Famine walls

Last updated

A section of wall from County Clare, Ireland N67 - Wall, Grassland, Dwellings north of Famine Memorial - geograph.org.uk - 3087580.jpg
A section of wall from County Clare, Ireland

Famine walls were built throughout Ireland, especially in the west and south, in the mid-19th century, during the Great Famine. The walls were built as famine-relief works projects, sponsored by landlords and churches to provide work and income for unemployed peasants. [1] [2] [3] [4] As payment, workers received food or money, and many of the walls served little practical purpose other than giving work to the poor and clearing the land of stones. [5]

The walls are generally around 8–10 feet high and 300 yards long. [2] Along some of the walls are periodic holes built in to the structures, which records say were a way for two parties to stand on opposite sides of the wall and touch fingers through a hole, signifying making an agreement or contract. [1] [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Achill Island</span> Island off the western coast of Ireland, in County Mayo

Achill Island is the largest of the Irish isles and lies off the west coast of Ireland in County Mayo. It had a population of 2,345 in the 2022 census. Its area is around 148 km2 (57 sq mi). Achill is attached to the mainland by Michael Davitt Bridge, between the villages of Achill Sound and Polranny. A bridge was first completed here in 1887. Other centres of population include the villages of Keel, Dooagh, Dooega, Dooniver, and Dugort. The parish's main Gaelic football pitch and secondary school are on the mainland at Polranny. Early human settlements are believed to have been established on Achill around 3000 BC. A significant geographical feature of the island is peat bog. The parish of Achill consists of Achill Island, Achillbeg, Inishbiggle and the Corraun Peninsula.

Roscommon is the county town and the largest town in County Roscommon in Ireland. It is roughly in the centre of Ireland, near the meeting of the N60, N61 and N63 roads. The town is in a civil parish of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birr, County Offaly</span> Town in County Offaly, Ireland

Birr is a town in County Offaly, Ireland. Between 1620 and 1899 it was called Parsonstown, after the Parsons family who were local landowners and hereditary Earls of Rosse. The town is in a civil parish of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dry stone</span> Construction method

Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. A certain amount of binding is obtained through the use of carefully selected interlocking stones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ross Castle</span> 15th century castle in Ireland

Ross Castle is a 15th-century tower house and keep on the edge of Lough Leane, in Killarney National Park, County Kerry, Ireland. It is the ancestral home of the Chiefs of the Clan O'Donoghue, later associated with the Brownes of Killarney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westport, County Mayo</span> Town in County Mayo, Ireland

Westport is a town in County Mayo in Ireland. It is at the south-east corner of Clew Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast of Ireland. Westport is a tourist destination and scores highly for quality of life. It won the Irish Tidy Towns Competition three times in 2001, 2006 and 2008. In 2012 it won the Best Place to Live in Ireland competition run by The Irish Times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strokestown</span> Town in County Roscommon, Ireland

Strokestown, also known as Bellanamullia and Bellanamully, is a small town in County Roscommon, Ireland. It is one of the 27 designated Heritage Towns in Ireland. Located in the part of the country marketed for tourism purposes as Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, it is 140 km (87 mi) from Dublin and 120 km (75 mi) from Galway. Strokestown is one of Ireland's few planned towns, showing evidence of deliberate planning, such as formally aligned streets and prominent public buildings.

The architecture of Ireland is one of the most visible features in the Irish countryside – with remains from all eras since the Stone Age abounding. Ireland is famous for its ruined and intact Norman and Anglo-Irish castles, small whitewashed thatched cottages and Georgian urban buildings. What are unaccountably somewhat less famous are the still complete Palladian and Rococo country houses which can be favourably compared to anything similar in northern Europe, and the country's many Gothic and neo-Gothic cathedrals and buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zhonghua Gate, Nanjing</span> Southern gateway to the city of Nanjing

