The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 Part 20

Bantry--Inquests--Catherine Sheehan--Richard Finn--Labours of the Priests--Giving a dinner away--Fearful number of deaths--Verdict of "Wilful murder" against Lord John Russell--The Workhouse at Bantry--Estimated deaths--The hinged coffin--Shafto Adair's idea of the Famine.

The year 1846 closed in gloom. It left the Irish people sinking in thousands into their graves, under the influence of a famine as general as it was intense, and which trampled down every barrier set up to stay its desolating progress. But the worst had not yet come. It was in 1847 that the highest point of misery and death had been reached. Skibbereen, to be sure, ceased to attract so much attention as it had been previously doing, but the people of that devoted town had received much relief; besides, there were now fewer mouths to fill there, so many were closed in death, at the Windmill-hill, in the Workhouse grounds, and in the churchyard of Abbeystrowry. Instead of one, Ireland had now many Skibbereens. In short, the greater part of it might be regarded as one vast Skibbereen. In the Autumn of 1846, the famine, which all saw advancing, seized upon certain districts of the South and West; but as ulcers, which first appear in isolated spots upon the body, enlarge until, touching each other, they become confluent, so had the famine, limited in its earlier stages to certain localities, now spread itself over the entire country. Hence, it is not in any new forms of suffering amongst the famine-stricken people that its increasing horrors are to be looked for: it is in its universality, and in the deadly effects of a new scourge--fever--which was not only manifesting itself throughout the land at this time, but had already risen to an alarming height--a thing not to be wondered at, because it is the certain offspring, as well as the powerful auxiliary, of famine.

In the fall of 1846, several parts of Clare were in a very wretched condition; but, at the opening of the new year, the most prosperous localities in that county had been sucked into the great famine vortex.

Writing at this period from Ennis, the chief town, Captain Wynne says: "The number of those who, from age or exhaustion and infirmity, are unable to labour, is becoming most alarming; to those the public works are of no use; they are, no doubt, fit subjects for private charity and the exertions of relief committees, but it is vain to look to these sources for relief at all commensurate with the magnitude of the demand.

Deaths are occurring from Famine, and there can be no doubt that the Famine advances upon us with giant strides." Several of the officials who had written to Sir Randolph Routh and others, from different parts of the country, blamed the people for their listlessness, their idleness, and the little interest they seemed to take in cropping their land, in order to secure a future supply of food. Addressing himself to this point, Captain Wynne says: "It is in vain to direct their [the people's] attention to the prosecution of those agricultural operations which can alone place any limit to their present deplorable condition.

Agricultural labour holds out a distant prospect of reward--their present necessities require immediate relief. Such is their state of alarm and despair at the prospect before them, that they cannot be induced to look beyond to-morrow; _thousands never expect to see the harvest_. I must say the majority exhibit a great deal of patience, meekness, and submission." Again, in the same letter: "The effects of the Famine are discernible everywhere: not a domestic animal to be seen--pigs and poultry have quite disappeared. The dogs have also vanished, except here and there the ghost of one, buried in the skeleton of one of those victims of cruelty and barbarity, which have been so numerous here within the last two months--I allude to the horses and donkeys that were shot. It is an alarming fact that, this day, in the town of Ennis, there was not a stone of breadstuff of any description to be had on any terms, nor a loaf of bread."[213]

In the chief cities, the pressure of the Famine, day by day, became greater. In Belfast, the flourishing seat of the linen trade, one of the gentlemen appointed to visit the different districts, with the view of ascertaining the real amount of distress amongst the poor, writes in the following terms to the _Northern Whig_: "There is not any necessity that I should point out individual cases of abject want, though in my visitations I have seen many of whose extreme dest.i.tution I could not possibly have formed a true estimate had I not seen them. Let it suffice, however, to state, that in many of our back lanes and courts there are families in the veriest wretchedness, with scarcely enough of rags to cover their shivering emaciated bodies; they may be found huddled together around a handful of dying cinders, or endeavouring to fan into flame a small heap of damp smoking sawdust Perhaps when they have not been happy enough to procure even that scanty fuel, they will be found, to the number of five or six--some well, some ill, and all bearing the aspect of pinching hunger--endeavouring to procure warmth by crouching together upon a scanty heap of filthy straw, or mouldering wood shavings, their only covering an old worn-out rag of a blanket or a coverlet, that has been so patched and re-patched that its original texture or colour it would be impossible to discern. On looking around this miserable dwelling, nothing meets the eye save the damp floor and the bare walls, down which the rain, or condensed vapour, is plentifully streaming. Not a stool, chair, or seat of any description, in many instances, is to be seen, nor commonest utensil; and as for food, not so much as would satisfy the cravings of even a hungry infant. Let not this picture be deemed overdrawn. If any one suppose it exaggerated, had that individual been with me, on Sunday last, I could have shown him some instances of suffering, that would have removed all doubt regarding the reality of distress in Belfast. I will merely mention one of them:--"I entered a house to which my attention had been directed; in the kitchen there was not a single article of furniture--not even a live cinder on the cold deserted-looking hearth. In the inner room I found a woman, lately confined, lying upon a heap of chopped-up rotten straw, with scarcely a rag to cover her; beside her nestled two children, pictures of want, and in her bosom lay her undressed babe, that, four days before, had first seen the light. She had no food in the house, nor had she, nor her children, had anything since her confinement, save a little soup procured from the public kitchen. Such was her statement; and the evidence of her wretched dwelling bore but too ample testimony to her melancholy tale."

