Famine in Co Leitrim

So many people reading this blog would have had ancestors that left Ireland because of "The Great Hunger" / "Famine."

I have added a few reports from this time to give you some idea on the impact  it had on the people and area.

The following is a letter from a Parish Priest that appeared in an Irish newspaper in 1847. Research is much more than names and dates.

Co.Leitrim

Parish of  Glenade, Diocese of Kilmore, per Rev. Francis O’Reilly, P.P.

Total number of deaths from October 1st, 1846 to April 1st, 1847 ? 173.

Number of same known to be occasioned by famine? 129.

Number  of deaths same period former year?  143.

I an the P.P. of the poorest parish in Ireland. I am placed in the bogs of Leitrim where the plough was never stretched; no protestant church, no resident gentleman, no magistrate, no respectable person to co-operate with me; the parish is small, and the people so very poor they could not  support a curate.
The land here consists of reclaimed bogs. No wheat. The poor people chiefly depended  on the potato - the potato perished and the people are perishing for want of them. We have no soup; for God’s sake, in the name of humanity, can you point out to me where, or how  I could procure some relief to help us to wade through these few trying weeks?

Observe that in all  cases where old people were employed on the public works, that they could not procure for themselves and family a sufficiency of food. They sank exhausted and died.

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