The Great Famine in Castlecomer - Secret Societies, Communism and Coal Part II

Irish History Podcast

Fin Dwyer

Ireland, Irish History, Norman Invasion, Great Hunger, Vikings, Interviews, History, War Of Independence, Great Famine

4.7 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2015

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1845 life in the Castlecomer Coalfields was racked by economic recession and grinding poverty. When the potato crop, the staple diet of millions across Ireland, failed disaster struck. In the following years around one million Irish people died and over one million emigrated.

In Castlecomer the fate of thousands lay in the hands on one man - Charles Wandesforde - the mine owner and local landlord. His decisions were controversial but it not easy to decide whether they were good bad. One thing is for certain life in the coalfield would never be the same again.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a passenger announcement. You can now book your train on Uber and get 10% back in credits to spend on Uber eats.
0:11.0	So you can order your own fries instead of eating everyone else's.
0:15.0	Trains, now on Uber. T's and C's apply. Check the Uber app. Hello and this is the
0:23.0	this is the second part of secret
0:25.0	hello and welcome to the Irish history podcast
0:31.0	my name is Finn Duwir and this is the second part of Secret
0:34.9	Society's Communism and Coal. Life in the Castle Comer Collier. In the first
0:39.6	installation of this series we looked at the tough life of the miners in the coal field in the early 19th century
0:46.0	and their bitter struggles against the mine owners,
0:49.0	the Wandersford family in the early 1830s.
0:52.0	This episode takes us true to the 1840s and without doubt the
0:57.1	darkest chapter in modern Irish history, the Great Famine. This epoch changing event transformed life not only in the colliery but across Ireland forever.
1:07.0	So the entire episode focuses on the years of the Great Famine 1845 to 1852.
1:14.8	The story of Castle Comer during these years is somewhat different to the experience of
1:19.6	other parts of Ireland and is very much related to the way people lived in the coal fields.
1:25.0	So first we'll begin with a visit to the area on the eve of the Great Famine which began in 1845.
1:45.3	If we were to travel back and visit the Coalfield in the early 1840s, perhaps one of the most immediate things that would strike us would be the population density, something that influenced life in every way imaginable.
1:50.3	On the eve of the great famine, even in rural parts of the colliery districts outside the town itself,
1:56.2	nearly all available land was taken up with houses and cabins of colliers.
2:01.0	These were small with one or two rooms, often built on less than an acre of land.
2:07.2	By 1841, the coal field was the most densely populated rural region in the entire province of Lenster.
2:14.7	This was not a recent phenomenon but had roots decades earlier.
	...

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