The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  ‘Just one thing. Don’t tell Winnie yet. We wouldn’t want to raise her hopes.’

  ‘No, Father,’ Luke said.

  He spent the next week in feverish activity, alternating between hope, impatience and fear.

  He rode between Ardnagrena, Benstreeva, Burrenabawn and Lisnadee, and up across the mud villages higher up the mountains, looking for new workers and searching out people to pay. He knew Winnie, and he knew the thought of her was the only thing that would keep him going. He tried to put it out of his mind, not daring to hope.

  At Mass the next Sunday, the Gallaghers were at the top of the church, only a few yards away. He stared at the back of Winnie’s head, unable to concentrate on anything else. He made his way out at the end of the Mass, not wishing to be seen by them. He walked back to the cottage, trying to put her out of his mind. He started to prepare corn for breakfast. There was a knock on the door. The priest was outside, holding a letter with the insignia of the Diocese of Achonry.

  The two men walked up to Gallaghers, and the priest explained everything that had happened. Gallagher was the only one who responded, questioning the priest about the dispensation. Winnie hugged her mother, tears in her eyes. Then she threw her arms around Luke.

  ‘I knew it. I knew it. I knew you’d never leave me.’

  Early one morning, she came to him. He grasped her, and kissed her. Then he led her to the bed. They made love with an urgency that he had never known, an urgency that came from pain and loss and sudden salvation. Afterwards they lay on the old bed, gasping.

  ‘Does anyone know you’re here?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Ma. She sent me to McIlhenny’s to buy corn, but I think she knew I wouldn’t be back any time soon.’

  Then he told her about Kitty. She had known of this, ever since he had alluded to it the day he had come back to Brockagh after the snows. Since then though, she had never dared to ask more. Perhaps, she reflected, she did not want to know. But she knew now that he wanted to tell her, and she would have to know. And she listened as he told her about the brief affair and the long heartbreak that followed. He told her too how Fergus had taken his revenge, and come close to breaking his heart again. And hers.

  She had said nothing.

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have told you all that,’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s not that. I want to know all about you, and isn’t she part of you? Oh, Luke.’ She hugged him. ‘Having your heart broken like that. And her too. No life left for her, her husband beating her and her only love off to America.’

  ‘If we go. I never said we would.’

  She released him, and lay back on the bed.

  ‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘But it’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe it is.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘If we go, we make do with it.’

  ‘But I keep thinking, what kind of place is it? It frightens me.’

  ‘Arra, don’t be worrying about it,’ he said. ‘Lots of the lads from around Kilduff have gone, and from all we hear, they’re having a great time.’

  ‘But I’ve been hearing other stories. They say it’s hard enough crossing the ocean, but to get there, and to find they hate you. That’s what I’ve been hearing. How different is that from here?’

  ‘Will you not be listening to nonsense like that. Sure, it’s hard at the start, but there’s work aplenty.’

  ‘But what kind of work?’

  ‘Railways, and isn’t that what I’m used to? They’re building railways every which way they can. They say there’s more work on American railways than in England. God knows, it’s a huge country. And if it’s not the railways it’ll be something else – working the harvests, loading boats, out cutting trees in the forest. Isn’t that it?’

  ‘It is, and it isn’t. There’s people starving in the towns. Families pushed into a room, dying of fever.’

  ‘But sure that’s no different to anywhere. Didn’t I see enough of that in England? Liverpool, Manchester and the rest of them. But that’s not for the likes of us. There’s work enough for any fellow strong enough to take it, and money enough to pay him. No, it isn’t places like that we’d be staying. The railways, that’s the thing. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right’ she said.

  ‘I am right. Now you just let me do the worrying, and you believe what I’m telling you.’

  Time was passing. They dressed, and Winnie walked over towards McIlhenny’s. After a few minutes, Luke rode up to Gallaghers, and he and John Gallagher rode on to Ardnagrena, passing silent people walking towards the Works. Sometimes Gallagher greeted those he knew, but no one returned his greeting, and he too sank into silence.

