Skibbereen is one of the most significant towns in Ireland in terms of its Famine heritage; it  truly was the ‘ground zero’ of Ireland’s Great Hunger. And Windmill Hill/The Rock was one of the worst-affected areas in Skibbereen.



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Windmill Lane

Like their neighbours on the Windmill Rock, the occupants of Windmill Lane suffered terribly during the Famine and we have a few contemporary reports from Windmill Lane too:

“In the town of Skibbereen, a person named Crowly [sic] died on Christmas Day in Windmill-lane; and because his friends could not procure the price of a coffin, they kept him in the house for five days, until the corpse was in a state of putrifacation, and had to be removed. Irish Examiner, 6 January 1847.

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“Another case is that of the Widow Lynch, who also lived in Windmill Lane. This poor woman came into town about four months ago, from a neighbouring village with four children depending on her. Sometime after her arrival one of the children was attacked by fever, and died; another of them was shortly after visited by the same disease … and hardly had the corpse of this infant been removed for interment, before the third of them was smitten in a like manner … the mother was attacked by the same malady, and lay stretched upon the straw with her dying child. Impelled by the cries of her starving infant … she crawled from her sick bed when her disease was at its climax, and staggered down to the town … – she dropped on that day in the street; she was carried home, and she died on Friday last in her hovel.’ The Southern Reporter, 2 January 1847.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha 

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