Riobárd Ó Dwyer's Famine oral history — 'Norry Tenpenny' of Allihies and the death-march to Bunmahon (Black '47)

Riobárd Ó Dwyer Papers, NEHGS (Mss 1097) — "Stories from Beara"; received as an email from Riobárd Ó Dwyer · private email correspondence; also deposited at NEHGS (American Ancestors) · 2006-10-07

oral historysecondary focus

Summary

A Beara Famine oral history relayed by Riobárd Ó Dwyer. In my own words (verbatim text held privately in notes.md per the NEHGS CC BY-NC-ND restriction): "Norry Tenpenny," wife of Pat Kelly, an **Allihies copper miner**, had seven children when **Black '47** (1847) — the worst Famine year — struck. With the Allihies mines closed (the miners too starved to work) and whole families dying in the parish (one Upper Glenera family found dead, too weak to be buried, their thatch knocked in over them), Pat set out for the **Bunmahon copper mines in Co. Waterford, ~180 miles away**, telling Norry to follow if she heard nothing in two weeks. Hearing nothing, she walked the road to Bunmahon with her seven starving children, burying four along the way, only to find Pat had been buried in a common grave the night before she arrived. She walked the 180 miles back to Allihies, burying two more children on the roadside, arriving with only the dead baby on her back. She spent the rest of her life roaming Allihies, scraping little imaginary "graves" in the soil with her fingers and laying flowers on them. Of unusual book value: it is a **Beara copper-miner Famine story** — the same Allihies copper-mining world whose survivors' descendants later mined copper in Butte. The Beara→Butte copper thread runs straight through this.

Also mentioned

Norry Tenpenny (Kelly) · oral_history_subject
Famine-era Allihies woman, wife of Pat Kelly. Folklore subject; no established family link (confidence 0). Surname Kelly noted only — namesake-level, the Kelly in-law branch is a separate Walkerville family.
Pat Kelly · oral_history_subject
Allihies copper miner; died at the Bunmahon mines, Co. Waterford, during Black '47. Folklore subject, not family.
Riobárd Ó Dwyer
Beara genealogist/folklorist (b. 1932), Eyeries. Compiler of the "Annals of Beara" and the NEHGS "Stories from Beara" collection; corresponded with the user by email. See the annals-of-beara reference and the other three O'Dwyer-email oral histories in this batch.

Places

Allihies (village + parish on west Beara) (primary)
Beara Peninsula (primary)
West Cork (context)

Themes

Story threads

Related sources

Transcription

transcription: complete · confidence high

# A sad Beara story of the Famine — "Norry Tenpenny" *Oral history collected and relayed by Riobárd Ó Dwyer (email, 7 Oct 2006); also held in the Riobárd Ó Dwyer Papers, NEHGS, Mss 1097.* > **Rights note.** The NEHGS copy of this item is © NEHGS and > licensed CC BY-NC-ND with member-restricted access. To respect > that, the **verbatim text is kept in `notes.md` (private, not > published by the portal)**. The summary below is in the editor's > own words. A Famine oral history from the Allihies copper-mining district of the Beara peninsula. Norry "Tenpenny," wife of the Allihies miner Pat Kelly and mother of seven, is widowed and orphaned by Black '47: with the mines closed and the parish starving, Pat walks ~180 miles to the Bunmahon copper mines in Co. Waterford and dies there; Norry walks the road after him with her children, burying four on the way, finds Pat already buried, walks the 180 miles home burying two more, and arrives with only her dead baby. She spends her remaining years scraping imaginary little "graves" in the Allihies soil. (Full verbatim in notes.md.)

Open questions

Bunmahon (Co. Waterford) and Upper Glenera (Allihies parish) are not yet in vocab/places.yaml; named only in this story. Add if they recur.