2390 days ago
170 years ago my Church of Ireland forebears were sitting happily at Edenmoor, a country house in Donegal with bellies full while in the fields outside the poor catholics starved. Actually Donegal got off relatively lightly with its population falling by less than 20%. In Clare or Mayo the events of the Irish famine were truly terrible. A million Irish folks died and the same number emigrated. There is little doubt that British Corn Laws and the exploitative nature of the Landlord tenant relationship added to the woes of the potato blight. We Brits & the Cochranes of Ballybofey and their ilk have a good deal to answer for.
3225 days ago
My father and step mother are on a cruise… He starts treatment, to delay not cure, on his return but pro tem they have headed off on a boat to Iceland, via the Faroe Islands and – first stop – Donegal.
The last time my father was in Donegal was with me, perhaps fifteen years ago or was it twenty, as we paid a visit to the Cochrane ancestral home in Ballybofey.
