Famine Secret at Drumshee
Cora Harrison writes:
‘On the hill where the fort and cottage at Drumshee were built, and on the
other hills around, are the remains of many cottages – sometimes just a mark
on the ground, sometimes a few walls, sometimes a roofless cabin. Before the
famine this was a very crowded place, but now most people live at the distance
of at least half a mile from their nearest neighbour.
One summer’s evening when the sun was low and slanted across the hill
opposite to where I live I saw, under the grass, all the lines of the ‘lazy
beds’ where the potatoes were planted. It gave me a great impression of what
this part of the west of Ireland was like before 1845.’
‘The four children looked at one another in horror as their father bent
down and picked the potatoes he just dug. As soon as he touched them, they
broke and the smell was so bad that they all turned their heads away.’
‘One of my other sources of inspiration for this book was finding the plans
for the workhouse at Ennistymon (seven miles from Drumshee). The drawings showed
the girls’ yard and the boys’ yard and the punishment cell.
‘The punishment cell was a small room with a stone floor, stone walls and
a single tiny window at the top of the wall. In the corner was a heap of straw
for a bed. In the half-darkness Fiona could see that the walls were running
with damp, and the floor was wet under her feet.
She sat on the heap of straw and buried her face in her hands. Already she
had begun to shake with cold. Two days! How could she possibly stand two days
locked in here!’
Click here to read the first chapter of the book
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World
War II Rescue at Drumshee (book 11)