Monday 17 June 2013

Famine Walk needs walkers and sponsors

Walkers and sponsors required! The Tracton Famine Walk will take place in County Cork on Saturday 22 June, in memory of 124 desperate men, women and children who, on 22th June 1850, abandoned their Tracton homes and trekked 8 miles to the dreaded workhouse in Kinsale (now the Community Hospital).

Why did those people abandon their homes en masse on that day? History records that the Kinsale Workhouse was overcrowded and riddled with famine fever and typhoid – how could it be better than remaining at home in Tracton?

This is one of the issues the walkers, each one representing one of those on the original trek, will be pondering as they follow the route.

More details of this thought provoking and worthwhile event via the Irish Genealogical Research Society's facebook page.