The Doolough Famine Walk, County Mayo
Ramblings
BBC
4.5 • 768 Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2017
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Clare Balding travels to Ireland, County Mayo, to retrace the steps of those who walked from Louisburg to Delphi, in 1849 at the height of the potato famine, in the hope of receiving aid. Now known as The Doolough Tragedy Famine Walk, hundreds of people come from all over the world to walk the twelve miles each year in memory of those who died of starvation along the route. Clare talks to Joe Murray from Afri (Action from Ireland) on whose behalf he organises the annual pilgrimage, which not only remembers those who died of hunger but also those, across the world, who now live in hunger and struggle with a shortage of food. They're joined by Mary O'Malley whose forebears suffered during the Great Hunger, or An Gorta Mor, and by Prof John Maguire who puts the famine into historical context. The music used in the programme, Turned Away, was an original piece written for the walk by Imogen Gunner. Producer: Lucy Lunt.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a BBC Radio 4 download. |
| 0:02.5 | You're listening to me. |
| 0:03.6 | Claire Balding with another edition of Ramblings. |
| 0:07.9 | I do this walk for two reasons. |
| 0:10.3 | One is to remember the people who walk this road in 1849, |
| 0:14.9 | the tragedy of Dulac. |
| 0:16.1 | When up to 600 people gathered to meet with the government representatives in the hope of receiving |
| 0:23.6 | food or admission to the workhouse. |
| 0:30.6 | But they were told by the relieving officer that he couldn't decide or he wasn't in a position |
| 0:35.6 | to decide about their future and that they would have to go to Delphi Lodge the next day. |
| 0:41.1 | Ten, eleven mile walks and many died and we've retraced that journey for 30 years now. |
| 0:48.1 | So it's to remember, but it's also in solidarity with people all over the world today |
| 0:54.0 | who are walking in search |
| 0:55.4 | of food. |
| 0:56.6 | It's a real reminder of what our family had to struggle with and what they had to overcome |
| 1:03.9 | in order for us to be here today. |
| 1:06.2 | There's that connection for all of us and the sense of of course, we're the children of survivors. |
| 1:17.9 | You've heard the voices there of Professor John McGuire of Mary O'Malley and Joe Murray. |
| 1:23.8 | They're going to be my guides today as we undertake the first in seven historic walks. |
| 1:29.6 | We're walking in the footsteps of those who marched or in this case who trudged and they trudged with fading hope of receiving support in the height of the potato famine here in Ireland. I've |
| 1:36.3 | come to the west coast and County Mayo there's a wind blowing from the west clinking against |
| 1:40.2 | a flagpost is the Irish flag and around us we're at a crossroads. Lewisburg is basically a crossroads. |
... |
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