by Charles Egan
‘What about the evictions though?’
‘What evictions?’ she asked.
‘Torán.’
‘Oh, Torán, we’d heard all about that. But it wasn’t there they were from. Out half way between Bellacorick and Belmullet. More the east end of Erris.’
‘They were lucky so.’
‘They were. There were few enough chances for them in Mayo.’
‘Nor in America,’ Luke said. ‘Thing’s aren’t great here, in spite of all ye may hear in Mayo. That’s why Farrelly and the lads have left the rails and gone mining. The reason I’m in New York too. If I’d been going on to Harrisburg, I’d have waited for you in Philadelphia. Instead of that, I’m waiting for you here in Jersey, and, by God, Winnie, it’s hard work. Not well paid, neither. Working with Irish lads makes it easier, though the foremen are damned tough. But if a man didn’t have good friends, this country would break him.’
‘Good friends?’
‘Jack and Mick. You’ve met them. Jack’s a lad from Turlough I met up in Quebec. We were together all through the winter in the forests along the Gatineau. Mick’s from Carrigard. He came out to New York, not knowing where I was, and found me inside a day.’
‘But how?’
‘He’d heard a friend of mine called Costello had a brother with a bar in Five Points. He followed my trail from there.’
She hugged the baby closer to her.
‘Are you saying we should have done the same?’
‘Arra no,’ Luke said, ‘sure that’d be far too risky. Mick could take the chance; it’d be no harm if he never found me. But you and Liam, you couldn’t do that. You know, Winnie, there’s enough people lost in this country. The fellow I’m talking about whose brother has the bar, his name is Conaire. Or was Conaire, I should say. Conaire Ó Coisteala. Costello as they say it here. I’m sure I mentioned him in the letters I sent ye last year. I met him on the ship coming across, and we worked together in Quebec and in the forest. But they set us working in different parts, me in the forest and him on the river. When we came back down to the river, he wasn’t there. No one knew where he’d gone. We haven’t heard word of him since, never came to New York like he was intending, and never had anyone write a letter for him. His brother reckons he’s dead. So in a way, it was lucky Mick found me. If he’d known I wasn’t with Conaire any longer, he might never have gone to Costellos’ to find me. Still…I’d still like to know what happened to Conaire.’
‘But…?’
‘There’s many ways to die in this country Winnie. Many ways to get lost too for that matter.’
‘You make it sound terrible, Luke.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, ‘sure how’s it any worse than Mayo? If Conaire had stayed there – his family were out in Erris – he’d have been evicted. They were all evicted out in Torán, and from all we can understand, there’s damned few left alive. But just remember this, my love, we’re going to live. We won’t lose each other, and tough and all as it’s going to be, we’ll make a good living, send money home, educate Liam and however more babies we may have. And in the end, it’ll be worth it. We’ll have our own house, warm in the winter, any amount of food to eat and our children to play with and take care of us in our old age.’
The next morning, Luke went back to the terminal. He half expected to be teased, but he was not.
‘A fine woman,’ Jack said. ‘With all your talk of whenever she’d be sailing, you never told us that.’
They walked across to the dock.
‘I’m not surprised,’ Mick said. ‘I’d heard enough about her in Carrigard.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ Luke said.
‘There was enough bad feeling against the Ryans, that’s for sure. But even so, all said she was a decent woman, but tough with it. Very tough.’
Winnie tough? Yes, perhaps. Like everyone, she would have needed to be tough to live through the winter of 1846 and 1847, and the fever that had followed it. Here, they were away from all that. Yes, the winters were cold here, but people were well used to that. Still, Five Points and Jersey City were tough places to make a living.
He had little doubt that it would be even tougher raising children in a mining town.
One evening, they discussed it all.
‘We’re going to have to send money back to Mayo,’ Luke said. ‘You know that as well as I do.’
‘I do,’ Winnie said, ‘and some for my own family too. It’s not that we can afford it, but we have to do it. Isn’t that the way of it?’
‘It is,’ Luke said.
