by Charles Egan
Now there were many more houses, scattered all over the countryside. As before, many ruined, some still standing. At Kinnakil, he found the school. It was a well-constructed building with a slate roof.
He knew the schoolmaster would give him information. When he got there, he found there was no front door. There were no doors inside either, nor floorboards. All taken for firewood, no doubt.
He went out and went to the small house beside the school. The doors here were still in place, but no one answered his knock.
Gowlaun was the same. The school had been cleared of timber too, and there was no schoolmaster. He went into the church. An old woman was on her knees in front of the altar. He walked up, and she looked around in fright.
‘There is no need for fear,’ Pat said. ‘I was just looking for the priest.’
‘He’s out travelling. They all need the Last Rites, both for the dying and the dead. The fever and hunger are killing many.’
‘And all the other villages back the way? Fever and hunger too?’
‘The same.’
‘And evictions?’
‘Not here. Not yet. There have been many in other villages though. We wait our turn.’
He left. It was warm for the time of year. Sometimes he saw people sitting alongside the road, a listless expression on their faces, as if they were uncaring and simply awaiting their fate. Over the following villages, the story was the same as Gowlaun. Killadoon was shattered. There were many houses, though almost all were empty now. Fever, he was told again. Some mentioned hunger, but fever was the big killer, and from all he heard it had been worst in 1847. But now hunger and fever had returned.
He rode towards Cloonlaur. He found the church easily enough, but it was deserted. He rode on, hoping to find the priest, out on sick calls perhaps. He questioned an old woman carrying seaweed.
‘He’s dead,’ she told him. ‘Caught the fever, poor man. We’ve had no Mass this long time. No sacraments for the dead, neither.’
As he rode, he passed women carrying rush baskets filled with turf on their backs. Most were ragged and gaunt. He offered to carry one woman’s load on his horse, but she looked away in alarm and did not answer him.
At last, Roonagh Quay, with Clare Island on the horizon. The currachs were landing fish. Men lifted creels of fish out onto the quay. A group of men surrounded them, sticks in their hands. Beside them, women sold their turf at a penny a load.
There was a group of twenty people at the end of the quay, many dressed in the uniform of the workhouse. They were watching a larger boat coming in from the sea. He guessed it was the ferry for Clare Island. As they all boarded the boat, he wondered how many paid. Or could pay.
More houses and tiny villages. Again and again, he counted the houses, full and empty, and tried to estimate the numbers of people that had lived and died in these unknown places.
*
He came to the cabins on the outskirts of Louisburgh, followed by the more substantial stone houses of the town itself. The roads were filthy with sewage. No corpses though.
In the centre of the town, he found what appeared to be a bar. It was late now, and the sun had set. He tied his horse to an iron ring on the side of the door, and entered. In the weak candlelight, he saw three men sitting in the corner, and another behind the bar. He questioned the barman about lodgings in Louisburgh, and was glad to be told that the bar itself had rooms available. He asked about stabling, and when he was content that his horse would be secure, he returned to the bar, ordered a beer and took it across to the corner.
‘If I may join ye?’
One of the men indicated an empty seat. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, ‘if you’re not travelling for Lord Sligo.’
‘Not I,’ Pat said. ‘I’ve seen much fear of his agents as I’ve travelled. He’s an evil man.’
‘The gallows would be too good for him. Mind you, he was a decent enough fellow when this all started. Nothing like those other bastards, Lucan, Palmer, Gore-Knox and the rest of their breed. We were so sure young Georgie – the Marquess of Sligo to you and me – would never evict. And then he started. They say he’s bankrupt, and sure he’s getting nothing at all in rents. His only hope is sheep and cattle, and what kind of attention do they need beyond a shepherd to guard them from the starving? It’s his only chance, they say. They say it’ll never stop till he has all his tenants evicted.’
