by Anne Doughty
‘Well, something has just happened, but I can’t really make sense of it. The letter only came yesterday and it was from my sister. She does write sometimes to save my mother the trouble. My mother usually doesn’t mention my father, except to say: “We are all well” in the last paragraph, but Kitty just let it drop in passing that my father is working for the Quakers!’
‘John! How extraordinary. How on earth can that have come about? And what is he doing for them?’
‘Well, I did read in one of Sophie’s papers that the Coastguard Service was getting no credit whatever for the invaluable work they were doing. The article said there were coastguard stations all along the west coast of Ireland, a hundred and seven of them, if I remember correctly. Apparently, they are ideally placed for getting supplies into places with no roads. The service boats and cutters can get into even the smallest creeks and the permanent offshore gunboats can carry fifty tons of supplies when they are needed.’
‘But where is the food coming from?’
‘I had no idea. But then, when Kitty mentioned “going up to Dublin to see the Quakers”, in her letter, I realised that my father is responsible for all the movements of craft at sea, in his area. If the Quakers have supplies to distribute, then he’s the man who would have to authorise it, as well as organise it.’
‘Is he now?’ said Hannah quietly.
John pressed his lips together and looked so distressed she wished she could put her arms around him.
‘Oh, John dear, that has to be good news,’ she said, reassuringly. ‘Perhaps something happened to him when he was much younger that means he can’t cope with his feelings. He reacts angrily and then can’t apologise. Or something like that. I wish I could be more help, but I haven’t known all that many men, except my father and brothers. And Patrick, of course.’
‘Have you heard yet when your big day will be?’ he asked, smiling broadly.
‘No, I’m waiting for a letter,’ she replied, wondering if he was trying to change the subject.
‘So am I,’ he said, steadily. ‘I’ve written to my father and asked him what I’ve done, or not done, and will he please tell me.’
‘My goodness,’ she said. ‘Well done! That must have been a very difficult letter to write.’
‘Yes, it was. I wasted a lot of paper, I’m sorry to say,’ he replied wryly.
‘John dear, it certainly won’t be wasted. One way or another it will help us both. I’d so like to understand myself what went wrong.’
‘Well, you know you will be the first to hear.’
*
Counting the days until Patrick arrived home was one thing when it was months or weeks, but once a departure date arrived it became a matter of guesswork. Sometimes the party travelled by way of Stranraer; sometimes it was Cairnryan. That depended on ‘doing a deal’ with the captain of the vessel and sharing out the cost between them.
Then there was the problem of getting from Dundrennan to the coast, and, once in Ireland, getting from the east coast to Derry, or even Rathmullan. It could sometimes take a week, and with bad weather even more.
Hannah always tried to be very cool and steady about Patrick’s homecoming. Sam, in particular, could get so excited by the prospect that he didn’t want to go to sleep at bedtime in case he missed his father’s arrival in the evening or even during the night.
At the end of October, after a short note with the departure date had already arrived, there was the first of a series of heavy snowfalls. Getting to school was difficult enough for both Hannah and the children, but as they ‘picked their steps’ through the most tramped places on the way, Hannah wondered what might it be like on the long road home for the band of men who had left the valley in April.
She found it hard to concentrate on reading and spelling on her three mornings at school. She kept thinking of what she could cook or bake, to welcome Patrick home. On the last Friday in October she was still preoccupied with his arrival as she came back up the track after lunch at school. She looked down and realised she was walking between the wheel ruts of the turf cart and following the unmistakable marks of Neddy’s hooves.
Startled, she looked up suddenly and there was Patrick standing in the doorway.
He slipped and nearly fell as he ran towards her, put his arms round her and kissed her.
‘I’m early,’ he said. ‘I saw Neddy in Ramelton and when I stopped to stroke him, Dermot appeared. He insisted on bringing me home.’
‘Where is he now?’ gasped Hannah, as he clutched her even more firmly.
