Black+47

= BLACK 47 =

Black 47 was the worst year for the famine. Many people died. Black 47 was the worst year for famine because not only did they have to worry about the potatoes and blight but now they had to worry about diseases mostly because they were not getting enough vitamin c, the disease you got from lack of vitamin c was scurvy. In potatoes there is lots but since the potatoes had blight no one could eat them.

Black 47s winter was the coldest in living memory. It was so bad that the public works couldnt continue, but without the pay people would starve. Many people were turning up to weak; or hungrey to work but they paid them anyway. The Board of Works had spent over 5 million that winter and was running out of money.

Conditions during the famine were ideal for the spread of disease. Large numbers of people weakened by hunger were huddled together in cabins or workhouses. Their clothes were no more than rags covered with lice (bugs that carry diseases) The fever had reached epidemic proportions by March of 1847.The fever was worst in April when during a single week 2,613 inmates (a person who is confined in a hospitle) of work houses were declared dead. September brought some relife, but by now people thought the land was cursed and those who could, boarded coffin ships to go to America, Canida and England. Unfortunately they brought the fevers with them

In a letter in March 1847, Rev. F.F. Trench described children ill with fever. Here is a short extract: On entering a house a doctor said “Look their sir you can’t tell if the children are girls or boys. Taking up a skeleton child.