“Accounts received from different parts of Ireland show that the disease in the potato crop is extending far and wide, and causing great alarm amongst the peasantry. Mr. John Chester, of Kilscorne House, in Magshole, Co Louth, in a letter to the Dublin Evening Post, states that he has a field of twenty acres of potatoes, which, up to the 3rd instant, had been perfectly dry and sound, when they were attacked by the blight, and three-fourths of them are so diseased and rotten that pigs decline to eat them. This, he says, is the case all through the county of Louth.”

Featured Image | This Memorial was erected in 1999 to recall for posterity the people of Co Roscommon who died during An Gorta Mór. It represents the suffering of families and the utter desperation of the people during that lamentable period of our history. The Memorial was unveiled on 25th August 1999 by President Mary McAleese | Martina Larkin Hourigan Photography