  A few days later, Luke was going through the worksheets on the Burrenabawn Works when McKinnon arrived to continue surveying the site.

  ‘I’m sorry how everything turned out with Winnie,’ he said. ‘It was a desperate business.’

  ‘Well, there’s no need to be sorry anymore. Everything is going ahead.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yes, Father Nugent here, he wrote to the bishop, and we got a dispensation from him. It seems it’s something the bishops can do. So we’re getting married after all.’

  ‘The bishops…I never knew about that.’

  ‘Neither did I.’

  ‘Oh, but Luke, that’s great news. Are you sure?’

  ‘Certain.’

  McKinnon laid his pack on the ground.

  ‘A dispensation, eh. From the bishop too! When I was courting Sabina, the only man I had to ask was your father.’

  He opened the pack and took out a tape.

  ‘So when…?’

  ‘Three days’ time.’

  ‘Three days?’

  ‘Any chance you could stay over?’

  McKinnon shook his head. ‘Not a hope in hell. I’d love to, but I’ve work to do. I’m headed for the Union. Then Castlebar and on out to Bellacorick, Belmullet and Louisburgh, and then out the Killeries.’

  ‘Sounds a lot of travel.’

  ‘It is. Maybe you’d introduce me to your bride before I leave so. Here, take the end of this tape. God, I still can’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Luke said. ‘No going back this time.’ He took the tape. ‘Remember the first time we did this together?’

  ‘Aye. A long time ago. Eight years, isn’t it? You never thought I’d end up as your uncle?’

  ‘I did not.’

  They carried out a few more measurements. McKinnon started reeling the tape in. ‘I’m sure you’ve plenty to do,’ he said, ‘but I have to tell you our friend Mr. Morton wants to see you again tomorrow.’

  ‘God damn him to hell.’

  They both rode back towards Brockagh. Dead eyes watched them, not even caring enough to hate.

  When they arrived at Gallaghers, Luke dismounted and knocked on the door. Winnie answered and looked at McKinnon in surprise.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Luke said, ‘we’re not coming in. I just wanted you to meet my uncle.’

  McKinnon held out a hand. ‘Ian McKinnon. I’m honoured to meet you.’

  Winnie, recovering her composure, smiled at him. ‘So this is the great Ian McKinnon,’ she said. ‘Luke has told me all about you.’

  ‘Some of it good, I hope.’

  Mrs. Gallagher had appeared at the door, curious.

  ‘This is Luke’s uncle, Ma.’

  ‘Luke’s uncle! Come on in out of that, would ye.’

  McKinnon shook his head. ‘I’ll not bother ye. Luke said I was to meet his bride, that was all. I’ll be on my way now.’

  ‘Indeed you will not. You’ll come on in, and that’s all about it.’

  McKinnon followed her into the kitchen, as Win
nie produced the poitín. The younger boys stared at McKinnon, just as curious as their mother. He had taken everything in at once. The house, better than most in Brockagh, and the family, better fed than most too.

  ‘Luke told me the news. I still can’t believe it.’

  ‘Aye,’ Mrs. Gallagher said, ‘we couldn’t believe it either. And poor Winnie here, she near passed out.’

  ‘Enough of that out of you, Ma,’ Winnie said.

  McKinnon sipped the poitín. ‘How is it with ye here?’ he asked. ‘How are you doing through all this?’

  ‘Alright,’ Mrs. Gallagher replied. ‘Though God knows it was looking awful bad after the summer. We didn’t know what was going to happen, until Luke arrived with the Works. So at least we’ve got money, though it doesn’t go as far as it did.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ Mrs. Gallagher, said. ‘Not with the merchants around here. They know how much we need the corn, and by God, they’re determined to get every last penny out of us. Damned bastards!’

  Winnie looked at her mother in surprise. She decided to change the subject.

  ‘We hear you’re from Scotland,’ she said. ‘What decided you to come over here?’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t me decided,’ McKinnon replied. ‘I was working for the Ordnance Survey up the north of Scotland. They told me they needed me more in Ireland, so there wasn’t much deciding in it. It was that or nothing. But it was only supposed to be for a year. I’d be well back in Scotland by now, if it wasn’t for meeting up with Luke and his aunt.’

