Mel C has revealed she sheds tears several times as she discovers her family’s survival battle in the BBC ’s Who Do You Think You Are? Talking of the “deeply moving” revelations for the first time, she acknowledges she’s been singing the show’s title words in a Spice Girls hit since 1996. “And I’ve been asking myself versions of that question throughout my life – the programme is a full-circle moment that I’ll never forget,” says Mel , 50. “Finding out about my family’s history with activism and in particular their experiences of the Great Famine in Ireland was eye-opening.
Putting myself in their shoes was shocking.” Both sides of Melanie Chisholm’s family are from Liverpool though she was brought up in nearby Widnes. She finds that her great-great-great-grandparents Patrick Flaherty and Catherine Burns were from County Limerick.
She travels to where they rented a 10 acre farm. Just as they are starting a family, the Great famine started in 1845. Like most of the population, they depended on potatoes for food but the crop was devastated by a fungal disease.
Millions faced starvation. Hundreds of thousands of families lost their livelihoods and homes. Patrick’s landlord put the farm up for sale and they left the area in 1848.
Patrick and Catherine lost many friends and moved to Limerick city where they were “landless labourers” before heading to Liverpool in 1855, like hundreds of thousands of other Irish people looking for work. Records sh.