Large numbers were in a state of utter dest.i.tution in the city of Cork.

As happened in other cities and important towns, the country people flocked in to swell the misery; and roaming in groups through the streets, exhibiting their wretchedness, and imploring relief, they gave them a most sad and deplorable appearance. Even the houses of once respectable tradesmen, denuded of every article of furniture, and without fuel or bedding, presented a most affecting spectacle of want and misery. And so impressed were the committee of the Society of Friends in Cork with the sufferings of this cla.s.s, that a separate subscription was raised for supplying them with straw beds and some fuel. The apparatus which this committee had erected for the making of soup was, they thought at first, on too extensive a scale, but it was soon found to be insufficient to meet the calls which were daily made upon it. Their Report of the 1st of February says: "Our distribution of soup is rapidly increasing; during the past week it averaged one thousand and sixteen quarts a-day, and on seventh day it reached the extent of twelve hundred and sixty-eight quarts." It went on increasing until it had, a fortnight later, reached fourteen hundred quarts a-day.

Besides the distribution of soup by the Society of Friends, there were four district soup houses, supplying over six-thousand quarts of soup daily; so that, at this time, forty-eight thousand quarts of soup were made and distributed weekly in the city of Cork. There was a nominal charge of a penny or so a quart for some of this soup, but much of it was given away gratuitously. Speaking of the accounts from different parts of the county Cork, the Report says:--"Where the potato crop was most completely annihilated--in the far west--the Famine first appeared, but other quarters were also invaded, as the remnant of the crop became blighted or consumed. Hence, in localities, which until recently but slightly partic.i.p.ated in this afflictive visitation, distress and dest.i.tution are now spreading, and the accounts from some of these are presenting the same features of appalling misery as those which originally burst upon an affrighted nation from the neighbourhood of Skibbereen." In the postscript of a letter to the _Cork Examiner_, Rev.

James O'Driscoll, P.P., writing from Kilmichael, says: "Since writing the above a young man named Manley, in fever at Cooldorahey, had to be visited. He was found in a dying state, without one to tend him. _His sister and brother lay dead quite close to him in the same room. The sister was dead for five days, and the brother for three days_. He also died, being the last of a large family. The three were interred by means of a sliding coffin."

The Cork Workhouse was crowded to excess, and the number of deaths in it, at this time, was simply frightful: they were one hundred and seventy-four in a single week--more than one death in every hour.[214]

In one day, in the beginning of February, there were forty-four corpses in the house; and on the 10th of that month one hundred bodies were conveyed for interment to a small suburban burial place near Cork.

Several persons were found dead in the streets; numbers of bodies were left unburied for want of coffins. Under a shed at the Shandon guard-house lay some thirty-eight human beings; old and young, men, women, and infants of tenderest age, huddled together like so many pigs or dogs, on the ground, without any covering but the rags on their persons.[215]

The _Limerick Examiner_, in giving an account of the state of the poor in that city, publishes a day's experience of one of the Catholic priests in the Parish of St. John. In one day he was called to officiate at the death-beds of seven persons who were dying of starvation, the families of which they were members comprising, in all, twenty-three souls. The wretched abodes in which he found them were much of the same character--no beds, scarcely any clothing, no food, the children quite naked. In one of those miserable dwellings he could not procure a light, to be used whilst administering the Sacraments to a dying woman; and such was the general poverty around, that _the loan of a candle could not be obtained in the neighbourhood_. His last visit was to a girl in fever, who had had three relapses. He found her father and mother tottering on their limbs from want. The father said he had a dimness in his eyes, and he thought he would become mad from hunger before night.

Dublin, notwithstanding its many advantages, did not escape the all-pervading scourge. In the month of December, 1846, there were seven hundred persons under treatment for dysentery in the South Union Workhouse, besides convalescents. The disease proved more fatal than cholera. Parochial meetings were held, and committees appointed to collect funds for the relief of the starving people; besides which a meeting of the citizens was convened at the Music Hall, on the 23rd of December, to form a general committee for the whole city. In the unavoidable absence of the Lord Mayor, it was presided over by Alderman Staunton, Lord Mayor elect. The meeting was very numerously attended by leading citizens and clergymen of various denominations. Amongst the latter were the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, and the Provost of Trinity College. A committee was formed, whose duties were to raise funds, and, "by a due disburs.e.m.e.nt thereof," for the relief of the necessitous, to endeavour to mitigate "the alarming and unparalleled distress of the poor of the city," and so arrest the progress of "a train of evils that must otherwise follow in the track of famine."

