Charles Egan wrote a bit of history of the Irish\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1<\/p>\n
The late 1840\u2019s were cruel for the Irish<\/p>\n
Potato crops were a staple of the Irish<\/p>\n
A blight on the crops starved many of the Irish<\/p>\n
Rotting from the center, devastating the Irish<\/p>\n
And then, a harsh winter wiped out many Irish.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Killing Snows<\/em>, the first of a trilogy shows the Irish\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 2<\/p>\n Tragedy, from the perspective of one family of strong Irish.<\/p>\n This family were ordinary and extraordinary Irish<\/p>\n Ordinary needs for food and hope are not uniquely Irish<\/p>\n The need to pay the rent, also not uniquely Irish<\/p>\n The fact that life moved on, of course not uniquely Irish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Extraordinary were the habits of the Ryans, proudly Irish\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 3<\/p>\n Like saving seed potatoes, for planting the next year, smart Irish<\/p>\n But the rot did not reward discipline for these Irish<\/p>\n The rot filled their bins as well as the fields of these Irish.<\/p>\n Bread and corn will have to suffice for these Irish<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Physical strength in their teen and adult son \u2013 fortunate Irish.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 4<\/p>\n And the fact that they had been hard working Irish,<\/p>\n Running a quarry of shale and stone made them reputable Irish.<\/p>\n So when relief came \u2013 it needed local workers to dispense to the Irish<\/p>\n Jobs that were back straining, almost impossible for the hungry Irish<\/p>\n Government programs underestimated the need of the Irish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The government aid overestimated the work possible by the weakened Irish\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5<\/p>\n But aid would not be given to the non-working Irish.<\/p>\n Laws based on fear of \u201cencouraging people to be lazy\u201d further starved the Irish<\/p>\n The local market suffered the truth of supply and demand and that Irish<\/p>\n Corn was rare and expensive and pitiful and the ONLY vegetable to feed the Irish<\/p>\n And it was not even possible for too many Irish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Ryan\u2019s were fortunate in having that quarry to give work to the Irish\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a06<\/p>\n But the work was government work, with policies not based on care for the Irish.<\/p>\n Policies were based on stretching the aid money to as many as possible – \u00a0Irish<\/p>\n And the numbers of people in the vulnerable hills were uncounted Irish.<\/p>\n The Ryans were fair, but hunger affects a person\u2019s thoughts, even the proud Irish<\/p>\n Stealing a cow becomes more necessary than fairness, for the local Irish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am a descendant of the surviving Boyles and Callahans, true Irish.<\/p>\n It feeds our souls to know what troubles have been endured, and being true Irish<\/p>\n We commit ourselves to being quick to help and never to waste \u2013 as true Irish.<\/p>\n By Nancy Ann Smith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Charles Egan wrote a bit of history of the Irish\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 1 The late 1840\u2019s were cruel for the Irish Potato crops were a staple of the Irish A blight on the crops starved many of the Irish Rotting from the center, devastating the Irish And…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1136],"tags":[4464,4463,1634,4462,4465],"class_list":["post-95118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts","tag-famine","tag-irish","tag-prompt-8","tag-sestine","tag-starvation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95185,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95118\/revisions\/95185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}