“The Tithe War, that was the time of the fight at Carrickshock.  A narrow passage that was in it, and the people were holding it against the police that came with the Proctor.  There was a Captain defending the Proctor that had been through the Battle of Waterloo, and it was the Proctor they fired at, but the Captain fell dead, and fourteen police were killed with him.  But the people were beat after, and were brought into court for the trial, and the counsel for the Crown was against them, Dougherty.  They were tried in batches, and every batch was condemned, Dougherty speaking out the case against them.  But O’Connell, that was at that time at Cork Assizes, heard of it, and he came, and when he got to the door the pony that brought him dropped dead.  He came in and he took refreshment—­bread and milk—­the same as I am after taking now, and he looked up and he said ‘That is no law.’  Then the judge agreed with him, and he got every one of them off after that; but only for him they would swing.  The Tithes were bad, a farmer to have three stacks they’s take the one of them.  And that was the first time of the hurling matches, to gather the people against the Tithes.  But there was hurling in the ancient times in Ireland, and out in Greece, and playing at the ball, and that is what is called the Olympian Games.”

THE BIG WIND

“As to the Big Wind, I was on my elder sister’s back going to a friend beyond, and when I was coming back it was slacked away, and I was wondering at the holes in the houses.”  “I was up to twelve year at the time of the Big Wind that was in ’39, and I was over at Roxborough with my father that was clearing timber from the road, and your father came out along the road, and he was wild seeing the trees and rocks whipped up into the sky the way they were with the wind.  But what was that to the bitter time of the Famine that came after?”

THE FAMINE

“The Famine; there’s a long telling in that, it is a thing will be remembered always.  That little graveyard above, at that time it was filled full up of bodies; the Union had no way to buy coffins for them.  There would be a bag made, and the body put into it, that was all; and the people dying without priest, or bishop, or anything at all.  But over in Connemara it was the dogs brought the bodies out of the houses, and asked no leave.”

THE CHOLERA

“The cholera was worse again.  It came from foreign, and it lasted a couple of years, till God drove it out of the country.  It is often I saw a man ploughing the garden in the morning till dinner time, and before evening he would be dead.  It was as if on the wind it came, there was no escape from it; on the wind, the same as it would come now and would catch on to pigs.  Sheds that would be made out in the haggards to put the sick in, they would turn as black as your coat.  There was no one could go near them without he would have a glass of whiskey taken, and he wouldn’t like it then.”