Four days later "The General Central Relief Committee for all Ireland"

sprang into existence, under the chairmanship of the Marquis of Kildare, the present Duke of Leinster. This became a very important and useful body, having disbursed, during the year of its existence, over seventy thousand pounds. Greater still were the results achieved by a committee formed on the 13th of November, 1846, by the Society of Friends. That admirably managed body sent members of the Society to the most distressed parts of the country, in order to investigate on the spot the real state of things, and report upon them. This committee received from various parts of the world, the very large sum of 198,326 15s. 5d., two thousand seven hundred of which remained unappropriated when they closed their glorious labours in the cause of benevolence. But of all the charitable organizations produced by the Famine, the most remarkable was "The British a.s.sociation for the Relief of _Extreme Distress_ in Ireland and Scotland."[216] This a.s.sociation received in subscriptions, at home and abroad, over 600,000. The balance in hands, when they drew up their report, was the very trifling one of fourteen hundred pounds; whilst so many of those more immediately connected with this gigantic work laboured gratuitously, that the whole expense of management was only 12,000, barely two per cent. Further on, I shall have an opportunity of speaking more in detail of charitable committees.

There is one curious fact regarding the Government in connection with those committees. It is this: The Government seemed anxious to have it understood, that it was not the money outlay which concerned or alarmed them, but the difficulty of procuring food, and the probability of not being able to procure it in sufficient quant.i.ty, by any amount of exertion within their power. "Last year," writes Mr. Trevelyan, "it was a money question, and we were able to buy food enough to supply the local deficiency; but this year it is a food question. The stock of food for the whole United Kingdom is much less than is required; and if we were to purchase for Irish use faster than we are now doing, we should commit a crying injustice to the rest of the country." And again, in the same letter: "I repeat that it is not a money question. If twice the value of all the meal which has been, or will be, bought, would save the people, it would be paid for at once."[217] In face of this a.s.sertion, our Government, as we have already seen, allowed the French, Belgians, and Dutch, who were in far less need than we, to be in the food markets before them, and to buy as much as they required--even in Liverpool, which they cleared of Indian corn in a single day. If food were the difficulty, and not money, it is not easy to see what great advantage there was in those charitable a.s.sociations, formed to receive _money_ subscriptions for the purchase of food. Of what use was money, if food were not procurable with it? The aid of such bodies, in investigating cases of dest.i.tution and distributing food, would, no doubt, be very valuable; but this service they could render the Government as well without subscriptions as with them. Writing to Sir R. Routh, in December, 1846, Mr. Trevelyan says: "I have continued to forward the plan of a private subscription, as far as it lay in my power, both in Ireland and in England; and Sir George Grey (Home Secretary) has rendered his more powerful a.s.sistance. I think it will be brought to bear."[218] It was brought to bear; and in a later communication, he speaks of the British a.s.sociation with evident satisfaction. "The subscription is going on very well," he says; "six names down for a thousand pounds each, and a good working committee organized."[219]

The Government, it may be fairly said, should not refuse any aid proffered to them. Certainly not; but they did more. They showed a decided anxiety to receive aid in money, not only from landlords, who were bound to give it, but from any and every quarter--even from the Great Turk himself, who subscribed a thousand pounds out of his bankrupt treasury, to feed the starving subjects of the richest nation in the world. And the n.o.blemen and gentlemen who signed the Address of Thanks to the Sultan Abdul Medjid Khan, for his subscription, amongst other things, say to his majesty, that "It had pleased Providence, in its wisdom, to deprive this country suddenly of its staple article of food, and to visit the poor inhabitants with privations, such as have seldom fallen to the lot of any civilized nation to endure. In this emergency, the people of Ireland _had no other alternative but to appeal to the kindness and munificence of other countries_ less afflicted than themselves, to save them and their families from famine and death."[220]

