Just inside the entrance at Drimoleague graveyard
there is a memorial dedicated to those buried in this site during the Great Famine
This marks the site of a mass grave used during An Gorta Mór, Ireland's Great Hunger of the 1840s,
and this mass grave site is known locally as poll an gorta.
West Cork was one of the worst affected areas in Ireland during the Famine,
and the Drimoleague area lost some 42 percent of its people
to disease, starvation, and emigration during that terrible time.
We have some horrific reports about Famine conditions in Drimoleague
including this witness statement from Dr Dan Donovan about the village of Meenies,
just north of Drimoleague, which appeared in the 'Illustrated London News' in February 1847.
A man of the name of Healy died in the parish of Drimoleague about a fortnight ago,
His wife and two children remained in the house until the smell from the body
drove them from their companionship with the dead,
The remains of poor Healy were left in the house,
and a day or two afterwards some people passing his cabin heard loud snarling coming from within.
and, on entering, found the knarled and mangled skeleton of Healy
contended far by a pack of hungry dogs and pigs,
that were completing their horrid banquet on his putrid remains.
Nothing remains of the village of Meenies today but we do have another Famine story
told by children from that village about a man called Ned Good,
who was paid to bury the dead during the Famine.
One day Ned was followed by the Meenies children as he brought a body to the graveyard.
The children saw the supposedly dead man raise his arm,
and to their horror, Ned struck the arm with his spade and continued to bury the body.
The children rushed to get help and the buried man was saved.
Reverend Tuckey, Vicar at this church in Drimoleague during the Famine,
wrote about the graveyard in March 1847.
You might see pieces of coffins lying in the churchyard here,
the bodies having been torn up and devoured by dogs.
The head constable told me that on last Sunday, just before we went to church,
a body was found half eaten, dragged across the wall.
We saw a woman with her son on her back, she brought him to be buried without a coffin,
and when that was done, she went home for another.
Last Sunday we saw her again there, she had just buried her seventh and last.