Junior Cycle History Source Questions ( OLD COURSE ): RURAL IRELAND c. 1850 (30 marks)

Question

RURAL IRELAND c. 1850 (30 marks)

Quotations from Famine Echoes, ed. Cathal Poirteir. Gill & Macmillan (1995).
Originally from Folklore Commission interviews in 1930s and 1940s.

SOURCE D

J.O' Kane, Dromore National School, Dromore West, Co Sligo.

The depopulation of this district during the years 1845-1855 or so, according to what I can gather, is almost unbelievable. The depopulation was caused for more by emigration than by death caused by hunger, although hunger took its toll in every district here, and indeed in every townland. A conservative estimate I would say is this, that between two-thirds and four-fifths of the total population, young and old, disappeared in the 10 years 1845-55, through death, mainly starvation, but principally through emigration. Townland of Belville near Mrs. Joyce’s Public House, a whole village wiped out. Townland or whole village at Belville with at least ten houses. As a matter of fact the number of ruined houses in this district, when I came here 35 years ago, was one aspect of the place most extraordinary and most depressing.

I was always told that emigrants left home secretly to go to Sligo where they went on board ship at the dead of night. I asked at last why in the middle of the night, why not go in the daytime. They said that if the emigrants went in the daytime and if the landlord knew of their going, he might or would hold them and take from them money and everything else they had, and so their last state would be worse than their first. They would have nothing then at home to live on and not [have] the wherewithal to emigrate.

RURAL IRELAND c - Junior Cycle History - Question 5 - 2006

Worked Solution & Example Answer:RURAL IRELAND c - Junior Cycle History - Question 5 - 2006

What does the author say was the greater cause of depopulation?

According to the author, what was the impact of depopulation on the Dromore area?

Give two reasons why they chose to leave in the middle of the night.

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