Besides making the Famine a money question, this address contains the blasphemous attack upon Divine Providence, so current at the time among politicians. William Bennett, one of those praiseworthy gentlemen whom the Society of Friends sent to distribute relief in the Far West, was, however, of opinion that the responsibility of the Irish Famine should not be laid at the door of Divine Providence, at least without some little investigation. In his letters to his committee, he endeavoured, he says, to give a bird's-eye view, as it were, of the distressed portions of Ireland, drawn upon the spot, with the vivid delineation of truth, but without exaggeration or colouring. And what is the picture, he asks? "Take the line of the main course of the Shannon continued north to Lough Sw.i.l.l.y, and south to Cork. It divides the island into two great portions, east and west. In the eastern there are distress and poverty enough, as part of the same body suffering from the same cause; but there is much to redeem. In the west it exhibits a people, not in the centre of Africa, the steppes of Asia, the backwoods of America--not some newly-discovered tribes of South Australia, or among the Polynesian Islands--not Hottentots, Bushmen, or Esquimaux--neither Mahommedans nor Pagans--but some millions of our own Christian nation at home, living in a state and condition low and degraded to a degree unheard of before in any civilized community; driven periodically to the borders of starvation; and now reduced by a national calamity to an exigency which all the efforts of benevolence can only mitigate, not control; and under which thousands are not merely pining away in misery and wretchedness, but are dying like cattle off the face of the earth, from want and its kindred horrors! _Is this to be regarded in the light of a Divine dispensation and punishment? Before we can safely arrive at such a conclusion, we must be satisfied that human agency and legislation, individual oppressions, and social relationships have had no hand in it_."[221] Was it not a money question, when a labourer at task work could only earn 8d. or 8-1/4d. a-day?--not enough to buy one meal of food for a moderate sized family. No, no, answered the Government people; this low rate of wages is fixed, in order not to attract labour from the cultivation of the soil. Now, in the famine time, the labourer, as a rule, could not obtain money wages for the cultivation of the soil--a fact well known to the Government; so that _money wages_ of almost any amount must withdraw him from agriculture, from the absolute necessity he was under of warding off immediate starvation. If, therefore, Government wished the labour of the country to be employed in cultivating and improving the soil, why did they not, instead of spoiling the roads, so employ that labour at fair money wages, and subject to just and proper conditions? They were often urged to do it, but in vain. They yielded at last, but at an absurdly late period for such a concession.

Further: if it were solely a food question, the Government should have used all the means in their power to bring food into the country, which they did not do; because they refused to suspend the navigation laws--this free-trade government did, and thus deliberately excluded supplies from our ports. By the navigation laws, merchandize could be brought to these countries only in British ships, or in ships belonging to the nation which produced the merchandize. The importation of corn fell under this _protective_ regulation. If those laws were suspended in time, food could be carried to British ports in the ships of _any_ nation; and in fact, whilst a great outcry was raised by our Government about the scarcity of food, and the want of ships to carry it, Odessa and other food centres were crowded with vessels, _looking for freights to England, but could not obtain them_, in consequence of the operation of the navigation laws. The immediate effect was, a great difficulty in sending food to those parts of Ireland where the people were dying of sheer starvation. But a second effect was, the enrichment, to an enormous extent, of the owners of the mercantile marine of England; freights having nearly doubled in almost every instance, and in a most important one, that of America, nearly trebled. The freights from London to Irish ports had fully trebled.

The Prime Minister came down to Parliament at the end of January, 1847, and proposed the suspension of the Navigation Laws until the first of September following; in order, he said, that freights might be lowered and food come in more abundantly; but, as one of the members said in the debate that followed, the proposal, good in itself, came too late, being made at a time when the surplus of the harvest of 1846 was to a great extent, disposed of. In his speech proposing the suspension of the Navigation Laws, Lord John Russell used, of course, in its favour the arguments which everybody was tired pressing upon himself for months before; but he especially dwelt upon the great increase of freights. The ordinary freight from the Danube, said his lordship, used to be 10s. the quarter; it is now 16s. 6d. to 17s.; from Odessa, 8s.; it is 13s. to 13s. 6d. at present: from the United States, 5s.; it is now 12s. 6d. to 13s.; and what concerns Ireland still more, he said, the usual freight from London to Cork was 1s. to 1s. 3d. the quarter, and often considerably less; it is now 3s. to 3s. 6d. the quarter, with much difficulty in finding vessels even at those freights.

Lord John and his representatives in Ireland were exceedingly fond of propounding free trade principles to those who complained that the Irish harvest--the natural food of the Irish people--was being taken out of the country. O'Connell, early in the Famine, said: close your ports against the exportation of your corn--open them to the corn markets of the world. This and the like advice was ridiculed as "Protection," and "Ignorance," by those ostentatious apostles of free trade, who kept the Navigation Laws in full force, in order to protect the monopoly of English shipowners; and who, rather than share with other nations the profits arising from carrying the food which would have saved the Irish people, _protected that monopoly_, and left their fellow subjects to die of famine, rather than withdraw the protection. Talk of Lord John and his free trade government after that.

In the letter already quoted from the _Commissariat Series_ (p. 409), and bearing date the 24th of December, Mr. Trevelyan, on the part of the Government, says to Sir R. Routh: "You write as if it were in our power to purchase grain and meal at our discretion, but I can a.s.sure you that this is far from being the case. The London and Liverpool markets are in a more exhausted state than you appear to be aware of, and the supplies which are to be expected till April, are so totally inadequate to filling the immense void which has been created by the failure of the potato crop, the deficiency of the Spring crops, and the foreign demand, that they give us no confidence.... You must therefore bear in mind, and impress upon all those with whom you are acting, that even the stock of food at your disposal has a certain fixed limit, and that it must be economized, and made to last the requisite time, like any private stock.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer will, on no account, permit you to undertake to provide food for any portion of the Eastern district of Ireland. What we have is insufficient even for the Western district, for which we have undertaken.... No exigency, however pressing, is to induce you to undertake to furnish supplies of food for any districts, except those for which we have already undertaken."

