by Charles Egan
‘Tuppence a night.’
‘A penny.’
‘Penny three farthings.’
‘Fair enough.’
That evening, the woman of the house fed him with cabbage soup and a little brown bread.
He slept under sheets, grateful for the luxury of it.
Next morning, he left Glenamoy, and, following the man’s instructions, found his way to the coach road at Bangor Erris.
*
He saw a house, with a rough notice outside reading ‘Ales, Wines & Spirits’. He sat outside and asked for a beer, but there was none. A chipped cup was put in front of him, and part filled with poitín. He passed over the ha’penny demanded. The day was warm for the season. There were no other customers. For some time, he wrote in his notebook.
The barman joined him.
‘Are you travelling far?’
‘I am,’ Pat said, ‘out towards Belmullet and beyond. Just looking around.’
‘Why on earth would anyone want to look around this godforsaken place?’
‘I have my reasons,’ Pat said without further explanation. He mixed water in with the poitín, and drank it slowly.
The barman was suspicious, but Pat decided to ignore it.
‘I’d heard things were bad in ’47,’ he said.
‘The worst in Mayo, I’d say,’ the barman answered. ‘The fever did awful damage in Belmullet in that year. Bangor was no better.’
‘But you lived.’
‘I did, and my wife too, but we lost three children.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Pat said. He sipped at his poitín.
‘Here’s the Bianconi,’ the barman said suddenly. A carriage was approaching, four men sitting on each side.
‘What on earth…?’
‘The Bianconi. Comes through from Ballina every Wednesday, headed to Belmullet.’
‘Of course.’
The carriage drew up outside the bar. The driver jumped down, and handed a bundle of letters to the barman, who signed for them.
Four passengers alighted from the carriage, and sat at a table. Three were served with water and poitín, except for an army captain, who produced a hip flask and drank directly from it.
‘Who are you?’ he asked Pat.
Pat flinched, expecting trouble.
‘Pat Ryan,’ he answered.
‘Captain Aldridge of the Forty Ninth Regiment of Foot. Won’t you join us?’
This was unexpected. He hesitated. The man was clearly drunk. Then Pat realised there might be information to be gleaned here.
‘Why not?’ he said.
The captain pulled a chair from the next table.
Pat discovered that, apart from the captain, there was a doctor, a lawyer and a local land owner.
‘So what are you doing here?’ the land owner asked him.
‘Travelling for my employer,’ Pat said.
‘And who might that be?’
‘The County.’
‘The County?’
‘The County Grand Jury. They sent me here to make some kind of report on Erris.’
‘A report? I could give them a report. I could tell them all about Erris, and the way the gentry are being destroyed.’
‘How so?’ Pat asked. This was certainly information.
‘Look, I’ve seventy cabins in this area. Mud cabins the most of them. They paid little enough rent anyhow and whatever they paid was in corn, not cash. Duty labour too. Now with the potatoes gone, they’ve eaten the corn, and they’re too weak for any labour. There’s hardly any of them paying rent, but I still must pay the County Rates. I’ve been over to see the Rates Proctor in Ballina, but they’re not interested, all they want is for the rates to be collected.’
‘That’s tough,’ Pat said, startled that he should hear a landlord talk like this. He was relieved the captain was asleep, and snoring.
‘And it’s not that I’m expecting you to feel sorry for me,’ the man went on. ‘Sure, we’ve had our good times, myself and the wife, Dublin, Bath, Newmarket, London. Paris even, just the once. There were years that weren’t so good neither, but no one on earth thought this was going to happen. No, they’ll bankrupt me, those damned proctors, and I’ll tell you this, young man, I won’t be the only one.’
He took a deep draught from the poitín, and laughed nervously. ‘So that’s Erris for you. I’m going back home to Belmullet. God only knows why.’
‘And God knows why we’re going to Belmullet either,’ the lawyer said. ‘They’ve no laws. All anyone is interested in is registering the ownership of land, but nobody knows for sure who owns the most of it.’
