Billy Lawless (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to second everything my colleague, Senator Boyhan, has said. I was honoured to attend the National Famine Commemoration last Sunday in Sligo and I would like to commend the County Sligo Famine commemoration committee on a superb event. I was so deeply moved by the booklet produced for Sunday’s event, that I have requested a copy for every Member of the Oireachtas. It is vital that we read it and remember our past. I would like to read this short recollection of the Famine from a Mrs. McDermott of Templeboy, Sligo:

A man named Doherty lived with his wife and six children in Grangemore. During the Famine they were starving. His wife and six children died from hunger, and he carried them in a sack, and buried them in a hole in Shaw’s field. Some time afterwards, he died by the roadside and when he was found, grass and other green vegetables were found in and around his mouth.

People died along the roadside and in the fields. A man named Healy, who lived in Lugdun, was one morning going to the well for water, when he fell on the roadside and died. He was buried in a box in his own garden. Fourteen families, left Cartron and Lugdun for the Emigrant Ship in one day.

This is from The Sligo Championof January 1847:

Although 35 persons in fever were sent from the Workhouse to the Hospital, they are still lying three in a bed, in the former institution! Good God! Think of three fever patients crowded together, upon the one narrow bed! Fever sheds are being erected as speedily as possible, and when they are completed the poor sufferers will, of course be better treated, and have a greater chance of recovery.

Ireland is now a prosperous and global nation but these recollections show us we must never forget this terrible blight on our history.