This letter, written, as all Mr. Trevelyan's were, by the authority of the Treasury, a.s.sumes that the Government had a full knowledge of the state of the food markets. And, no doubt, it was their bounden duty to collect such knowledge, by trusty agents, despatched at the earliest moment, to investigate and report upon the harvest-yield in Europe and America. Yet, at the very time it was written, President Polk's message to Congress, delivered in Washington on the 8th of December, arrived in England, containing the following pa.s.sage: "The home market alone is inadequate to enable them [the farmers] to dispose of the immense supplies of food which they are capable of producing, even at the most reduced prices, for the manifest reason that they cannot be consumed in the country. The United States can, from their immense surplus, supply not only the home demand, but the deficiency of food required by the whole world."

Was it a money question or a food question?

There was, naturally enough, a mournful sameness in the news from every part of the country: starvation, famine, fever, death; such are the commonest headings in the newspapers of the time. Seven deaths from starvation near Cootehill was the announcement from a locality supposed not to be at all severely visited. In Clifden, County Galway, the distress was fearful; 5000 persons there were said to be trying to live on field roots and seaweed. A Catholic priest who was a curate in the County Galway during the Famine, but who now occupies, as he well deserves to do, a high position in the Irish Church, has kindly supplied the author with some of his famine experiences. There are five churchyards in the parish where he then ministered. Four of these had to be enlarged by one half during the famine, and the fifth, an entirely new one, became also necessary, that there might be ground enough wherein to inter the famine-slain people. This enlargement of burial accommodation took place, as a rule throughout the South, West, and North-west. One day as this priest was going to attend his sick calls--and there was no end of sick calls in those times--he met a man with a donkey and cart. On the cart there were three coffins, containing the mortal remains of his wife and his two children. He was alone--no funeral, no human creature near him. When he arrived at the place of interment, he was so weakened by starvation himself, that he was unable to put a little covering of clay upon the coffins to protect them. When pa.s.sing the same road next day, the priest found ravenous, starved dogs making a horrid meal on the carca.s.ses of this uninterred family. He hired a man, who dug a grave, in which what may be literally called their remains were placed. On one occasion, returning through the gray morning from a night call, he observed a dark ma.s.s on the side of the road. Approaching, he found it to be the dead body of a man. Near his head lay a raw turnip, with one mouthful bitten from it. In several of the reports from the Board of Works' inspectors, and other communications, it was said that as the Famine progressed, the people lost all their natural vivacity. They looked upon themselves as doomed; and this feeling was expressed by their whole bearing. The extent to which it prevailed amongst all cla.s.ses is well ill.u.s.trated by a circ.u.mstance related by the same clergyman. When the Famine had somewhat abated in intensity, he was one day in a field which was separated from the public road by a wall. He heard a voice on the road; it was that of a peasant girl humming a song. The tears rushed to his eyes. He walked quickly towards her, searching meantime for some coin to give her. He placed a shilling in her hand, with a feeling somewhat akin to enthusiasm. "It was," said he to the author, "the first joyous sound I had heard for six months."

From Roscommon the brief, but terrible, tidings came that whole families, who had retired to rest at night, were corpses in the morning; and were frequently left unburied for many days, for want of coffins in which to inter them. And the report adds: The state of our poorhouse is awful; the average daily deaths in it, from fever alone, is eighteen; there are upwards of eleven hundred inmates in it, and of these six hundred are in typhus fever.[222] In a circ.u.mference of eight miles from where I write, says a correspondent of the _Roscommon Journal_, not less than sixty bodies have been interred without a coffin. In answer to queries sent to a part of Roscommon, I received the following replies from a reliable source: _Query_. "What other relief was given during the Government works by private charity, committees, etc.?" _Answer_. "There was considerable relief given by charitable committees." _Query_. "What did the wealthy resident landlords give_?" Answer_. "Considerable."

_Query_. "What did the wealthy non-resident landlords give?" Again the answer was, "Considerable." But I am sorry to add that the two latter queries were almost uniformly answered from various parts of the country by the expressive words, "Nothing whatever." The same correspondent said, in reply to another query, that the aged and infirm did not live more than a day or two after being sent to hospital. They died of dysentery. The two following anecdotes are given on the best authority: a family, consisting of father, mother, and daughter, were starving; they were devotedly attached to each other; the daughter was young and comely. Offers of relief were made by a wealthy person, but they were accompanied by a dishonourable condition, and they were therefore indignantly spurned. Fond as I am of my life, said the starving girl, and much as I love my father and mother, for whose relief I would endure any earthly toil, I will suffer them as well as myself to die, rather than get them relief at the price of my virtue. A Roscommon man thus writes in the query sheet sent to him: "Years after the Famine, and when in another part of the country, I was obliged, on my way to my house, to pa.s.s the house of a poor blacksmith; and often at night, as I pa.s.sed, I heard him and his family reciting the Rosary. I told him one day how much edified I was at this. The poor fellow replied with great earnestness: 'Sir, as long as I have life in me I'll say the Rosary, and I'll tell you why. In the Famine times, my family and myself were starving. One night the children were crying with the hunger, and there was no food to give them. By way of stopping their cries they were put to bed, but, after a short sleep, they awoke with louder cries for food.

