Moveen Famine Village

Moyarta (Clare)

"The Sketch of Moveen, to which I now call your attention, is that of another ruined village in the Union of Kilrush. It is a specimen of the dilapidation I behold all around. There is nothing but devastation, while the soil is of the finest description, capable of yielding as much as any land in the empire. Here, at Tullig, and other places, the ruthless destroyer, as if he delighted in seeing the monuments of his skill, has left the walls of the houses standing, while he has unroofed them and taken away all shelter from the people. They look like the tombs of a departed race, rather than the recent abodes of a yet living people, and I felt actually relieved at seeing one or two half-clad spectres gliding about, as evidence that I was not in the land of the dead. You may inquire, perhaps, and I am sure your readers will wish to know, why it is that the people have of late been turned out of their houses in such great numbers, and their houses just at this time pulled down, and I will give you my explanation of this fact.

The public records, my own eye, a piercing wall of woe throughout the land– all testify to the vast extent of the evictions at the present time. Sixteen thousand and odd persons unhoused in the Union of Kilrush before the month of June in the present year; seventy-one thousand one hundred and thirty holdings done away in Ireland, and nearly as many houses destroyed, in 1848; two hundred and fifty-four thousand holdings of more than one acre and less than five acres, put an end to between 1841 and 1848: six-tenths, in fact, of the lowest class of tenantry driven from their now roofless or annihilated cabins and houses, makes up the general description of that desolation of which Tullig and Moveen are examples. The ruin is great and complete. The blow that effected it was irresistible. It came in the guise of charity and benevolence; it assumed the character of the last and best friend of the peasantry, and it has struck them to the heart. They are prostrate and helpless. The once frolicsome people– even the saucy beggars– have disappeared, and given place to wan and haggard objects, who are so resigned to their doom, that they no longer expect relief. One beholds only shrunken frames scarcely covered with flesh– crawling skeletons, who appear to have risen from their graves, and are ready to return frightened to that abode. They have little other covering than that nature has bestowed on the human body– poor protection against inclement weather; and, now that the only hand from which they expected help is turned against them, even hope is departed, and they are filled with despair. Then the present Earl of Carlisle there is not a more humane nor a kinder-hearted nobleman in the kingdom; he is of high honour and unsullied reputation; yet the Poor-law he was mainly the means of establishing for Ireland, with the best intentions, has been one of the chief causes of the people being at this time turned out of their homes, and forced to burrow in holes, and share, till they are discovered, the ditches and the bogs with otters and snipes."

[London Illustrated News Dec 15, 1849]

Pre-Famine Moveen families

Moveen East & Kilcasheen 1827

Andrew McMahon & partners

Patrick Moroney & John Hogan

John Hogan & partners

Martin Casey

Timothy Keane; Cornelius Keane

Thomas Brann

Michael Scanlan

John Read

Laurence Galvin

John Power; James Power

Thomas O'Neil Sr.; Thomas O'Neil Jr.

John Keane, John Power & Lawrence Galvin

John Stapleton

Thomas Hogan

Michael McGrevin

Moveen West 1827 (and the village of Moveen Lower)

Michael Collins; Thomas Collins

Timothy Meeny

John O'Dea

Michael Lynch

John Corless

Patrick Connell

Thomas Morrissey; Patrick Morrissey

Patrick Halpin

Patrick Healy

John Moloney; Timothy Moloney

Patrick Carmody

Dennis Keane

John Dunne

Lols Foley (see also "John & Dea & Lol Foley's Mountain")

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