  ‘Leave me out of it,’ Luke said, laughing. ‘It was Sabina, that’s who kept you here.’

  Mrs. Gallagher fed them with corn and cabbage.

  ‘So you’ve you been working on the Survey ever since?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ McKinnon said, ‘that all finished in ’39. I’ve done the odd bit of work surveying for the County Council in Castlebar, and sometimes for the Unions. So when they started on the Relief, they asked me back to work at surveying again. It’s the longest time I’ve had at surveying since ’39.’

  ‘Hard work I’d say,’ Winnie said.

  ‘Hard enough,’ McKinnon said, ‘but it’s much worse now with this bloody piecework. You know, I started back on surveying to help out with the Relief, but by God, I never thought it’d end like this. The people in Castlebar won’t have a penny out of place. We were paying out little enough, but now it’s even less, and the people on the Works, they’re all blaming it on me. I know how they feel, I can’t blame them, it’s no way to treat people. It’s fine for those fellows back in their offices, but it’s us here that have to measure it all out and give them the few pennies that Castlebar will let them have.’

  ‘Don’t we know it,’ Mrs. Gallagher said. ‘My John, he thought the same as yourself, that he’d be helping out by helping Luke here. Now no one will talk to him, his friends pass him in the street without as much as a nod.’

  Luke held up his hand. ‘Now hold on there. We didn’t bring Ian in to be talking about piecework.’

  ‘God, no,’ McKinnon said. ‘I came in to see Luke’s bride, and here we are, talking like this.’ He walked to where Winnie was sitting.

  ‘Now let’s have a closer look,’ he said. ‘Let’s see those teeth. Close your mouth, girl, and open your lips.’

  ‘Indeed I will not.’

  ‘But how can I tell the condition of you if I can’t examine your teeth? Have you seen her fetlocks Luke?’

  Luke laughed. ‘Not too close. She wouldn’t let me do that.’

  ‘Are ye no good at all? Surely you’ve given her a run around the yard, see what the chest is like.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Luke said. ‘Her condition is fine.’

  Winnie stood up, and gave him a sharp slap on the ear. ‘If ye’re both quite finished…’

  ‘She’s spirited anyhow,’ McKinnon said.

  ‘She is that,’ Luke said.

  ‘You’ll be staying for the wedding,’ Mrs. Gallagher asked.

  ‘I wish to God I could,’ McKinnon replied, ‘but I’m afraid I have to go down to the Union in Knockanure, and I’m taking Luke with me. He’s to make a report to the Committee tomorrow, and after that I’m heading off to the West of the county. So I can’t come, but I’ll make sure Luke is back in time, don’t worry about that.’

  ‘You’ll stay tonight though?’

  ‘Of course you will,’ Winnie said.

  He relented. A few hours later, Gallagher arrived back. They spoke far into the night. First the wedding, then famine and fever. It was impossible to get away from it.

  Next morning, Mrs. Gallagher served them corn and cabbage again. Winnie was morose, disturbed by the previous night’s discussion.

  ‘Do you think it’s right,’ she asked. ‘Do you think we should be getting married at a time like this when there’s people dying.’

  ‘I’ll tell you this,’ McKinnon answered, ‘as long as people like you can keep your spirits up, and marry at a time like this, then there’s hope for this country yet.’

  ‘And amen to that,’ Mrs. Gallagher said.

  McKinnon raised his mug.

  ‘So here’s to the pair of ye. Long life and happiness.’

  ‘Long life and happiness,’ Mrs. Gallagher repeated.

  They were riding back in the direction of Knockanure.

  ‘You’ll do well with her,’ McKinnon said. ‘Very well.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘If she stands by you now, she’ll do it forever.’

  They rode on through lines of workers on the Ardnagrena Works. A boy’s body lay on the grass beside the road, but they did not stop to ask about it.

  ‘You’ve been doing a lot of travelling?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Far too much.’

  ‘What’s the rest of Mayo like?’

