The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #81145   Message #1483929
Posted By: Muttley
13-May-05 - 05:01 AM
Thread Name: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
Subject: Songs about The Potato Famine - Ireland
Are there any songs which deal with the hardships, times an/or consequences of the Potato Famine

Just wondering, given the historic significance of the Great Famine of the 1850's in Ireland as a result of the Potato Blight - it was certainly a major factor in the numbers of migrants who fled both willingly and unwillingly to Australia and America in those times as well as accounting for horrendous loss of life in Ireland itself and numbers of convicts sent to Australia (albeit towards the end of Transportation).

I am curious as I am a "child of the Famine" so to speak as my 3 (or maybe 4) times great Grandmother was transported as a 12 year old from Ireland during the Famine. She had been a serving girl in a British Officers Mess (I think outside Dublin) and was instructed to give the food scraps/leftovers to the pigs. However seeing as the pigs were already fat and ready for the knife and that her family was starving - she took the scraps home and fed her family and gave the pigs their regular slops instead. For this she was arrested, charged with theft and sentenced to 5 years transportation.

Anyway - if anyone has anything I'd love to hear about it - chords and or tunes would be good too - some may be simply-chorded enough for me to be able to do.