by Charles Egan
Pat spent the rest of the day reading frantically through letters, reports, maps and accounts – anything he could find relating to the far-flung barony of Erris. Once again, he wrote in his notebook, trying to form a picture of what he was going to see. He felt a deep dread, but comforted himself with the thought that he had already been through the Ox Mountains, and he knew what he was looking for.
On looking at the map again, it struck him that if he approached from Newport, a small diversion would bring him to Westport.
Why not?
The next morning, he was let out the gate; the soldiers guarding it, as it was opened and shut quickly. He forced his way along the workhouse wall. There was a woman lying on the ground, thick frost on her clothes. Her shins were bare, the same frost covering her purple ankles and feet. Her eyes too were covered with frost. Was she dead or alive? He walked on.
The frost thawed, and by the time he reached Westport it was raining, and there were very few outside the workhouse gates. He was quickly admitted.
He found her office. The Clerk of Union was working on a high desk in the corner.
‘Someone for you, Sarah.’
She spun around from her desk. ‘Pat! We hadn’t been expecting you.’
‘Well, isn’t it a nice surprise for you then?’ he said.
She ran, and embraced him. ‘What are you doing in Westport?’
‘I’m just heading from Castlebar up to Erris.’
‘Erris! Why Erris?’
‘Oh, it’s simple enough. Gaffney – the fellow I’m working for – he wants reports on the districts around Mayo to judge which needs help the most. Not that they have much cash to be helping them with.’
‘But Pat – you’ve got to be awful careful. There’s disease everywhere.’
‘I know,’ Pat said, ‘and before we go further, I wanted to ask you about your mother. What happened?’
‘Fever. It was just she was going in and out of the infirmary sheds, and you know how dangerous that is with them all crushed so close together. She knew the risk she was running.’
‘But you were working in the sheds too, weren’t you?
She hesitated before answering. ‘Oh, the devil take it. That was different.’
‘No, it wasn’t, Sarah.’
The Clerk stood.
‘I’m delighted to meet you Pat,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure you two have much more to be talking about. I might go for an early lunch.’
When he had left, Sarah embraced Pat again.
‘And it’s not that I’m not sorry about my mother,’ she said. ‘Please understand that. But one way or another, she was the barrier between us. I know too the way she was thinking, and she wanted a better match for me. She reckoned you’d end up working as a navvy in England again.’
‘She might have been right,’ Pat said.
‘Fair enough, if she was,’ Sarah said, ‘I’ll take that risk. But I’m thinking you’ll most likely stay in Mayo.’
‘I think you’re right too,’ Pat said, ‘but the question is – as what? Working for the County, or working for my father back in Carrigard?’
‘Does it matter? One thing’s for certain. Staying in Mayo is better than going to Australia.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of going that far.’
‘You mightn’t have been. But the Union were thinking of sending me there.’
‘To Australia! Were they intending on transporting you?’
‘They were thinking about it. There’s this new idea they’ve got – the Earl Grey Scheme, they call it here. They’re looking for older girls who are orphans – and I’m an orphan now. They reckon there are too few women in the Australian colonies so they’re sending them out of Ballina, over to England and down to Port Phillip. And I’ll tell you one thing Pat, it’s lucky I wasn’t among them. They reckoned with mother out of the way that I’d be an easy victim, but I’m damned if I’m going to go out to Port Phillip just because they’re short of women for making babies.’
‘Were they going to force you?’
‘They wanted to. The Master here, he’s a dreadful man. Wants to get rid of me, I know that, and I’ve no longer got mother to protect me. Right at the moment, I’m earning nothing. Board and keep only. I can’t go on like that; you know that as well as I do. I’m sick of it all. Sick of the workhouse and the fever sheds. All these years, living in workhouses. I usen’t mind it when I was a child. It’s only as you get older you can see the suffering. Carrigard – it’s our only chance.’
‘I don’t know,’ Pat said. ‘You’d find it tough settling into Carrigard. You’ve never worked on a farm in your life.’
‘But a workhouse is worse. And your farm is better than any other in Carrigard, I know that for a certainty. Ye’ve the quarry too. Ye’re strong farmers.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Ask the inmates here, so. They’ll tell you. And your mother, she’s a strong woman. Could we get on, your mother and me? I know we could. And we wouldn’t have to rear our children in a workhouse. So let’s not beat about the bush, Pat. We’re getting married.’
‘And isn’t that what both of us want?’
‘It is,’ she said.
He considered her words.
‘So what’s our future going to be?’ he asked at length. ‘At least people get fed in England and America, but this country can’t even feed its own. We’ll be depending on my earnings, and depending on Gaffney to keep employing me. He wants me travelling the County, reporting back on famine. What if there’s no famine? He’d have no reason to. Which puts us to a straight decision – England, Ireland or America? Isn’t that it?’
‘No, it’s not. There’s no choice. You can’t leave Carrigard, Pat. God knows, your father has too much already with two quarries and two farms. He’s not a young man either. I’d guess already it’s getting too much for him. And anyhow, if there’s no famine, there won’t be such a call for your earnings. Would there?’