‘And the sooner the better. We’ll have to arrange the money tomorrow.’
‘But I’m working,’ Luke said.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll go over on my own.’
‘I don’t know that you should.’
‘I came on my own.’
‘Yes, but that was only from the docks.’
‘Just give me directions to the bank, and stop all your worrying.’
Next morning, Winnie left Liam with Mrs. Gleeson, and took the ferry across to Manhattan. When she returned, she gave the draft to Luke.
‘Well?’ he asked.
‘I found the Chemical Bank easy enough.’
‘Anne Street and Broadway?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
Now she was silent. Then she spoke.
‘Oh God, is it all like that?
‘It is, my pet, and worse. If you think Anne Street is bad, wait till you go to Five Points. Or perhaps, you’d better not.’
That evening, Luke wrote a letter to Michael and Eleanor, enclosing the draft and requesting that cash also be sent on to Winnie’s parents in Brockagh.
Chapter 7
Freeman’s Journal, Dublin, August 1848:
State of Mayo. Castlebar. The idea that the half-starved population of Mayo were, or are, about to rise in rebellion, is laughed at by everyone here conversant with the state of the county. Yet still the preparations for war are going on. General Sir Michael Creagh arrived here on Friday, and assumed the command of the military stationed in this garrison and county. He immediately put himself in communication with the Earl of Lucan, Lieutenant of Mayo; and with the other authorities of the county. Subsequently there was an inspection of the powder magazine, the barracks, barrack stores, military depots and the Repeal loop holes of 1843.
The news of Danny’s death had come as a shock in Carrigard, and the fact that Pat had given no cause was mysterious to Eleanor. Fever? Or some kind of accident? A rock-fall, perhaps? Who knows?
‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ Michael told her.
‘Or should we write to him?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Was there any money with it?’
‘None.’
‘Strange.’
‘Yes, we could certainly do with it.’
She was surprised when another letter arrived from Stockport three days later. Surely, nothing could have happened to anyone else. Pat even? No, the handwriting on the envelope was clearly his. She ripped it open and the two money notes fluttered out.
‘Well, that’s one good thing,’ Michael commented.
‘So what does he say about Danny?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Still nothing. Nothing at all. Just says he thinks the two pounds might be of use to us.’
‘Maybe he forgot the money last time. Or maybe he’s heard about the blight. He’ll know that we need it now more than before.’
‘Yes,’ Michael said. ‘They’ll have blight all over England by now.’
But Eleanor’s morbid curiosity was even more than before.
‘You’ll have to write now, Michael. Find out what’s happened to Danny.’
‘Yes, yes. I will.’
But he did not.
Two days later, yet another letter arrived from Pat.
‘No money this time,’ Michael commented.
‘What does he tell us about Danny?’
‘Nothing
. Good news for a change, though. He’s coming home.’
Eleanor was startled.
‘Coming home? Pat?’
‘He’s coming home to Mayo.’
‘Has he lost his job? Is that it?’
‘No,’ Michael said. ‘He’s been offered some position with the County in Castlebar. This Gaffney fellow, he wants him back.’
‘Must be some kind of clerking so.’
‘Yes, I think it must.’
Eleanor could not sleep that night. Pat was coming home. Many thoughts swirled around her head. A position with the County. How long would that last though? And what would he do when it finished? Go back to England? Or stay on the farm? Who knew? And what of Sarah?
She was more impatient than ever now. She had no idea when Pat would be returning. Tomorrow? Next week? Next month?
*
Kingstown was a revelation for Pat. Kingstown port was nothing compared to Liverpool in extent, but the single dock was enormous. He tried counting the number of ships inside, but gave up. He watched the long harbour walls as they came in, until they disembarked at a dock at the end of the harbour.
‘All rock?’ he asked an officer at the end of the gangway.
‘Granite. Every bit of it.’
Pat thought of the railway embankments Danny’s men worked on. Nothing like this, and all rock! He had expected it in Liverpool but not in Ireland.
‘Where did they get the rock?’ he asked.
