A depiction of an Irish eviction by Gerardine Cooper

Sidney Osborne 1849. “The word is now given by the Agent to his destructives. If the people will not come out of the dwellings they are dragged out, with them, the bed, kettle, old wheel, tub, and one or two stools, with perhaps an old chest. Few cabins have anything to add to this list […]

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#OTD in 1847 – Eyewitness report on An Gorta Mór by James Mahoney in The Illustrated London News.

‘I started from Cork… for Skibbereen and saw little until we came to Clonakilty, where the coach stopped for breakfast; and here, for the first time, the horrors of the poverty became visible, in the vast number of famished poor, who flocked around the coach to beg alms: amongst them was a woman carrying in […]

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#OTD in 1848 – The Paddle Steamer ‘The Londonderry’, with immigrants fleeing The Great Hunger, took shelter in Derry harbour.

The ‘Londonderry’, a paddle-steamer which berthed at the quayside in Derry one Sunday in the winter of 1848 was only seven years old, big for a ship of her kind, weighing 222 tons. She was manned by a crew of 26 and often sailed between Sligo and Liverpool. On this winter trip, while hugging the […]

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#OTD in 1846 – Cork Examiner Reports on ‘An Gorta Mor’ Deaths.

“In the letter of an “Out-Door Pauper” from Macroom, will be found the recital of the death at Sleaven, from famine, of a poor woman, returning from the Workhouse, where she and her children had received their daily meal. The Tallow Relief Committee, in a resolution just forwarded to the Lord LIEUTENANT and which we […]

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#OTD in 1847 – The Passing of the Irish Poor Law Extension Act.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1847 marked a major shift in British government policy with respect to An Gorta Mór distress in Ireland. Under the new act Irish property owners and tenants would henceforth bear the full burden of fiscal responsibility for relief, which was to be administered solely by the Irish poor-law system. […]

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#OTD in 1849 – The brig Hannah transported emigrants to Canada during An Gorta Mór.

The brig Hannah transported emigrants to Canada during An Gorta Mór. She is known for the terrible circumstances of her 1849 shipwreck, in which the captain and two officers left the sinking ship aboard the only lifeboat, leaving passengers and the rest of the crew to fend for themselves. Hannah was built at Norton, New […]

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#OTD in 1846 – Daniel O’Connell speaks about the destitution all over the Ireland in The House of Commons.

“No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation’s heart and leaves to Ireland not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream.” –Daniel O’Connell In […]

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#OTD in 1847 – Eyewitness report on An Gorta Mór by James Mahoney in The Illustrated London News.

‘I started from Cork… for Skibbereen and saw little until we came to Clonakilty, where the coach stopped for breakfast; and here, for the first time, the horrors of the poverty became visible, in the vast number of famished poor, who flocked around the coach to beg alms: amongst them was a woman carrying in […]

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#OTD in 1848 – The Paddle Steamer ‘The Londonderry’, with immigrants fleeing The Great Hunger, took shelter in Derry harbour.

The ‘Londonderry’, a paddle-steamer which berthed at the quayside in Derry one Sunday in the winter of 1848 was only seven years old, big for a ship of her kind, weighing 222 tons. She was manned by a crew of 26 and often sailed between Sligo and Liverpool. On this winter trip, while hugging the […]

Read More

#OTD in 1846 – Cork Examiner Reports on ‘An Gorta Mor’ Deaths.

“In the letter of an “Out-Door Pauper” from Macroom, will be found the recital of the death at Sleaven, from famine, of a poor woman, returning from the Workhouse, where she and her children had received their daily meal. The Tallow Relief Committee, in a resolution just forwarded to the Lord LIEUTENANT and which we […]

Read More