‘So what are you thinking?’ he asked.
‘I’m thinking it all comes back to Carrigard. If not this year, then next year. God knows, we love each other, not like many who are forced to marry. We’ll stand by each other, no matter what. And your mother, she’s a loving woman, and a very powerful one too, something you men might never have noticed.’
‘Oh, I’d noticed right enough,’ Pat said.
He slept that night on a floor in the Administration building, his greatcoat and blanket wrapped around him. The room was still warm enough from the fire in the grate. After a few hours, he put more turf on the fire, and slept well for the rest of the night.
*
As he began his journey to Erris. Sarah walked out with him. Men and women were at work in the yard, smashing stones.
They reached the outer gate, and he turned to hug her.
‘Your horse?’ Sarah said.
‘What about it?’
‘Where is it?’
‘Safely in its stable, back in Castlebar, and I’m afraid it’s staying there. This is a walking journey.’
‘Walking!’
‘Of course,’ Pat said. ‘I can’t take the horse; it’d never return if I did. You’ve heard yourself the stories of piracy out by the Mullet. People are desperate there, more desperate than they’ve ever been. And what do you think a horse is? Food, that’s what it is. Just like a cow except more meat.’
She screwed up her face. ‘Oh God! They wouldn’t…’
‘Of course, they would. When horsemeat is all that’s between yourself and death – what would you do?’
‘But then,’ she said, ‘if they’re that desperate, what will happen to you? Does it frighten you?’
‘Oh, I’m frightened right enough,’ Pat said, ‘but it’s not desperate people that frightens me. They won’t eat me! It’s what I might see, that’s what really frightens me. In fact, it’s what I know I’m going to see. I’ll tell you Sarah, I never wanted this job, but you know yourself, it’s the only thing
that keeps me in Mayo. Otherwise I’d just have to swallow my pride, travel back over to Stockport, and work with Irene.’
‘So there’s worse things than Erris?’
‘Ach, I don’t know. In many ways, it’d be easier in England, but a woman like that is enough to break any man’s pride. She broke Danny’s.’
The rain had stopped, and there were many more outside the gate than there had been. The inmate guarding it nodded at Pat, but did not open it. Rapidly, he pulled himself up, over the spikes at the top and dropped down the outside.
‘Now, you take care of yourself,’ he said through the bars to Sarah. Then he walked through the military and out along the road towards Newport.
*
When he reached Newport, he found it a little odd, but no odder, he reflected, than Castlebar or Westport. There were many comfortable houses in the town, and, despite famine, many people who were not starving. As he left the centre, the houses were poorer. Then, he came to an auction – beds, tables, pots and anything else movable. The result of evictions, he guessed. When a family had no house, what use were tables?
Thankfully, he left the town behind.
One woman walked towards him, a baby on her back.
She stopped to rest, and he came up alongside her. She looked up in alarm.
‘Rest easy,’ Pat said. ‘I mean you no harm.’
She smiled weakly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘For a long time now, strangers have meant nothing but pain.’
‘What has happened here?’ he asked.
‘These are the lands of Sir Richard McDonnell. We could not pay rent. His driver took our things, pots, pans and even our clothes, and sold them at auction. Then when that was not enough they destroyed our cabin, and we are starving.’
‘How long…?
‘Last summer. We have sheltered with friends while my husband worked in England, and sent us money. But now the money has stopped. Where he is, or whether he is alive or dead, I do not know. And with the failure last year, my friends cannot feed themselves, and I cannot buy corn.’
‘Is it so bad around here?’ he asked.
‘Bad enough for those who are evicted. But for those who remain, they have the comfort of knowing that it could have been worse. Sir Richard’s evictions in Keel – they were worse.’
‘Keel! On the island of Achill?’
‘It is. All of Keel was evicted by Sir Richard.’
Pat thought of giving her some of the bread in his pack, but then thought better of it. He had a job to do, and it was important for the County. If he started giving his bread away to everyone he met, he would never complete his task.
‘Where are ye headed?’ he asked.
‘Westport. That the workhouse might take us.’
This put Pat in a difficult situation. It was most unlikely the workhouse was taking anyone in, so what to do? But was he certain? Let her walk on to Ballinrobe in her condition? Her last hope?
He stood. ‘I’d best be going,’ he said. He gave her a halfpenny. ‘They might have corn in Newport. Westport even. ’Tis a big town.’
She took the money. ‘God bless you, sir,’ she said.
She went to stand, but sat again. Pat offered his hand, and pulled her up. Then he turned, and walked on. He would have to stop giving money away.
Where now? Gaffney’s first request had been the areas in the north of Nephin and Nephin Beg. He sat and spread a map out beside him.
He had already gone west to Westport and Newport, rather than taking the shorter road up from Castlebar. Not that that mattered much.