‘Making a pot of tea and pretending he hasn’t seen us,’ he said grinning, as he slipped his arm round her waist and drew her back up the slope to the front door.
‘Welcome home, Hannah,’ said Dermot, as he poured the tea. ‘Your good man got here before you, so I made us a bite to eat. I hope that was all right,’ he said, passing her the milk.
‘As right as rain, Dermot,’ she said, beaming at him. ‘Have you looked in the cake tin?’
‘No, I can’t say I have,’ he replied, cautiously.
‘Well, pass it over and I’ll open it,’ she said, looking from one to another. ‘Here you are. By special request of Rose and Sam, prize-giving biscuits to welcome their da home. Thank you, Dermot, for your first-class delivery service. Even better than your service for meal and flour,’ she said, as they helped themselves from the tin.
Chapter 26
It was less than a week after Patrick’s arrival home when the first of the heavy snowfalls came in the night. Waking to a white world the next morning, Rose and Sam were highly excited. Over breakfast, they talked of nothing but building a snowman, like the ones in their storybooks.
Sadly, their excitement quickly faded when they ventured out and felt the icy chill of the air around them. But the real disaster for them was the drift of snow they found piled up against the barn door where Neddy had his stall. They tried in vain to open the door.
It was not until Patrick had come and cleared the drift with a shovel that they were able to go and begin Neddy’s usual morning grooming. They were neither of them pleased by the fact that they had not satisfied themselves as to his well-being, or presentation before their father, and Dermot came to take over and they had to go to school.
Now, as the exceptional weather settled in, it was not just food that was in short supply – keeping warm began to make a heavy demand on the turf stacks piled up against the most sheltered wall of each of the cottages.
Daniel, who still often got gifts of turf in lieu of the pennies pupils once brought on Fridays, admitted that he’d been amazed by the drop in his very generous turf stack after only a week of snow. It was dropping so fast, it would soon be as low as it usually was at Christmas. And that was still six weeks away.
Dermot and Patrick were now sharing the task of delivering the supplies provided by Jonathan Hancock’s mill workers and the donations he’d raised with the help of Johnny Donnelly’s pictures. The two men, now friends, had no difficulty whatever sharing the tasks, but Hannah had been concerned that having to share meant only a small income for each of them. She was aware that either or both of them, might feel that this small amount was a problem.
Patrick, when approached, said flatly that given there was no ‘relief work’ anywhere within range, it was better than nothing. The relief work he had heard about was backbreaking work, carrying stone and building roads that, as he put it, ‘went nowhere’. It was also badly paid.
Happily, when she mentioned the drop in income to Dermot he quickly reassured her. ‘Sure, won’t I be going to sea when yer Quaker friend gets the go-ahead and that’ll leave it all for Patrick. Amn’t I grateful to have had it all over the summer when he was away. And then, ye remember I got that bit more for a wee picture as well.’
In the end, Hannah decided that she was worrying unnecessarily. But, just to set her mind at rest, and to make sure Patrick was easy, she decided to bring out the box from under the bed, where she’d been keep
ing the savings she’d made from his postal orders over the months he’d been away.
When she saw him prod the coins in their little bags and shake his head, she had to smile.
‘I just don’t know how you do it,’ he said. ‘It’s as if money sticks to your fingers,’ he added, hugging her in the privacy of their bedroom, before he put the box back in its place.
But having resolved one problem, the snow did make everything seem more difficult. As the days passed, the tracks became more broken. Sometimes, when there was a slight thaw, ice formed. It was then immediately covered by the latest fall of snow. That made walking treacherous and both Dermot and Patrick had falls while carrying heavy sacks.
Realising how close they’d both come to breaking a leg, or an arm, they decided that dividing up the rations was now essential. They could no longer carry heavy sacks holding supplies to last for several weeks, but would have to do more work in a merchant’s storehouse, or a cold barn, or a damp outhouse, to make a more manageable load that would last for half, or a quarter of that time.
