Rachael English: The legacy of the Famine years continues to reverberate today
Rachael English for Weekend Feb 12, 2022
I knew her picture long before I knew her name or her story. A tall, emaciated woman, dressed in rags, is accompanied by two little girls. All three are in their bare feet. One of the children has turned her face away from the artist, as if ashamed of her family’s destitution.
Over the decades, the black and white drawing has become one of the defining images of the Famine. The woman, Bridget O’Donnel, was from Kilmacduane Parish in County Clare. In 1849, she was heavily pregnant and sick with fever when men came to evict her. When she refused to leave, they began knocking down the cottage anyway.