Pat guessed that the men were either cattle drovers or perhaps stronger farmers from around the town. He had little interest in that though. They spoke about conditions in Louisburgh, and the area around it. All of it confirmed what he had seen on his journey around from Mweelrea. Their account of the fevers of 1847 was almost too much to take. And now, more evictions were being planned.
The next morning, he found the Catholic chapel, but discovered the priest was out travelling the parish, and was not expected back anytime soon.
He remembered what Gaffney had told him about the Protestant vicar. He found the church, the glebe house beside it. He tied his horse to the gatepost, and knocked on the door. A very old maid admitted him to a flag-stoned hall, darkened portraits lining the walls, and sat him on an old, cushioned bench. He was disappointed to be told that the vicar too was travelling. He rose to go, but a well-dressed woman came, and introduced herself as the vicar’s wife. When she learned from Pat what his mission was, she asked him into the parlour. The old woman served them buttermilk, as Mrs. Callanan spoke.
‘You must understand, young man, that having a living in Louisburgh is no living at all. You know that our predecessors both died of fever. Husband and wife.’
‘I had not heard that,’ Pat said.
‘No. We are not so long here, and it’s my expectation that we will die the same way. I always thought when I was a young woman that we might suffer martyrdom for our faith. My husband was much into going on the China Missions, but they told him he was more urgently needed in County Mayo. It was only when we arrived here, we discovered why. So if there is to be any martyrdom, it won’t be for our faith but for our flock. And, I might add, everyone else’s flock too. It’s all the same here, Catholics, Protestants or the Friends, we all work for the people and we all die, the priests more than most. What else can we do, any of us?’
For some time, she told him of conditions around Louisburgh. Then Pat explained his own mission, and Mrs. Callanan questioned him closely about the Partry Mountains and the villages around Mweelrea.
There was a sound of a gate opening.
Mrs. Callanan stood up. ‘That would be my husband.’
Dean Callanan was a man of middle age, clad in a dark suit. His hair was black and long, framing a reddish face. He looked at Pat in surprise.
‘Who’s this?’
‘A young man from the County,’ Mrs. Callanan said. ‘They’ve sent him down to enquire into conditions around Louisburgh.’
‘As if they don’t know.’
‘And I know just what you mean,’ Pat said, quickly. ‘It’s just that there’s those on the Grand Jury who won’t believe what they don’t want to believe. So Mr. Gaffney has sent me down to see the truth of it all. And before you say it, I’ve travelled much.’
‘Fair enough,’ the dean said, taking out a bottle of sherry. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘As much as you can tell me,’ Pat said.
The dean handed Pat a glass.
‘Gonzalez Byass,’ he said. ‘Far superior to Osborne, don’t you think.’
Pat had never heard of either. Gingerly, he sipped at the glass.
The dean confirmed everything his wife had said, and far more. All the clergy in Louisburgh and around it, all the way down to the Killaries were in utter desperation. He confirmed too about the letter that he had written to the Dublin papers.
‘Yes,’ Pat said, ‘I’d heard it was strongly supported by Archbishop McHale.’
‘Indeed,’ Callanan replied. ‘Like all the rest of us, there’s no dissension any more. All we can do is
try to get supplies, but now even that is impossible, so we just give the Last Rites, at the risk of our own lives. No, there is no difference here, vicar or priest, we do everything we can. That is the reason that the Archbishop supported my letter, together with many other bishops in the Church of Rome. That was why it got so much attention through the national press. It was re-printed in the London and Manchester papers too. What difference that might make, I don’t know but, damn it, we’ll see.’
Pat was a little surprised at the swear word, but did not comment.
Now the dean questioned Pat intensively about his experiences since he had left Castlebar. Again, Pat described what he had seen, starting with the Lucan evictions south of Claremorris. Pat’s descriptions of the dying villages of the Partry Mountains horrified him, and his ride along the coast under Mweelrea Mountain surprised him.
‘I never heard of any man taking a horse along there,’ he told Pat. ‘In fact, I don’t know of anyone who’s even walked it.’