At length, I recommended that all of us, young and old, should join in saying the Rosary. We did; and before it was ended a woman came in, whose occupation was to deal in bread, and she had a basketful with her.

I explained our condition to her, and asked her to give me some bread on credit. She did so, and from that day to this we never felt hunger or starvation; and from that day to this I continue to say the Rosary, and will, please G.o.d, to the end of my life.'"

The news came from Sligo, through the public journals, that the Famine was carrying off hundreds and thousands there, and that the work left undone by the Famine would be finished by pestilence. The Workhouse was described as a pesthouse, and the guardians in terror had abandoned it.

The following short note will give a better idea of the state of this part of the country than any lengthened description:--

"_Riverston, 8th Feb_.

"SIR,--_Half-a-dozen_ starvation deaths have been reported to Mr. Grant this evening, and he directs me to write to you to request you will attend here early to-morrow morning to hold inquests.

"JAMES HAY, _Head Constable_.

"Alexander Burrows, Esq."

But things were much worse than was revealed by this note. Mr. Burrows was quite unequal to the work he had to do. In one day, although he tired three horses, he succeeded in holding only five inquests. Poor progress indeed, inasmuch as there were FORTY dead bodies in the district of Managharrow alone, awaiting him! One of the cases, that of Owen Mulrooney, was a moving one. He was a young, muscular man, in the prime of life. He had a wife and five young children. Here is the substance of his wife's depositions at the inquest held upon his remains. She sold all her little furniture for ten shillings, and with this sum she and her five children left home to make her way to England, as she thought her husband would be able to support himself, if unenc.u.mbered by her and the family. The weather became cold and rainy; and when she had got as far as Enniskillen, the children took cramps, and she had to retrace her steps by slow degrees, and seek again her desolate home. Meantime, the public works, upon which her husband had been employed, were stopped, and he was at once reduced to starvation. A neighbour gave him one meal of food and a night's lodging. He was revived by the food, and had strength enough to make up two loads of turf, which he sold, and bought an a.s.s, which he killed, and tried to cook and eat. He partook of some portion of the a.s.s's flesh twice or thrice, but his stomach refused the food, as it always brought on great retching. When his wife and children returned he was dying, and she was only in time to see him, and give the above sorrowful evidence. We select this case, said the local journal, out of dozens; because it has some remarkable features in it. Many, it further adds, who were sent to purchase food, died of starvation on the journey. The family of Mary Costello were in a state of starvation for three weeks, and she herself had not had food for two days. Previous to her death, one of her brothers procured the price of half-a-stone of meal, for which she was sent to town; and on the following morning she was found dead by the roadside, with the little bag of meal grasped tightly in her hand.

Although it is notorious that some districts in the South, especially Skibbereen, were the first to attract a large share of public attention, the county Mayo, so populous, so large, so poor, was from the beginning marked out for suffering; but it lacked an organ so faithful and eloquent as the _Southern Reporter_, through whose columns Skibbereen and Bantry and Skull became as well known to the Empire as Dublin, Paris, or London. Poor Mayo suffered intensely from end to end, although it suffered in comparative silence. In the beginning of January, what may be termed a monster meeting of the county was held in Westport.

Forty thousand persons were said to have a.s.sembled on the occasion. The Very Rev. Dean Burke, who presided, complained that, as far back as September, a presentment of 80,000 was pa.s.sed for the county, 12,000 of which was allotted to their barony, Murrisk; but from that time to the period of the meeting only 7,000 had been expended. Resolutions were pa.s.sed, calling for a liberal grant of money to save the people from death; expressive of deep regret at the uncultured state of the corn lands of the county; calling for the establishment of food depots in the remote districts; and recommending the completion of the roads then in progress. More than one speaker hinted that there existed an under current for preventing the employment of the people, and that this under current emanated from the landlords, who were opposed to the taxing of their properties for such a purpose. At the close of the meeting, one of the gentlemen present, Mr. John C. Garvey, made the following observations:--"It has been said that an under current exists to prevent the employment of the people. In my opinion the landlords would be working against their own interest in preventing the employment of the poor. (Cries of No, no.) Well, I, as one of the landlords, do declare most solemnly, before my G.o.d, that I have not only in public, but in private, done everything that I could do to extend the employment of the people (loud cheers); and I now brand every landlord that does not come forward and clear himself of the imputation."

A great number of coroners' inquests were reported from Mayo, but those inquests were no real indication of the number of deaths which occurred there from starvation; there were not coroners enough to hold inquests, and four-fifths of those that were held were not reported. Besides, inquests were not, and could not be held unless in cases where the death was somewhat sudden, or had some specialty about it. The effects of the Famine were not usually very sudden. People dragged on life for weeks, partly through that tenacity of life which is one of the characteristics of human nature; partly through chance sc.r.a.ps of food obtained from time to time, and in various ways. Families have gone on for many weeks on boiled turnips, with a little oatmeal sprinkled over them; often on green rape, and even the wild herbs of the fields and seaweed; such things kept prolonging life whilst they were destroying it. After a while they brought on dysentery: dysentery--death. But no one thought of a coroner in such cases, which were by far the most numerous cla.s.s of cases until fever became prevalent, and even then dysentery commonly came in to close the scene.

