The Great Hunger Revisited

While looking on the internet this morning I spotted the title The Great Hunger. I recognized that as the name of an an article I wrote last year. It got me to thinking,

Remembering the artwork that I viewed in a special museum exhibition I saw, I was thinking of how the artists were using their medium to express their feelings to document this tragic event.

It occurred to me that perhaps someone had published a collection of verses for the same purpose. At that moment, not being able to ask Mr. Google to find a memoir from the Great Hunger. I thought to myself "I don't need Mr. Google, I can write a verse myself."

When I said that, I felt all charged up and I gave in to fancy and imagined myself as a ten year old Irish girl named Fiona O'Gara. And so I wrote a few lines to express what Fiona might say. It went like this:

I am dreaming of a big steaming hot potato.

But the biggest thing I see is a spot of blight on my potato skin.

So I take my thumbnail and scrape away the blight and I eat the scraps

that were intended for the pigs,

While thinking of Fiona I reflected on some traits of the Irish as a people that I admire.

I see the Irish as hospitable and having a strong value of family,

I see the Irish people as hard working and resilient, with a strong sense of community.

I have witnessed and enjoyed their music and dance.

You can visit my original article on the Great Hunger and a related museum exhibit here.