Reputed Soup Pot from Famine Soup Kitchen, Newtown, Bantry.

 

It is remarkable and a testament to the Irish people that Ireland has gone from famine, pestilence and mass emigration to being one of the most prosperous countries in the world.   It may be the case that in 200 years time countries such as Ethiopia will emulate Ireland.

 

 

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Rev. Robert Oliver and the Famine, Soup Boiler in Myross,  Spouses, Elizabeth Anne Levis, Skibbereen, Elizabeth Watkins Driscoll, Clonakilty.

Subscribers and Rules of Soup Kitchen, Skibbereen, West Cork, 1846.

Remnant of Ardgoeena (Árd na Gaoine/Height of the Flint Stones) House of Evanson Family, Durrus, West Cork on Former Ploughlands of O’Mahonys.

Famine in Skibbereen, West Cork, 1847, In the Parish of Kilmoe fourteen die on Sunday. Three of these are buried in coffins—ELEVEN ARE BURIED WITHOUT OTHER COVERING THAN THE RAGS THEY WORE WHILE ALIVE. And one gentleman, a good and charitable man, speaking of this case says—“I would rather give a shilling to a starving man than four-and-sixpence for a coffin.” One hundred and forty died in the Skibbereen Workhouse in one month ; eight have died in one day ! And Mr. M’CARTHY DOWNING states that “they came into the house merely and solely for the purpose of getting a coffin.”

The kitchen was located in Newtown, Bantry in the vicinity of the new Lidl Superkarket:

 

 

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The pot was probably suspended by chains over a crane.  The pot type was used elsewhere as in around Goleen for boiling fishing nets inn a preserving solution.