Letters

=P5 LETTERS FROM FAMINE TIMES= = = =Today we left Dublin!=

Letter to Mary 1/12/1847 Dear Mary I need your help. Would you let me, my husband Jack and the kids to stay with you in America. We could come over on a coffinship. Nothing is going right, we are finding it very hard to find food and we can’t pay our rent. Everyone I know has been evicted .We need your support. I can feel the energy draining from me. I am struggling to carry on. Please your our only hope. Nicole

Dear mum dad,

Hi mum how are you how’s dad? When we were we out digging potatoes, little Peggy found blight on the potatoes! We are all very hungry and poor Henry has the fever!!!! George and Elsa are helping me look for food. Freedrik is out at work. A land lord gave us money to shift us to America. So we can visit you more often! Well I better help George and Elsa to look for food! Say hi to granny and grandpa! And look after the chikens. Send all my love to everyone!

Love from,

Mischelal Donfriete xxxxxxx

By ciara.L

18, December, 1847, Dear George, Business is slow, so many tenants have been evicted. Over half of the properties I rent to others, are empty! They are all having problems with their potatoes and have to spend their money on food, so they are too poor too pay the rent. I feel bad but I have to evict the poor families, I have to make a living too. I feel so lucky to have moved to England when I did. Sometimes, I decide to come back, but something always stops me. I can not see what is happening first hand, but I have heard so much from my employees, over there. I only hope the ones who were evicted, found their way to America, on a coffin ship. You don’t know how lucky you are that you went to visit your family, in New York, before this all happened. There is so much talk of the Famine in England, in the newspaper. It is dreadful, I constantly send packages over to the ones who really need it.

From, Your old friend, George Glynn

=My Famine letter= 4/3/85

Dear Mary,

We miss you so much darling. Your letters give us much joy! The big hunger (or as you said The Famine) just got worse. Your father and older brother Hugh have to go to the relief works to get some money they are both tired and hungry. They said they might close down the relief works with out it we will have no money! Sarah your sister is very ill we think she has Typhus her face is swelling and darkening we are scared she might pass away soon. Your friend Ciara left Ireland and is going to Canada with her husband and two kids Aoife and Séan we hope they get there safely. As you know all the potatoes have gone rotten they all turned black. This crop was the same I’m so upset and scared. If we don’t pay the landlord tomorrow we will get evicted. We almost have enough money to go to America and stay with you. Did you get the job yet? Is the pay good? And do you have a nice house how is that boy Danny you met? Will and Clara and there daughter Direann have been evicted and our living with us you would have loved it but I feel bad because we are hopefully going to meet you Love you loads love Mum Dad Hugh and Sarah xxxoooo By Ellie

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