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| Our final stop
before the hotel was a memorial of the "Great Hunger." Between 1845
and 1861, the population of Ireland declined from 8 million to 4 million:
2 million emigrated (mostly to the USA) and 2 million died as a consequence
of hunger. The chief culprit was the potato blight, imported from South
America, fed by unusually warm weather. Potatoes simply rotted in the
ground before maturing. The poorest Irish, typically tenant farmers,
were totally dependent on potatoes for sustenance; without potatoes, they
either escaped the country or they died. You'll notice that the plaque does not use the term, "famine." There was no famine. There were plenty of other kinds of food produced in the country, much of it exported, but the poor tenant farmers couldn't afford to buy it. The boy below is a four-year-old named Michael. His parents had died of hunger and he was seeking food from an alms house near the memorial site, which fed 20,000 people a day. The woman's closed fists indicate there was simply no food left. The real Michael subsequently died of the Great Hunger. |
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Against the backdrop
of the Great Hunger, with either an intentional or inadvertent irony, we
ended our organized tour tonight with a Medieval banquet, complete with Medieval
entertainment. Sheila was somewhat slowed by a cold and decided the
intelligent thing was to rest, but she insisted I go by myself and record
the festivities. It was held at Bunratty Castle, shown here.
The aim of the banquet was to give us some knowledge and sense of life in Medieval Ireland. We ate with a sharp knife and our fingers and were entertained by musicians and singers throughout dinner. It seemed a fitting end to the tour, though I missed having Sheila there. I missed Michael, too. |
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