The Famine Clearance in Toomevara, County Tipperary (Maynooth Studies in Local History)

On May 28, 1849, at the height of the Ireland's Great Famine, over 500 people were cruelly evicted from the village of Toomevara, county Tipperary. Reports of the clearance spread far and wide, and its notoriety was such that it was discussed in the British House of Commons. The determination to clear the village was carried out with little regard for the welfare or survival of its inhabitants, and the conditions in which those who remained in the village found themselves in are difficult to comprehend in the present day. This publication is the first detailed study of the clearance. It examines Toomevara parish's experience throughout the years 1845-1851, with particular focus on the clearance and the events which followed. A wide variety of sources are referred to, from official Irish government records to local newspaper reports and local folk memory. Perhaps the saddest part of Toomevara's Famine history was the role some of its own people played in the suffering of their fellow parishioners in the period following the clearance, sparking a bitterness which remained in the social memory of the parish for generations.