‘Does no one do anything?’ Pat asked.
‘They tried. They’ve given up. A year or two back they opened a fishing station in Belmullet for the washing and curing of fish. Worked well for a few months, but then there was that piracy off the peninsula. The locals, they raided a boat, stole tons of grain and flour off it.’
‘Yes,’ Pat said, ‘I’d heard about that.’
‘So after that, they just closed the fishing station.’
‘But what did that have to do with it?’
‘Nothing. A kind of revenge, if you like. But that’s Belmullet for you. They’re still talking of building a workhouse there. That might be some progress. But I’ll tell you this, Belmullet is hell on earth.’
‘I don’t know if that’s the worst,’ the doctor said. ‘Dooncarton is in a terrible condition; from all we hear. Were you planning on heading up that way at all?’
‘I am.’
‘All on past Barnatra there – Gortmeille, Inver, Dooncarton itself. Pollatomish, Kilcommon and Faulagh too.’
Dooncarton? Pat thought back to the old man in the Ox Mountains. Cairbre Mór. He had said Dún Chiortáin. The sound of it would have been different in Irish, but it was close enough.
But it was not only Cairbre Mór. Gaffney had asked him to travel to Dooncarton.
The lawyer woke the captain. As the passengers climbed back into the carriage, the driver offered Pat a seat to Belmullet for sixpence. Pat was tempted, but Dooncarton came first.
*
He crossed the river flowing out from Carrowmore Lake, and turned right to follow the west side of the loch. He slept on hay inside a rough built stone shack. It was icy cold.
At dawn, he spread out his map, and memorised the villages and roads, before he left. As the sun slowly rose, he saw a mountain ahead of him, a smaller one to the left. He came to a boreen. A woman was standing at the doorway of a cabin, a baby in her arms. The baby had a bloated belly.
‘A farthing sir?’
Pat walked over and gave her a farthing. He thought of the food in his pack, but he was uncertain he could get back to Westport or Castlebar if he gave more away.
‘What’s up this road?’
‘The village of Ráth Muireagáin. A mile or so.’
‘Ráth Muireagáin?’ Pat asked.
‘Rathmorgan, they call it in the stranger’s tongue.’
‘Ah, yes.’
He walked on to Rathmorgan. There was no one about. Some of the doors were locked, and he did not stay. Carrowmore Lake sparkled below him to the east, and he followed a rough boreen by Knocknascollop Mountain back to the road north along the lake.
He crossed another paved road, and walked by the long inlet of Broadhaven Bay.
He sat by the edge of the water. The tide was out, and in the inlet, seals were drawn up and lounging on the rocks. Twenty, thirty, forty? He had no idea how many. Beyond them, was the outline of the Erris Peninsula.
A man walked up from the waterside. His hair was thin and grey, blowing in the light wind. His face was wizened, near brown from long years in sun and rain. The suit he wore showed all the signs of many years of wear, though Pat reckoned it could once have been one that any man might have been proud of. He was sure it had not been made from the local homespun wool. More surprising was the coat he wore, which was clearly an old army greatcoat, long faded to grey. One single
brass button remained.
‘Tá an ocras orm.’ The hunger is on me.
Pat was undecided. He could give him bread, but if he did, would he have enough to get back to Westport. In the end, he opened his pack and gave the man a small slice. The man sat beside him.
‘The seals. The old women say they’re the spirits of the dead. Only fantasy of course. But I’ll tell you this, they’re better fed than we are. They go out to the ocean and feed on fish till they’re bloated. Then they come back to rest and sleep at Trá Chinn Chiortáin. Isn’t it a terrible thing we cannot do the same. We go out with our little boats, but what we take from the ocean is pitiful. You can be sure of one thing; it will never make up for the loss of the potato.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Pat said.
The man told him much of fever and famine in the area.
At last, Pat stood to go.
‘Are you travelling far?’ the old man asked.
‘Far enough,’ Pat said. ‘As far as Dún Chiortáin.