  McKinnon let the reins go slack, allowing his horse to eat the grass on the verge. ‘In one word – savage. I heard all that you told Pat about Lisnadee and the mountains. You won’t believe it, but I think Erris is worse.’

  Luke leant back as his own horse started to graze the verge. ‘Nothing could be worse.’

  ‘Do you know,’ McKinnon said, ‘there are people out Erris who don’t even exist. They don’t rent any land, they don’t even have cabins to live in. They just dig in under the hags of turf and cover it up with a few branches.’

  ‘What do they live on?’

  ‘Potatoes. When there are any.’

  ‘But what about the landlord?’

  ‘No one knows who owns the half of it. The land is so miserable, nobody even claims it. And with the rates as high as they are, I don’t think anyone ever will. There’s thousands of them out there, dying like flies. Fever and outright starvation.’

  ‘What about Relief Works?’

  ‘Who’d pay for them? It’s like I said, there’s no ratepayers. No money. No one to apply for help. No, there’s no Relief in Erris, no question of it.’

  Luke whipped his horse with his reins, and they rode on again.

  ‘Surely it’s not like that all over?’

  ‘That’s what it’s like right along the west of the county,’ McKinnon replied. ‘Bogs and mountains and the wind straight off the ocean. A desperate place. Achill is the same, but there’s strange things happening there.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘The Mission. Nangle’s Mission. They’re well able to get food. Their friends in England, they send it over through Westport. So his people have enough to eat.’

  ‘His people?’ Luke asked.

  ‘The ones who are working on the Mission, and the ones who’ve converted. They’re the only ones Nangle is feeding. Some would say you can’t blame him, he feeds his own first. Still, I’m not sure he’s right in what he’s doing. The rest of Achill, it’s as bad as Erris. But th
e people know that if they join the Mission, they’ll be fed. They’re saying you have to convert first, become a Protestant before they’ll feed you. It’s the wrong way to do things, but Nangle and his fellows, they can’t see that. Damned fools.’

  ‘Isn’t it what you’d expect, though?’

  ‘No,’ McKinnon responded angrily, ‘it’s not what I’d expect. The Quakers, they don’t do it that way. They’ll feed a man because he needs food, not because he’s one of theirs.’

  ‘I never heard about Quakers feeding people,’ Luke said.

  ‘You mightn’t have heard about it yet, but by God, you will. Those fellows, they’re shaming everyone. And that includes the Government. Damn it, if the Quakers can feed people direct, why can’t Dublin Castle do it? They’ve been talking about it for months. That’s all they ever do – talk, talk, talk.’

  Chapter Twenty One

  Telegraph or Connaught Ranger, January 1847:

  I did go down, and such a deplorable sight I never witnessed. He was lying upon a pallet of straw, and the poor wife beside him, with her thigh bone out of joint, and her leg much swollen. The man’s face was fearful to look at, the rats having disfigured it much during the night.

  Sarah’s father was dead, and the Workhouse had no Master. The last days of her father’s life had been horrifying. She was well used to the black fever in the sheds, but to see it in her own father had been beyond bearing.

  Sarah’s mother carried on as Matron. She told Sarah that the patients in the fever sheds needed her, and she could not abandon them. She insisted that she was alright, that she could cope. Sarah knew different. Often in the bedroom they now shared, she would hear her mother sobbing. She was afraid for her too. Watching her in the sheds every day, she thought she would surely be infected as well, and the thought terrified her.

  Her father was buried in the graveyard in the church in Knockanure, but the inmates were not so fortunate. They were buried in the mass grave behind the main block. Every day, more of the pit was dug, as the last part was back-filled. She wondered where it would stop, and what would happen when it reached the wall.

  She could see the gaunt crowds at the gate, calling for admission, the women holding up famished babies. Even though she had no official position in the Union, she worked through the day on administration and accounts. But she also spent time in the refectory and in the dormitories, helping out and always observing. She went into the fever sheds against her mother’s objections, mopping the faces of those raving with typhus, cleaning out the foul straw, bringing in fresh and talking to those still able to talk.