An expert historian will give what should be a fascinating talk tomorrow night on life and death in east Donegal during the Great Famine.
Dr Arlene Crampsie will be guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Ballybofey, Stranorlar & District Historical Society in Henderson Hall, Stranorlar, at 7.30pm. A Drumkeen native, Dr Crampsie is a lecturer in historical geography based in the School of Geography UCD.
The focus of tomorrow night’s talk will be the fall in Stranorlar Union’s population, by some 4,000 people, between 1841 and 1852. However, the drop did not occur evenly across the parishes and townlands of the Union. While some townlands experienced an increase in population others saw populations decimated to half the pre-famine figures.
A range of factors including, but not limited to, the failure of the potato crops need to be explored to explain the differences in survival rates in a period where we expect to see large declines everywhere. This talk will set the population changes in Stranorlar Union in a wider regional context, before considering the local factors that dictated patterns of life and death throughout the Great Famine in the area. The talk will also highlight a number of key sources that can be used by local historians interested in learning more about their local areas in this period.
This talk is free of charge and everyone is welcome to attend. Membership of this group is rising all the time, so if you are interested in local history, please come and join in. Meetings and talks take place on the fourth Monday of the month in the Henderson Hall (F93 XV29). For further information on the society, and updates, go to their Facebook page or email bsadhs@gmail.com
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