‘What brings you there?’
Pat hesitated.
‘Would you take it amiss, if I did not answer that question?’
‘Suit yourself,’ the old man said. ‘And that God may go with you.’
‘And also with you,’ Pat said.
He travelled on.
Gortmeille, Greamhchoill.
The scenes were no different to before. Mud cabins, most with smoke issuing through the front door, some collapsed. He saw one with a rough-made door, closed against the rain and the wind. The roof had rotted and buckled. He pushed against the door, but he could see through the gap between the door and the wall that it had been knotted from the inside. He pushed harder, and the twine gave way.
Inside were three dead bodies, well advanced in decomposition. He gagged, went out again and tried to tie the door from the outside, using a nail that had been hammered into the hardened mud, but it was impossible.
As he travelled, he met and passed people walking, or some just sitting at the roadside. No one begged now.
At one point, the road had disappeared under an avalanche of mud. He reckoned it a hundred yards across and tried to walk it, but he kept slipping. At last he went back, and climbed high up the mountain until he was above the slide, and then made his way back down to the road on the other side.
Dún Chiortáin. Dooncarton.
Most of the village was above him on a higher road to the right, just below the steep side of the mountain. He turned and walked upwards. After a few minutes, he stopped, and sat on a wall.
Out on the ocean he spotted a fountain of water. Thinking he might have imagined it, he watched the whole ocean. Another fountain erupted, and soon afterwards a large whale breached the surface from further out, jumping high. From his vantage point he could now see the creatures moving, hard to pick out against the water, but they were there.
More cabins, many collapsed; some deliberately, he reckoned. As he walked back towards the main road, he saw a stone circle to the side, but could not work out why it was there. Curious, he walked across to it. The wind was blowing from the ocean, but behind one of the stones he found a rough-made hut built into it. There was no one around. He crept inside and lay down on the rough straw he found there. Could this strange place be the Dún Chiortáin that Cairbre Mór had mentioned?
The harsh cold woke him early, and he started out before dawn.
Poll a’tSómais, Cill Chomáinn, Fálach. Many more cabins. More dead bodies.
He came back to the Killala Belmullet road again, where he turned right and came to Barnatra again. He stopped and scribbled more notes. Then he walked on towards the Mullet.
*
It was evening when he reached Belmullet, and it was raining.
He crossed a bridge and was surprised to see that it was open at both ends, and clearly man-made. A canal in Belmullet! Unlike any other canal, this one had no locks. To the east and west, there was open water.
Some of the blocks were freshly chiselled. Famine Relief? Perhaps it was. Building canals could be just as useful as building roads. More so.
As he entered the town, he was surprised to see an inn which was of a better character than he would have expected in Erris. He was more surprised to note a line of twenty or thirty people out the back, all showing clear signs of starvation. Curious, he entered the hotel.
‘Out the back if you want to be fed.’
‘What?’
‘Beggars out the back.’
‘I’m not one of the starving,’ Pat said. ‘There’s no hunger on me.’
‘So what’s your business?’ the man asked angrily.
‘I was looking for a beer,’ Pat answered.
‘You can pay?’
Pat flipped a penny on the desk.
‘Guinness,’ he said.
The doctor and lawyer were sitting at a table, drinking in the light of two candles. On an instinct, he went over.
‘May I join you?’
One of the men nodded to an empty seat. ‘You might as well. We’ve exhausted whatever conversation we had between the pair of us. Are you staying over?’
‘I don’t know,’ Pat said. ‘I haven’t asked about the room rate, but I doubt I’ll be spending money on that.’
‘You took a good soaking. You’ll need to dry off before you go anywhere.’
‘Sure what of that. Maybe the innkeeper will let me stay in the stables.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It will be full enough tonight, with the class of people you might get fleas from. Still, there might be other stables around.’
‘I hope so,’ said Pat. ‘I’m not sure I should be spending too much on a bed. My employer’s money, you understand.’
‘Of course. The County.’
‘Yes,’ Pat said, ‘the County.’
