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October 31, 2025

October 29, 2025

AF-1172: The Journey from Ireland | Ancestral Findings Podcast

The wind had turned sharp over the fields of County Clare. It carried the sour smell of rot—the smell of potatoes dying in the ground. Every family in Kilfenora knew that scent by now. It had haunted them for two years, and it had come back again, crueler than before.

Sean O’Callaghan knelt in the furrows, turning one blackened plant after another. The stalks came apart like wet paper. There was no good food left, just the gray mush that told him the blight had found them again. His wife Brigid stood at the edge of the field, her shawl pulled tight, the wind lifting the edges. She didn’t need to ask what he’d found.

Behind her, the cottage leaned in the rain. Their children watched from the doorway—Maeve, seventeen, sharp-eyed and restless, and her little brother Declan, who hadn’t known a full belly in a year.

“We’ll not live through another winter here,” Sean said, his voice low.

Brigid looked toward the sea. “Then we must go where there is bread.”

Podcast notes: https://ancestralfindings.com/do-you-have-irish-ancestry-in-your-family/

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