‘Up there,’ the officer answered, pointing to a quarry. ‘Top of Dalkey Hill. They used to just push the wagons over the edge and let them roll down the rails on their own. They’d get up to one hell of a speed.’
Pat wondered whether he should believe it.
He walked towards Dublin. At first the coast was rocky, the breakers sending spume high into the air. Later, it became calmer and flatter, and, as the tide ebbed, a wide beach opened beside him. Children were splashing in the water, an impossible distance out from the shore.
When he reached Sandymount, he spotted a bar. The sun was half way across the sky. He went in and ordered a pie and a beer. He joined three young men at a table, and listened to their accounts of famine in Ireland. Then they spoke of the rebellion. They too had heard that half the country was in rebellion, and the government overthrown, but it turned out these stories had been over-blown. The real rebellion in Ballingarry in County Tipperary had only lasted for a day or so. One or two men had been killed, but in the end, it had all fizzled out. What kind of rebellion was that?
When he reached the city, he turned west on the Liffey, past the Guinness Brewery and the front of Kingsbridge Station.
He crossed the Liffey by the King’s Bridge, and turned west on the same route as he had used going to England, only four or five months before. It all seemed so long ago.
The poverty on the west side of Dublin was not as extreme as he had expected, from all he had heard of the famine in Ireland.
Lucan, Maynooth, Kinnegad, Mullingar.
Crowds outside all the workhouses though. And the potato fields were blackened.
Three days later he arrived in Longford. There were hundreds of people outside Longford Workhouse. He was surrounded by a dozen wasted women begging for food. He pushed through and went on.
He left Longford and walked towards the Shannon. For the first hour, he met gaunt people walking towards him.
‘To the Poor House,’ one woman told him. ‘Where else?’
He passed one body in the ditch, two dogs tearing at it, growling at each other. He crossed the Shannon. As he came closer to Strokestown, more wasted figures were on the road. On one occasion, he was threatened by three young men, who mocked his clothes. He was afraid they might try to steal the corn in his pack, but then they backed off.
Crossing through the rest of Roscommon and into County Mayo was a real shock. Again and again, he passed by tumbled mud cabins. Ballaghaderreen Workhouse was the first in County Mayo. It was far worse than any of the midlands workhouses. But Knockanure Workhouse was worst of all. There was a vast crowd outside the gates. Hundreds? Thousands? There was no way to count. There was a keening sound from the women. The crowd stretched over the whole road. He pushed his way along the wall of the workhouse, as far as the gate. He peered through it, to where inmates wheeled rough-made barrows with corpses. He remembered the nightmare of the death pit – the naked white bodies and the squeaking of the rats.
He had thought of visiting Voisey. A decent fellow, Voisey, who had always done his best for the inmates, and for Pat. A deeply religious man.
But the sight of the barrows had put him off, and he suspected he would have chances to meet Voisey again over the next few weeks. He pushed on, past two corpses at the edge of the wall. How many had fever? Dead or alive? Too late for that now.
At last he broke free of the crowd, and walked out the road towards Kilduff. He had been six days travelling from Kingstown.
*
It was late when he arrived in Carrigard.
It had just begun to rain. He drew himself under the shelter of the slates, and knocked.
Michael answered. He took a step back in surprise, and then he shook Pat’s hand.
‘Good to see you, my lad.’
Pat entered. Eleanor was seated. A single candle was burning on the table.
She came over and hugged him.
‘Pat, thank God you’re home.’
He thought she looked thinner in the face than she had been, but perhaps it was just that the faint light made her look older.
He placed five sovereigns on the table.
‘And look what I have for ye.’
The queen’s head glinted amber in the candlelight. Victoria Dei Gratia.
Eleanor grasped the coins. ‘Oh Pat!’
‘That’ll help us all get through till Luke gets settled,’ Pat said.
‘It will,’ said Eleanor, ‘and we’re thankful for it.’
He sat down at the table as Eleanor poured three cups of poitín. He had noticed the animals at the end of the house. The smell of manure was strong. Michael followed his gaze.
