Mcgallagher Surname Ancestry ResultsOur indexes 1000-1999 include entries for the spelling 'mcgallagher'. In the period you have requested, we have the following 1 record (displaying 1 to 1):
These sample scans are from the original record. You will get scans of the full pages or articles where the surname you searched for has been found.
Your web browser may prevent the sample windows from opening; in this case please change your browser settings to allow pop-up windows from this site.
Destitution in Donegal (1858)
Hearing of extreme distress in Gweedore and Cloughaneely in Donegal (including Tory Island), an investigation was made by a group of clergymen, gentlemen and newspaper reporters, who found a large part of the populace (800 families) to be in severe poverty - clad in rags, barefoot, living in mud hovels, without furniture, beds or bedding, and subsisting for much of the year only by scavenging seaweed and shellfish from the seashore - beset by rapacious landlords (with their apparatus of lawyers and bailiffs) raising their rents and confiscating the mountain lands on which the poor had relied for pasture. A parliamentary Select Committee was appointed to investigate: its report includes detailed minutes of evidence of their investigations, including testimony relating to many named individuals who had coped with the local crisis and survived, or those who died, and lists of those whose cases had been looked into. The landlords rebutted any suggestion of impropriety, suggesting that when the investigation was made 'a great deal was got up for the occasion' by an inherently dirty peasantry that kept their animals in their houses, in the hope of obtaining relief money (which, to the tune of £3,200, had been received, mainly from England). Seaweed was remarkably nutritious. It was remarked that 'some of the men go to England and Scotland to earn money' and that 'a few young people emigrate yearly to join their relations in America and Australia'.
MCGALLAGHER. Cost: £8.00.  | Sample scan, click to enlarge
|
Research your ancestry, family history, genealogy and one-name study by direct access to original records and archives indexed by surname.