‘So where have you been since we met you last?’
‘Up around Poll a’tSómais and Inbhear. Desperate conditions, just like you said. So I see what I see, then stop for a while and scribble a few notes in my notebook.’
‘A notebook?’ the doctor asked. ‘If it’s not asking too much…’
Pat reached into his pack, pulled out the notebook and placed it on the table. The doctor started to leaf through it. Pat and the lawyer said nothing. Then the doctor spoke.
‘Mother of God, is it really like this?’
‘Could be worse,’ Pat said. ‘Sometimes I feel if I put in all I see no one would ever believe me.’
‘Did you see any evictions there?’
‘Not that I could say for certain. No cleared villages anyhow. Quite a number of abandoned houses, many fallen in. Some might have been levelled on purpose, I don’t know.’
‘Not like down the Mullet,’ the lawyer said. ‘Captain Aldridge could tell you all about that. He was in on the Walshe evictions last Christmas – Torán and the rest. Upset him no end, the poor fellow. Thought he’d be off fighting for his country in Afghanistan. Never thought he’d be throwing people out of their homes in County Mayo. Now he can’t even show his face in public, neither in Bangor nor Belmullet.’
‘Is that why he’s not here?’ Pat asked.
‘Gets his dinner sent up to his room, he does. Doesn’t want anyone to see him eating. He’d always thought of himself as a good Christian fellow, but what he saw and did that night destroyed him.’
Pat was surprised at how normal everything was in the inn. The innkeeper had come from behind the bar and started collecting the empties.
‘You do good business here,’ Pat said to him.
‘You wouldn’t call it that,’ the innkeeper answered. ‘It’s better than last year though. Or ’47. That was the worst.’
‘Yes,’ the doctor said, ‘The very worst.’
‘There was no business at all that time,’ the innkeeper went on. ‘From the beginning of the year right up to the autumn, damned little. Sure the fever here near wiped the town out. Everyone knew about it too, the Connaught Telegraph made sure to
tell it to the world. And what the fever didn’t finish, the hunger did. No, I’ll tell you this, there’s thousands died around here. And the worst of it is, no one will ever know how many. There’s people living and dead in Erris who were never acknowledged by any landlord and never saw any soup kitchen, let alone got fed by them.’
Yes, Pat thought, the landless men again. Gaffney’s underclass. Gaffney had been right.
‘I know,’ Pat said, ‘I’d heard terrible things about Erris.’
‘I’m sure you have. Now if you’ll be excusing me, I’ve work to do.’
He wiped down the table, threw the cloth over his wrist, picked up the empties and left.
‘A tough fellow, I’d say,’ Pat said.
‘Ah now, he’s a decent enough man,’ the doctor said. ‘Every evening he gives ha’pennies out the back for anyone wanting to buy corn.’
‘And food?’
‘No food, unless they use their money to buy it. Sure if he gave out food all the time, he’d have a thousand out there and no food for the hotel.’
After two more drinks, Pat left the bar. The doctor and lawyer were still talking, more argumentative now.
He walked past the waiting line of people at the back door of the hotel. It was near impossible to see in the dark, but most were hungry, that was obvious. Their clothes were drenched through. Whatever clothes they had – even the women’s shifts – were thin, with no other covering. Two of the children were close to naked. The back door opened, and the line started to shuffle forward.
He walked out from the town in the direction of the Mullet. On the outskirts of the town he found a stable. There were no horses, only a cart. On the side was a deep stack of hay. He lay into it, and fell asleep in seconds.
*
He was woken by the distant sound of music. He took his pack over his shoulder and slipped out of the stable, listening. The music was coming from the town. He walked back into the town again. What he saw astonished him. A hundred or more soldiers marching, led by a brass band. He recognised the uniform as that of the Forty Ninth Regiment. Incredibly, the soldiers began to sing. He listened carefully and recognised the words of ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’. An Irish song. Or was it English? Was this the same army that carried out evictions right across Mayo?