‘Not what you’re used to, I’d say.’
‘I wasn’t expecting it,’ Pat said.
‘They’d all be gone for eating if we left them outside.’
Pat sniffed at the poitín. The pungent aroma helped to kill the stink of animals.
‘You’ll have a good job with Gaffney in Castlebar,’ Eleanor said.
‘I will,’ Pat replied, ‘but I must say, crossing the country I had my doubts. It’s in a terrible way, and Mayo the worst.’
‘Isn’t that the more reason you should be helping your own people rather than building railways in England.’
There was a silence, only interrupted by the quiet breathing of the animals.
‘You’re right,’ Pat said at last. ‘And I don’t think railways are the thing for me anymore. Not with Danny gone.’
Silence again. The horse snorted.
‘So…what happened to Danny?’ Michael asked.
‘He was run over by a train.’
He saw the immediate reaction in Eleanor’s eyes. Her face went pale.
‘By a train?’ she gasped.
‘How could that have happened?’ Michael asked.
‘It was on purpose,’ Pat replied. ‘Danny killed himself.’
‘Killed himself?’ Michael echoed.
‘Yes.’
‘But…but…how could they know?’ Eleanor asked. ‘Who saw it?’
‘Only the engine driver, and I must confess, I never spoke to him. It was the fellow in the morgue told me, but I reckon he wasn’t lying. Danny stood by the side waiting, and only stood on the track a second or two before. No way could the driver stop.’
‘It’s hard to believe,’ Eleanor said.
‘I’d find it so,’ said Pat, ‘except for one other thing. Danny had no reason to be out on the Manchester & Birmingham railway. He had no contracts there. His main contract was on the North
Staffordshire, and smaller ones around Manchester, and up north, but nothing in the direction of Birmingham. No, Danny killed himself right enough.’
‘But why?’ Michael asked.
‘Hard to be sure, but he’d been in a bad way. There’s been a terrible crash in the money markets in England. The banks are near bankrupt, and the railway companies – they’re cutting back on contracts all over.’
‘So is Edwardes & Ryan going under?’
‘I doubt that,’ Pat said. ‘This Irene woman, she’s a tough lady. She’ll see it through right enough. How Murteen will end up, God only knows, but he’ll have to be tougher than Danny ever was to be dealing with the likes of that bitch. We had all reckoned Danny as a tough fellow, until we met her, and I’d never have expected the likes of that in a woman. How long Murteen will last, I haven’t the slightest idea, but if he’s still there this time next year, I’d be surprised. All I know is that she was a desperate burden on Danny, and that surely didn’t help.’
He sipped at his poitín.
He was getting used to the smell of the animals. The rain of a few minutes ago, was heavier now, drumming against the windows on a rising wind. Lucky to get back before that, he thought.
‘There was something else too,’ he went on. ‘When Uncle Murty and Aunty Aileen left Danny, that was a terrible blow to him, and even I could see that. It’s a strange business, when you think about it. The son leaving his father and mother, that’s only natural, but the other way around, you’d have to question that.’
‘So why…? Why did they leave?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Well, working with Danny, that was a great surprise for Uncle Murty. Or more in the line of a shock. He had expected an easy clerical job in Stockport, and so it was, except for having to deal with Irene every day. But worse than that, it was when he found out how Danny – and Irene – were running the business.’
‘But we heard good reports of that,’ Michael said. ‘Roughneen, Lavan and the rest. They were all earning good money.’
‘Yes,’ Pat said, ‘and keeping their mouths shut too. No, it wasn’t the fellows around here that were doing badly at all. It was the fellows out west – Erris, Achill, Partry, and around – they’d have a different story to tell. At first, Danny would meet them off the boats in Liverpool, and when he got too busy, Murteen would do it instead. Always looking for desperate fellows, straight off the cattle boats from Dublin or Westport. Starving they were. And what did they find when they got to Liverpool? Either they weren’t let off the boats if anyone on the boat had fever, or the workhouses wouldn’t have them, so they starved. And the English hated them.’