Search Results for 'Andrew Kettle'

The threat of another famine in 1879, within living memory of the horror and catastrophe of the Great Famine some 29 years earlier, brought renewed terror to the vulnerable tenant farmers in the west of Ireland. This time it was not just the humble potato, but severe weather conditions which devastated crops and feed stuffs over a three year period. Farm incomes dropped dramatically, landlords fussed that rents would not be paid. Whereas some landlords were patient, others warned that evictions would follow if rents were not paid on time.

If any reader thought that spirituality was a dying aspiration of the Irish people, they might recall the 20,000 or so who climbed Croagh Patrick on the last Sunday of July, or go to Knock, Co Mayo, on August 15, the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Assumed into Heaven, to see thousands of people, many in family groups, happily attending Mass, saying the Stations of the Cross, eating ice-cream and chips, thoroughly enjoying the day out.