The Zhonghua Gate, is a gate and defensive complex on the city wall of Nanjing, China. This is the southern gate of Nanjing city. It is a renowned ancient city gate in China and the city gate with the most complex structure in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golghar</span> Large granary in Patna, Bihar, India

The Golghar or Gol Ghar (गोलघर), is a large granary located to the west of the Gandhi Maidan in Patna, capital of Bihar state, India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neale, County Mayo</span> Village in Connacht, Ireland

Neale, also known as the Neale, is a small village in the south of County Mayo in Ireland. It is located near the villages of Cong 4 km to the south-west, Cross 4 km to the south and the town of Ballinrobe about 5 km to the north.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dovecote</span> Structure intended to house pigeons or doves

A dovecote or dovecot, doocot (Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pigeonholes for the birds to nest. Pigeons and doves were an important food source historically in the Middle East and Europe and were kept for their eggs and dung.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adare Manor</span> Manor house and hotel in County Limerick, Ireland

Adare Manor is a manor house located on the banks of the River Maigue in the village of Adare, County Limerick, Ireland, the former seat of the Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl. The present house was built in the early 19th century, though retaining some of the walls of the 17th-century structure. It is now the Adare Manor Hotel & Golf Resort, a luxury hotel, and contains the Michelin-starred Oak Room restaurant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dunsany Castle and Demesne</span> Castle begun 12th century, in continuous ownership, County Meath, Ireland

Dunsany Castle, Dunsany, County Meath, Ireland is a modernised Anglo-Norman castle, started c. 1180 / 1181 by Hugh de Lacy, who also commissioned the original Killeen Castle, nearby, and the famous Trim Castle. It is one of Ireland's oldest homes in continuous occupation, possibly the longest occupied by a single family, having been held by the Cusack family and their descendants by marriage, the Plunketts, from foundation to the present day. The castle is surrounded by its demesne, the inner part of the formerly extensive Dunsany estate. The demesne holds a historic church, a walled garden, a stone farm complex, and an ice house, among other features, and is home to a wide range of fauna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doohoma</span> Townland in Connacht, Ireland

Doohoma or Doohooma is a townland, peninsula and a census town in the County Mayo Gaeltacht, Ireland. It is located on Ireland's Atlantic coastline overlooking Achill Island and the Mullet Peninsula.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ness of Brodgar</span> British archaeological site

The Ness of Brodgar is an archaeological site covering 2.5 hectares between the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site on the main Island of Orkney, Scotland. The site was excavated from 2003 to 2024. The site is set to be infilled shortly, due to concerns about damage to the structures exposed by excavation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strokestown Park</span> 18th-century house in County Roscommon, Ireland

Strokestown Park House is a Palladian style Georgian house in Strokestown, County Roscommon, Ireland, set on about 300 acres (120 ha).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Commemorative Stone</span>

The Irish Commemorative Stone is a monument in Pointe-Saint-Charles, island of Montreal, Quebec commemorating the deaths from "ship fever" (typhoid) of 6,000 mostly Irish immigrants to Canada during the immigration following the Great Irish Famine in the years 1847-1848.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Great George's Street</span> A Georgian Street on the Northside of Dublin

North Great George's Street is a street on the Northside of Dublin city first laid out in 1766 which connects Parnell Street with Great Denmark Street. It consists of opposing terraces of 4-storey over basement red-brick Georgian townhouses descending on an increasingly steep gradient from Belvedere House which bookends the street from a perpendicular aspect to the North.

References

  1. 1 2 "Stone Walls". www.dochara.com. 29 December 2008. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 "Famine Wall at Maghery". www.discoveringireland.com. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  3. Kinealy, Christine (14 March 2017). The Great Irish Famine: Impact, Ideology and Rebellion. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN   978-1-350-31722-2.
  4. "Famine-era wall in Ballyhogue made a protected structure". independent. 21 November 2020. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  5. "Ireland's Famine Walls Text". slkphotography. Retrieved 27 January 2023.