Black Forty-six

Kilgeverin, Co. Galway

The years eighteen forty six is known as black forty-six because in that year all the potatoes rotted and mostly all the people were starving. They could not afford to buy a coffin so they used to make straw mats and put the corpses into the mats and bury them. The people that had no food used to be going around begging. There was a woman in this locality who always kept a big chest for meal. She was a very generous woman and never refused meal to the poor. The people of the house said that she would run short before the year was over. She said while there was meal in the chest she would refuse nobody with the result that the chest remained full for a year no matter how she used it.

Collector: Eamonn Blake

Informant: Michael Blake, Liskeevy, Co. Galway

Place: Kilgeverin

Footnote: Duchas,http://www.duchas.ie

This page was added on 26/05/2017.

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