Despite the snow, school attendance was good and progress was being made with both reading and writing and with learning English. Daniel had gone as far as to start pronouncing English words as if he had memorised them but had no idea what they meant. He then asked for a sentence in Irish using the ‘unknown’ English word so as to give him ‘some idea of the meaning’.
‘Teaching Daniel English’ became one of the many games that Hannah and John encouraged, both to keep up spirits and to encourage trial and error without any fear of disapproval.
Chapter 27
A letter had arrived that Hannah put aside until after their evening meal. In the end, it was Hannah’s curiosity that got the better of her. Every time she glanced at the envelope sitting on the dresser, she wondered what it could possibly be. Once or twice, while she was serving the meal, she turned it over to see the castle Sam had pointed out. Then she’d look again at the postmark. Unsurprisingly, it still said Armagh.
Sam was quite right about the castle. There was a neat little one on the back of the envelope. Of one thing she was quite sure: it was not Dublin Castle. From all she’d heard, communications from Dublin Castle were likely to be bad news. She was hoping beyond hope that this might be good news.
‘So, do ye think we may have a wee chile on the way?’ asked Patrick, when they were finally alone by their own fireside.
‘I can’t be sure,’ she said, surprised by the suddenness of his question. ‘But I haven’t bled …’
‘An ye were feelin sick,’ added Patrick. ‘I thought I’d seen that poor wee pale face before,’ he went on. ‘Sure, an’ I was right then. First Rose, then Sam. That’s how ye looked when ye were carryin’ them, but before ye showed anythin’ at all round your belly. But, if I mind right, ye weren’t sick for long, it were just right at the beginning you went pale an’ after that, then ye were as right as rain.’
‘Was I?’
‘D’ye not mind?’ he asked, scratching his head.
She certainly didn’t remember, but then it was more than nine years ago when she’d had Sam.
‘Shall I open the letter?’ she asked suddenly, as if somehow that would resolve the questions in her mind.
‘Sure, why not,’ he said. ‘It’ll hardly take a bite out of us.’
She laughed, as she opened the envelope carefully, not wanting to tear the paper where the little castle stood. She drew out the large, folded sheets, found there were four of them covered with a small but very legible copperplate and around them, a small sheet, half the size of the others with a short note in the same handwriting.
She unfolded the little note first.
Castledillon,
Loughgall Road
Co. Armagh
19 December 1846
Dear Hannah McGinley,
Your friend, or perhaps I should say, Friend, Jonathan Hancock, has asked me to copy this letter for you as soon as I received it from him. I do hope the bad weather, which we too have had in Armagh, has not delayed it too much. He told me of the work you are doing in Donegal and how important this letter would be for improving the food supply.
I hope this finds you and your family well.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Hamilton (Secretary to Sir George Molyneux)
‘My goodness, Patrick, I think this is good news,’ she said, glancing at the opening lines of the main letter. ‘Will I read it out to you, or will I read it and give you the gist of it?’ she asked, not sure what to make of the look on his face.
‘I think maybe, judgin’ by the length of it, ye might need a mug of tea t’ help ye along. Why don’t you tell me who it’s from and then I’ll make the tea while you’re readin’ it.’
‘Thanks, Patrick. Tea’s a good idea. I seem to be very thirsty today.’
She looked at the date of the copied letter. Dunfanaghy. 13th of the Twelfth month. She’d forgotten that Quakers referred to the months by number and not by name.
So, it was almost two weeks ago when the two Quaker ‘enquirers’ Joseph Crosfield and William Forster had visited Dunfanaghy and made their report to the London Relief Committee. The Committee had sent a copy of the letter to Jonathan Hancock in Yorkshire. He had sent it to Sarah, so she could see it herself and then send a copy to Hannah. Given the state of the weather, the letter had done rather well.
