| Year | Population of Offaly |
| 1841 | 147,000 |
| 1851 | 112,000 |
In the barony of Ballyboy, where we live, there was a decrease of 33%
| Year | Barony of Ballyboy |
| 1841 | 9,000 |
| 1851 | 6,000 |
The local landlord, William O’Connor Morris, wrote that 20 out of 70 families disappeared from his estate in a few months in 1847.
In 1845 the crop failure in Kings County was estimated at 25%. The wages in the public works was approximately 1 shilling per day but a family needed 2 shillings to stay alive. Quakers opened soup kitchens in Tullamore, Clara, Edenderry and Mountmellick. They gave relief to many. When conditions got really bad people often had no choice but to go to the poorhouses. The poorhouse in Tullamore was designed for 700 people and was catering for 1700 people by 1850. Birr poorhouse was designed for 800 people and was catering for 1800 people by 1850. Tullamore workhouse had given relief to over 6000 people by the end of the 1840s. There was an average of 5 to 10 deaths per week in Tullamore workhouse by 1849. |
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The
people were not very wealthy in the 1800s. People worked for the landlords
in fields and they had a small field which supplied their own potatoes
to survive on. Before 1845 there were small famines but the famine of
1845 is known as the Great Famine because of the great suffering and the
huge number of people who died.
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