A reference to Owen C. (Charles) McCarthy of Dunmanway in attendee of the “Failure of the Potato Crop Meeting in Dunmanway” as reported in The Evening Packet, dated Saturday, August 29th, 1846.

Owen Charles was born at Kilbarry West about 1780 and died in his residence at the Market Square in March 1859.

In his mid-60s in 1846, the year was decisive in this emergency situation with very few healthy potatoes harvested due to another fungus attack on this staple food crop.

Convened in response to the distress caused by the crop failure, this large crisis assembly had “magistrates, landed proprietors, and clergy of all denominations”¹, along with farmers and labourers of the surrounding country, as well as the merchant farmer Owen Charles in attendance. The wide-ranging presence of persons of all backgrounds demonstrates that they all had a direct interest in the meeting in the hope to influence those with access to the government so to quickly set up famine relief programs for the ‘laboring population’.

Figure 1. The list of those in attendance reads like a who’s who of the West Riding of the county of Cork for the year 1846. Copyright © The British Library Board.

Figure 2. The full article reporting the event. Copyright © The British Library Board.

REFERENCES

TEXT

1. Failure of the Potato Crop Meeting in Dunmanway. (1846, August 29). Dublin Evening Packet and Correspondent. Retrieved from findmypast.com

images

1. Failure of the Potato Crop Meeting in Dunmanway. (1846, August 29). Dublin Evening Packet and Correspondent. Retrieved from findmypast.com
2. Failure of the Potato Crop Meeting in Dunmanway. (1846, August 29). Dublin Evening Packet and Correspondent. Retrieved from findmypast.com

Additional RESOURCES 

Letters on the Great Famine, An Drochshaol. Meitheal Dúchas.ie