Famine Times

transcribed at

Famine Times  [duchas:4880607]

The old people could tell a great many stories about the famine between 1800 and 1845. There were potato famines but the famine which began in 1845 was far worse than any of those.
The poor people died in thousands with hunger. They had neither food, nor money to buy it. The country was thickly populated before the famine. In 1845 there was twice as many in Ireland as there are to-day.
I remember my grandfather telling us a story about the famine. One day a poor man came in to his mother and asked her in the honour of God to give him something to eat as he had  nothing to eat for two days. She got a meal ready for him and he ate it so greedily that he must have eaten too much. After a while he went out and lay down by the side of the road and died. 
My Grandfather knew some people who used to go out and look