‘Yes,’ Pat said, ‘looking back, it was a silly thing to do. The horse nearly didn’t make it.’
‘Why did you do it so?’
‘Mr. Gaffney had some interest in the area. And it looked shorter on the map. The better route would have been around by Delphi.’
‘Ah yes,’ the dean said, ‘Delphi Lodge. You’ve heard about that?’
‘I know nothing about it,’ Pat said. ‘I’ve never been there. Whose is it?’
‘Well, it was built by Lord Sligo as a sporting lodge, but it’s been in the Irish and English papers a few weeks ago, and it wasn’t for its hunting or fishing. A crowd of paupers who were seeking relief here in Louisburgh, were asked to present themselves for inspection at Delphi, because the Relieving Officer here did not have his books ready. Why they were to be ready in Delphi, I don’t know. Can you imagine it? It’s fourteen miles to Delphi. And when they arrived at the Lodge, they were told to return to Louisburgh instead. At Louisburgh, they were told to go to the village of Cregganebane, six miles back again, before their names could be placed on the Relief Book.’
‘But why?’
‘The Lord only knows. But I must tell you, on the road between Louisburgh and the Lodge at Delphi, seven dead bodies were found.’
‘Seven!’
‘Yes, and our information is that another ten never reached their homes. And that is the price of human stupidity, or should I say human cruelty. ‘Pauper Slaughter’ – that’s what the Freeman’s Journal called it, and with good reason.’
Pat questioned the dean about the Lord Sligo evictions. Callanan confirmed all that Pat had heard, not only of the past evictions by Lord Sligo, but of those that were planned. He told Pat too of what had happened in many other villages for miles around.
At length, he stopped.
‘But tell me one thing, my young friend. I’ve written to the County before, the Connaught Telegraph, the Dublin papers and all the rest. Why will the Grand Jury not believe me?’
‘They don’t want to believe you. There’s men in Castlebar would deny any of this is happening. And don’t say I said that.’
‘Oh God, I’m sick of them all.’
‘So am I,’ Pat said. ‘With the strong exception of George Gaffney though. He’s a hard man, and a fair man. He knows well what’s happening, and my reports give him the ammunition to use against the rest of them.’
When Pat left, the dean shook his hand, gravely. ‘I can’t say how happy I am to see you, even if I might have sounded a bit miserable. It all gets to you in the end.’
‘I know.’
‘Well, you just give them the facts. Hit them hard, and don’t let them deny it.’
Pat mounted his horse and pulled away from the house. He followed the road out of Louisburgh, under the cone of Croagh Patrick, and so to Westport.
Chapter 26
Telegraph & Connaught Ranger, Mayo. May 1849:
What a visitation has been this devouring famine of 1846! When, now in the fourth year, its withering career is more destructive to life and property than in any former year since it displayed itself in the destruction of the poor man’s food! Yes! The people are dying, and the dogs are feeding on their putrefying bodies in the ditches! Is it any wonder the pure air of heaven is impregnated with foul odour? Is it to be wondered at that disease, call it what you will, is fast mowing down the Foodless! Clothesless! Homeless! Shelterless! Poor of Mayo?
He made Murrisk in good time. After a diversion to Murrisk Pier, he came back to the road again, diverting again to follow the coast towards Westport Quay. As he passed the Customs House, he glimpsed Westport House Lough. Curious, he made his way to the lake. Beyond it, he saw what he took to be Westport House itself, which he already knew to be the residence of Lord Sligo.
Across from the lake, the long green lawn ran down to the water. The house itself was at the far end. It was tall, three storeys at least. A grey slate roof topped out the house, with chimneys and many chimney pots. There was a balustrade in the front, with more balustrades on a bridge over the lake, all with pots of flowers, blooming red and yellow in the sunshine.
He turned away. Was it for this that men, women and children had to be evicted, broken and killed? All part of Lord Sligo’s war on the people of Mayo.
