A Tale of Transportation (The Great Famine XIII)

Transportation was a particularity cruel punishment. For centuries those condemned to this fate were shipped to penal colonies on the far side of the globe to serve out their sentences. It has become synonymous with injustice during the famine when many caught stealing food suffered this fate.   

For this podcast I dug deep into the archives and found the story of the Nangle family whose lives were ripped apart after they were caught stealing sheep. Their story also gives us an insight into life in Dublin prisons during the famine. The second part of the show is somewhat different focusing on the bizarre and perverse chapters in the entire famine – the arrival of the french celebrity chef Alexis Soyer to Dublin in 1847 to help famine victims.