The Quakers had written:
Owing to the depth of the snow, and a constant succession of violent snow-storms, we experienced much detention, and did not reach Dunfanaghy until long after dark.
A portion of the district through which we passed this day, as well as the adjoining one, is, with one exception, the poorest and most destitute in Donegal. Nothing indeed can describe too strongly the dreadful condition of the people. Many families were living on a single meal of cabbage, and some even, as we were assured, upon a little seaweed.
Hannah paused. She knew that other areas were much worse off than they were themselves, but she had not known it was as bad as this. She started reading more quickly.
One of the local merchants had come to see the enquirers at their lodgings and told them what things were like for the worst off. The small farmers and cottiers had parted with their possessions to buy food and had nothing more to sell. Many families were subsisting on two and a half pounds of oatmeal a day made into a thin water gruel, about six ounces of meal for each.
She paused, looked up to see Patrick pouring the tea and said, ‘You must hear the next bit.’
‘Is it good news?’ he enquired anxiously.
‘It will be,’ she said reassuringly. ‘Thanks for the tea, love. Will you be seeing Dermot in the morning?’
‘I wou’d expect so. Around the usual time.’
‘Then listen to this,’ she said. ‘This is what he’s been waiting for. It’s no one’s fault about the delay. Shemmie the fish man told me months ago, and I told Jonathan when he first came here, but they hadn’t got the Central Relief Committee then, nor the London one either,’ she explained, as she found her place again in the letter.
Dunfanaghy is a little fishing town, situated on a bay remarkably adapted for a fishing population; the sea is teeming with fish of the finest description, waiting we might say, to be caught. Many of the inhabitants gain a portion of their living by this means: but so rude is their tackle, and so fragile and liable to be upset are their primitive boats or coracles, made of wickerwork over which sail cloth is stretched, that they can only venture to sea in fine weather. Thus, with food almost in sight, the people starve, because they have no one to teach them to build boats more adapted to this rocky coast, than those in use by their ancestors many centuries ago.
‘So what do you think Dermot will say to that?’ she said, setting the letter down carefully beside her and taking a long drink from her mug of tea.
‘Ach, he’ll be delighted,’ he said, nodding vigorously. ‘An sure, isn’t one of the boats near ready? That’ll do to start
with till he teaches a few young lads ready for the next one. They were talking about three boats, weren’t they?’
‘Yes, that was the plan, but they had to get more money to pay for the other two.’
‘An, d’ye think they’ve got it?’
‘I don’t know, Patrick, not till I read the rest of the report. But maybe that’s as much as we can do tonight. I hope Dermot is early tomorrow. I’d love to see his face when I tell him, but if he’s late, you’ll have to do it for me. It’s school in the morning,’ she reminded him.
‘Aye, an’ you need your rest,’ he said firmly. ‘Though mind you, you’re lookin’ a queer lot different to what ye did this afternoon. You’ve got yer colour back again as well.’
*
Hannah slept well that night, waking only once when the wind whistled loudly in the chimney. But they were used to that. Patrick didn’t stir, so she just moved even closer to him and fell asleep again immediately.
She woke early, the light bright beyond the thin curtains after a fresh fall of snow. She slipped out of bed, pulled a rug from the foot of the bed over her shoulders and made up the fire. She took up the letter where she had left off.
Most of it she knew, though the term ‘conacre’ was new to her. But she soon picked up that it meant the system of ‘letting out’ a piece of land to a tenant who had to manure it before growing his crop of potatoes. By this means, the enquirers wrote, a tenant farmer could supposedly support a family of from five to eight persons for at least six months on half a rood of land. The landlord benefitted by the manuring and working of the land.
‘Half a rood?’ she whispered to herself. She couldn’t visualise it, but she knew it was very small.
But the next part of the letter she could understand and imagine only too clearly. She read it through quickly, then hearing no sound of movement, from either Patrick, or the children, she read it through again.