#an gorta mor
Potato bed remnants in Mayo, Ireland from 1845–52
Potato bed remnants in Mayo, Ireland from 1845–52
Land holdings were so small and of such poor quality that families could support themselves only through the planting of potatoes. To know why so many Irish families subsisted on such small plots of land, one must re-examine the ‘Penal Laws’ which were introduced in 1690 after the Catholic supporters of James II were defeated by the Protestant forces of William of Orange. These were laws that…
#OTD in 1848 – At Grosse Île, Canada, 40 immigrant vessels wait to unload.
#OTD in 1848 – At Grosse Île, Canada, 40 immigrant vessels wait to unload.
The island of Grosse Île lies 30 miles downstream of Quebec City in the St. Lawrence River. Once a quarantine station for ships bringing immigrants to the Canadas from Europe, mid-nineteenth-century outbreaks of cholera and typhus led to several thousand Irish deaths aboard ships in quarantine and on Grosse Île itself. This trauma has lived on in the Irish diaspora’s memorialisation of the island…
Ireland 1847
Asenath Nicholson “When I stood in the burying-ground, I saw the brown silken hair of a young girl, waving gently through a little cleft of stones, that lay loosely upon her young breast. They had not room to put her beneath the surface, but slightly, and a little green grass was pulled and spread over, and then covered with stones. I never shall forget it.” Taken from The Truth Behind The Irish…