He spotted Eskeragh on the map. It was on the coach road running across the centre of the bogs. Cairbre Mór had mentioned Eskeragh. Why not head that way first? But where was Glenamoy on the map?
He found it at last. Eskeragh to Glenamoy – ten miles? But what was in between? On the other side of the coach road the map was blank. Sheskin was not even marked.
He stood and followed the road through Glenhest. When, at last, he found the road going north from Castlebar he was exhausted. He found a deserted cabin, gathered straw and reeds from around it, and formed a rough bed. He took his blanket out of his pack, wrapped it around himself and slept.
Before dawn, he continued, passing Nephin and Glen Nephin. Now he was following a rough tangle of boreens, always taking direction from the sun. Small settlements and isolated homes, none on the map. Some houses were stone, some mud. Some were occupied, some deserted.
When he reached the coach road, he was worn out. He entered a cowshed. An old woman was milking a cow. She looked up in alarm.
‘I was only looking for a place to sleep,’ he said.
‘Well, come inside so,’ she said, relaxing her face.
She had little more than buttermilk to give him, and he gave her two slices of bread in return. That night he slept in a bed under a heavy blanket. The cow had been taken inside the house.
He followed the coach road to Eskeragh. It was only a tiny village, a mere scattering of houses. They were all empty. He turned onto a rough boreen running north into the bogs.
There was a small settlement, a few cabins standing. An old man was sitting at the side of the road. His cheeks were drawn in. Pat asked directions. The man pointed with his stick.
‘You may keep to the high ground. Go straight west, or you will not cross the bog alive.’
No boreens now. He walked across the higher part of the open bog, firmer than the to the side. He met two women coming against him, pulling a rough sled of turf, balanced on two stripped branches. He nodded at them, but they did not respond.
The old man was right, there would be no way through the lower part of the bog. He trudged between potato ridges, though he knew well there would be no potatoes left. He saw some rough huts and made his way to them. They were built of turf, no more. All were empty, a gnawed ribcage in one.
After more walking, he was surprised to see a monkey-puzzle tree in the distance. At first, he thought his sight was deceiving him, but as he came closer there was no doubt. He had seen these on a few occasions in England, on the driveways or in the gardens of stately homes. There was no way on earth a monkey-puzzle could be growing in a Mayo bog. Yet, there it was.
As he climbed higher up the ridge he saw a large two-storey house with a slated roof behind the monkey-puzzle. He made his way to a wrought iron gate on the other side of a rough gravel boreen. Curious, he opened the gate, and walked in.
‘What do you want?’ A shotgun was pointing directly at him.
‘Nothing at all,’ Pat said.
‘Get to hell out, so.’
He continued along the boreen. It had begun to rain, a fine drizzling rain that he had been approaching for miles, crossing the mountains and moving out across the bog. He came to another small village. Some houses were made of stone, though most were mud. Four of the cabins had collapsed. He heard voices. He went to one of the stone houses and knocked. A woman answered and looked at him in alarm. Her cheeks were hollow and her clothes were ragged, but what else had he expected.
‘I was looking for shelter from the rain,’ Pat said.
Her face relaxed a little.
‘Shelter we can give you, but food we have none.’
‘Fine so.’
A man, and a very old woman sat on stools by a fire. The man waved him across, and he sat on a ledge beside the fire.
‘Ye have come from far?’ the man asked.
‘Down by Kilduff,’ Pat said.
‘What brings you to these parts?’
‘I was walking to Belmullet, but thought to take a shortcut across this way. I got lost.’
‘You won’t be lost now,’ the woman said. ‘All you have to do is follow this road to Glencalry.’
‘I had not known of this road,’ Pat said.
‘The people from here, all the way to Erris, know of it. They call it the Bealach Garbh.’ The Rough Road.
‘A Famine Relief road?’
‘Never.
This road has been here for a thousand years. More even.’
Should he believe that. Why worry?
‘What of the house back the way?’ he asked. ‘I was surprised to see that here.’
‘Sheskin Lodge. It’s the hunting lodge of the McDonnells.’
‘Hunting?’ Pat asked.
‘They come here for the hunting season in the month of August.’
‘For a month?’
‘Yes,’ the woman said, ‘and isn’t it well for some. A big house like that, they built for their enjoyment only. Eleven months empty but no one else is let use it.’
‘And this village?’
‘Sheskin. The best-known stopping point on the Bealach Garbh. The only one in these parts.’
‘And what of the people in the bog?’
‘Who knows?’ the man answered. ‘And who wants to know? No one knows they’re there, no one has ever counted them. There’s many parts of the bog no one can pass through, unless they know the paths. They’re there free of rent, and even the Census men don’t know of them.’
The rain had stopped.
He left the village, continuing roughly north, through Glencalry, until he came to a gravelled road. He asked directions to Glenamoy and was directed to the village. He sat on a wall, and wrote his notes.
Later he found a well-built stone house. He knocked on the door. A man answered it.
‘I’m looking for lodgings,’ Pat said.