He made his way back to the Customs House and went on towards Westport. At the workhouse, there were no people in front of the gates, only a few sitting along by the wall. From behind him, there was the incessant tramp of marching from the military barracks. Why was the government so frightened of starving people?
An inmate and an infantry man were on guard, just inside the workhouse gate. He asked for Sarah Cronin, explaining she worked in the offices. The inmate went away, and came back a few minutes later to say that there was no one of that name in the Administration Block.
Pat was shocked. He had not expected this.
‘Can you find out…?’
‘It’s not my business to be running messages for you,’ the man said.
Pat took a farthing out of his pocket and handed it through the gate.
‘Is she dead?’
‘I do not know,’ the man replied.
Thinking fast, he asked for the clerk instead.
A few minutes later the clerk appeared at the gate.
‘Pat Ryan. In the name of God.’
‘I’m looking for Sarah.’
‘I know you are. Come in, come in.’
The gate was opened slightly, and Pat slipped through with the horse.
‘Is she dead or what?’
‘Oh, nothing like that,’ the clerk said. ‘It’s just the workhouse reducing costs. They say they can’t afford giving her board and lodgings in the Administration quarters. She’s an inmate now.’
‘An inmate! Do they have her on stone-breaking or what?’
‘Worse than that,’ the clerk said. ‘They have her working in the infirmaries. She’s back here somewhere.’
He led Pat around the back of the workhouse. There was a row of sheds along the side wall, two more rows in front of them.
Even between the sheds, and in every free space, there were huge crowds of people, some standing, many more lying on the ground.
‘What on earth is going on here?’ he asked the clerk.
‘Fever to start. Cholera too. Now if you don’t mind, Pat, I’ve work to do.’
Pat went from shed to shed, trying to find Sarah. In many of the sheds, inmates were working at cleaning out the shit and piss, mixed in with straw, and wheeling it out of the sheds in barrows, to a heap in the top corner of the site. Outside one of the sheds was a donkey and cart, half full of bodies. As he walked from shed to shed, it followed him, picking up more dead bodies in each.
In each shed, he asked for Sarah, and it was some time before he found her, overseeing a group of inmates washing down patients. She was wearing a striped shift.
He went up to her.
‘Sarah.’
She turned around in surprise.
‘Pat.’ She threw her arms around him, ‘I never thought I’d see you alive again.’
‘I know. I’ve been a long time gone.’
‘Where were you?’
‘All around the south of the County. Ballinrobe, up the mountains in Partry, along by Killary and Mweelrea and back around by Louisburgh. It all took time.’
As they spoke, two inmates passed them, carrying a dead body.
‘Hold on a moment,’ she said to Pat. ‘I’ve got to watch over these. Come along and stand outside.’
The body was thrown on to the cart.
‘It’s near full now,’ the cartman said.
Sarah looked. ‘It’ll take a few more.’
They went to the next shed. Another body.
Two more from the next. They were thrown sideways across the others.
The cartman took a hold of the donkey’s bridle and slapped the animal on the flank.
‘That’s enough.’
They started moving through the crowds of inmates, dead legs and arms flapping over the side of the cart. The crowds made way, but no-one spoke. They went across by the side of the Stonebreakers’ Yard, hundreds of men, women and children breaking rock with sledge hammers or hand hammers. The inmate and the infantry man opened the gate, and they made their way down the road and across to a field alongside the infantry barracks.
Still, there was the tramp of marching men.
Sarah opened a gate into the field.
‘This is the workhouse graveyard,’ she explained. ‘Only open a few years. They had a rough time here, I can tell you. They only had the workhouse built when the hunger started. It didn’t take long for them to start filling the graves.’
Through the gates of the barracks, the dragoons wheeled in formation. Why were they here? Had they been sent to County Mayo to guard dead men? Who knew?
The cart crunched along the gravel road towards where inmates were digging. They came to the edge of a new mass grave.
Pat gasped.
‘Damn it,’ he said. ‘I thought Knockanure was bad, but this is huge.’