"During that period," writes Mr. James H. Tuke, "the roads in many places became as charnel-houses, and several car and coach drivers have a.s.sured me that they rarely drove anywhere without seeing dead bodies strewn along the road side, and that, in the dark, they had even gone over them. A gentleman told me that in the neighbourhood of Clifden one Inspector of roads had caused no less than 140 bodies to be buried, which he found scattered along the highway. In some cases it is well known that where all other members of a family have perished, the last survivor has earthed up the door of his miserable cabin to prevent the ingress of pigs and dogs, and then laid himself down to die in this fearful family vault."[223]

In January, 1847, a Protestant gentleman, now a colonial judge, well known for his ability and integrity, gave, through the columns of a Dublin newspaper, an account of the state of Mayo as he saw it. He found great dissatisfaction--in fact indignation, existing with regard to the unaccountable delay of the public works, which had been presented for in that county; and this not merely amongst the starving people, but amongst the most respectable and intelligent persons with whom he conversed. He--a man not likely to take a narrow or prejudiced view of any subject--was of opinion that those complaints were not groundless.

The officials, he says, instead of extending the works in Mayo, and feeding the people, "are employed in diverting public attention by prating of subscriptions, paltering about Queen's letters and English poor-boxes, and frittering away the strength of public opinion and the efficiency of all public action, by engaging private charity in a task that can be met only by the Herculean efforts of a whole nation, knit into a single power, and bound into concentrated exertion by all the constraining forces that the const.i.tution of political society affords."[224] And then the starving people are blamed for finding fault, and for being suspicious. What else, he asks, can they be? How can a man dying of starvation have patience?

The chief places he visited were Balla, Claremorris, Ballyhaunis, and Hollymount. The scenes he witnessed were, he says, scarcely if at all less harrowing than those which had been reported from the locality of Skibbereen. This writer, a Protestant, conversed, amongst others, with the priests of the districts which he visited, and of them he says: "The Catholic clergy are the only persons who can form a tolerably correct estimate of the numbers of persons who are now dying of starvation. The Catholic clergy know all the people of their respective parishes--_no one else does_; the Catholic priest knows them as the shepherd does his sheep; he knows them individually; he knows not only every lineament of every individual face, but he knows, too, every ailment of body--every care of mind--every necessity of circ.u.mstance from which he is suffering. The Catholic clergy of the West attend every death-bed: the poor there are all Catholics. The Catholic clergy know, then, to what it is that the extraordinary mortality now prevalent is owing--_and they set it down as the immediate consequence of want and starvation_."[225]

One of the priests of whom W.G. asked information told him his whole time, and that of his a.s.sistant, was unceasingly occupied in administering the last comforts of religion to the victims of starvation. It would, he said, be an endless task, and he feared a useless one, to record his sad experiences.

People died in Connaught whilst in full employment on the public works, just as they did in Munster. Of such cases, the following is one of which W.G. collected some particulars:--James Byrne, of Barnabriggan, Brize, parish of Balla, was employed up to his death on the public works. The last food of which he had partaken was obtained by his wife pledging her cloak. There was an inquest upon this poor man's remains, at which his wife deposed that up to the time of his death he was employed on the public works, and as they had no food she was obliged to pledge her cloak for one stone of meal. Deceased often said he would do well if he had food or nourishment. Deponent states to the best of her belief that her husband died for the want of food. She and her four children are now living on rape, which she is allowed to gather in a farmer's field. James Browne, Esq., M.D., being sworn, said he found, on examination, all the internal organs of the deceased sound. There was no food whatever in his stomach, or in any part of the alimentary ca.n.a.l.

There was a small quant.i.ty of thin faeces in the lower portion of the large intestine. Is of opinion that deceased came by his death from inanition, or want of food. Verdict: "James Byrne came by his death in consequence of having no food for some days; and died of starvation."

"With every disposition," writes W.G., "to make allowances for the difficulties of their position, let me ask, Sir, how have the gentry acted? They have seemed to think that the whole relief question just split itself into two sides, one of which belonged exclusively to the Government, the other exclusively to them. One side comprised the duty of providing for the lives of the people, and this was left to the Government; the other, the duty of providing for the safety of the estates, and this the gentry took upon themselves." "They [the landlords] have complained much of the character of the works; they have strongly urged the Government to undertake something else; _at all events to give up what they were doing at the moment_; but when did their indignation take the shape of complaining that what the Government was doing was inadequate for coping with the starvation that was abroad?"

