The potatoes went bad in the ground. When the bluestone was first brought into use the people would not put it on the potatoes they said it would make them worse. They lived on water cress and salt. Some people who were fairly well off used to buy bags of yellow meal and give some to the poor people.
   The government relieved the people by lending out money and making roads but this relief came la?. It was during the famine of 1846 and 1847 the road going from Swinford to

Famine Times  [duchas:4360652]

Kilkelly was made. The people that worked on it got 4 or 5 stone of yellow meal a week and sometimes 5 shillings. The people carried stones on their backs and anyone who had an ass put them them in creels and the ass carried them.
    Thousands of people went to America and thousands died by the ways wayside. As the people were very poor they could not afford a coffin so they were wrapped in straw and thrown into a pit. Some were thrown in without anything around them.
    This was a song sung when they were evicted.
They are going , going, going from the valleys and the hills.
They are leaving far behind them heathery moors and mountain rills.
All the wealty of hawthorn hedges

Famine Times  [duchas:4360653]

where the brown thrush sway and thrills.

They are going sky eyed cailins and lads lads so straight and tall.
From the purple peaks of Kerry.
From the crags of wild Imaal.
From the green plains of Mayo and the hills of Donegal.

Told by Mrs Pat Salmon, Derryronane, Swinford, Co Mayo
age 80 years
Written by Sabina Burke Cashel N.S. Swinford
Told by Anne Dunleavy Derryronane Swinford