The penetrating mind of W.G. led him to forecast tremendous results from the potato failure, exclusive of its immediate effect--death by starvation. Having expressed his opinion that the extent of the dest.i.tution was fearful, he makes the following observations, which time has completely verified. "As regards the effect," says he, "of the present calamity upon the relations of landlord and tenant, believe me, that terrible as are the immediate and direct effects of the calamity, you will find a set of collateral results springing out of it, tending to the EXTERMINATION of the smaller tenantry by the landlords, that may lead you, ere many months, to regard the secondary stage of this scourge as scarcely less terrible to our unhappy peasantry than the first." And again: "Symptoms of a WIDE-SPREAD SYSTEMATIC EXTERMINATION are just beginning to exhibit themselves. I am not speaking under the influence of any prejudice against the landlord cla.s.s. Let none of your readers set down to the account of such a feeling my present warning as to the wholesale system of ejectment that is now in preparation." "The potato cultivation being extinguished, at least for a time, the peasant cultivators can pay no rents; sheep and horned cattle _can_ pay rents, and smart rents too; therefore the sheep and cattle shall have the lands, and the peasants shall be ousted from them; a very simple and most inevitable conclusion, as you see." "I repeat it, a universal system of ousting the peasantry is about to set in. Whether this results from the fault or from the necessities of the landlords it matters not."

The following extract from the _Roscommon Journal_ is emphatically cited by W.G. in support of his views. "_The number of civil bills served by landlords for the approaching sessions of this town_ WILL TREBLE THOSE EVER SENT OUT FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS."[226]

More than twenty years after W.G. wrote those letters, I had a conversation relative to the Famine with a gentleman who knew the Midland Counties and portions of the West well. I asked him what was the effect of the Famine in his district. "My district," he answered, "was by no means regarded as a poor one, but the Famine swept away more than half its population. The census of '41 gave the families residing in it as 2,200; the census of '51 gave them at 1,000." Did the landlords, I enquired, come forward liberally to save the lives of the people? "Only one landlord," he replied, "in the whole locality with which I am connected did anything to save the people, F---- O'B----. He asked no rent for two years, and he never afterwards insisted on the rent of those two years; although I must say he was paid it by many of his tenants, of their own free will; but, for the rest, he cancelled those two years' rent and opened a new account with them, as with men owing him nothing." And what, I further asked, were the feelings of the landlords with regard to their tenants dying of starvation? He answered with solemn emphasis--"DELIGHTED TO BE RID OF THEM."

The present leader of the Conservative party seems to entertain feelings akin to this; for, some years ago, addressing his const.i.tuents, and speaking of some results of the Irish Famine, he said significantly--"there are worse things than a famine."

"I shall never forget," said Rev. Mr. F---- to W.G., "the impression made on my mind a few days ago by a most heartrending case of starvation. It was this: The poor mother of five children, putting them to bed one night, almost lifeless from hunger, and despairing of ever again seeing them alive, took her last look at them, and bade them her last farewell. She rose early in the morning, and her first act was to steal on tiptoe to where they lay. She would not awake them, but she must know the truth--are they alive or dead? and she softly touched the lips of each, to try and discover if there was any warmth in them, and she eagerly watched to see if the breath of life still came from their nostrils. Her apprehensions were but too well founded, she had lost some of her dear ones during the night."

The mournful poetry of this simple narrative must touch every heart.

a.s.s and horse flesh were anxiously sought for, even when the animals died of disease or starvation. In the middle of January it was recorded that a horse belonging to a man near Claremorris, having died, was flayed, and the carca.s.s left for dogs and birds to feed upon; but, says the narrative, before much of it was consumed, it was discovered by a poor family (whose name and residence are given), and by them used as food. Father, mother and six children prolonged life for a week upon this disgusting carrion, and even regretted the loss of it, when the supply failed; and the poor mother said to the person who made the fact public, "the Lord only knows what I will now do for my starving children, since it is gone!" A fortnight earlier a most circ.u.mstantial account of the eating of a.s.s flesh is given by a commercial gentleman in a letter addressed to the Premier, Lord John Russell, and dated "Ballina, Christmas-eve." (!) In this case the poor man killed his a.s.s for food, the skin being sold to a skin dealer for 8d. The writer of the letter visited the skin dealer's house, in order to make sure of the fact. It was quite true, and the skin dealer's wife told him this could not be a solitary case, "as she never remembered so many a.s.ses' skins coming for sale as within the month just past."[227]

Mr. Forster, in his report to the Society of Friends, says of the condition of Westport in January, 1847, that it was a strange and fearful sight, like what we read of beleaguered cities; its streets crowded with gaunt wanderers, sauntering to and fro, with hopeless air and hunger-struck look; a mob of starved, almost naked women were around the poorhouse, clamouring for soup-tickets; our inn, the head-quarters of the road engineer and pay clerks, was beset by a crowd of beggars for work.[228] The agent of the British a.s.sociation, Count Strezelecki, writing from Westport at this time, says, no pen could describe the distress by which he was surrounded; it had reached such an extreme degree of intensity that it was above the power of exaggeration. You may, he adds, believe anything which you hear and read, because what I actually see surpa.s.ses what I ever read of past and present calamities.[229]