Keens are also a medium through which the disaffected circulate their mischievous principles … the Irish Language being a sufficient cloak for the expression of seditious sentiments. T. Crofton Croker, English author, 1824
Poetry, music and dancing stopped … The Famine killed everything. MáireNíGrianna, Co. Donegal
AUSTRALIA
I will, in confidence, venture to assure you that this country will never answer to settle in. Lieutenant Governor Major Ross, 1788
The province of South Australia is a delightfully fertile and salubrious country, in every respect well adapted to the Constitution of English men, and is one of the most flourishing of all our colonies. Shipping Poster, Truro, England, 1839
An equal number of free female emigrants to be sent out at the charge of the British Treasury … as an equivalent to the Exiles already introduced. Charles La Trobe, Superintendent of Port Phillip/later Lieutenant Governor of Victoria
Blacksmiths, tanners, fellmongers, house and ship builders, sail makers, masons, &c., not to forget confectioners, saddlers, gun-makers, milliners, tobacconists and hairdressers! George Arden, Melbourne, 1840
The Barossa/Lutherans/Wine-making
A considerable proportion of the inhabitants of South Australia … are Germans … We may safely add, that they form a highly valuable class of our colonists, being exceedingly industrious, sober, and persevering people … the Germans have built their village of Bethany; their land being divided into long strips. The Southern Australian, 1843
So-called Old Lutherans … a German breed of people, the like of which I had never known at home, who seemed to originate from the 14th century, and over whom all tremendous progress and a lack of culture had lightly passed. Carl Muecke, Lutheran Minister
We the undersigned … requesting in favour of the maintenance of good civil order Your Excellencies most affectionate approbation for introducing of small correctives in Bethany, for example, bodily chastisements and pillory for those resisting the … power of God. Mayor and Elders of the Parish of Bethany, 1843
I am satisfied that New Silesia [i.e. The Barossa] will furnish the province with such a quantity of wine that we shall drink it as cheap as in Cape Town. Johannes Menge, Land Surveyor, Barossa Valley, 1840
Aborigines
Black men. We wish to make you happy. But you cannot be happy unless you imitate white men … you cannot be happy unless you love God … learn to speak English. Governor Gawler, Adelaide, 1835
That permanent benefit … from attempts to Christianize the natives can only be expected by separation of the children from their parents and the evil influences of the tribe to which they belong. Report of British Parliament Select Committee on Aborigines, 1860
I have heard again and again people say that they were nothing better than dogs, and that it was no more harm to shoot them than it would be to shoot a dog. Reverend Yate, 1835
Many of the middle-aged and young [Ngarrindjeri] men have quite a dignified bearing, with an air of freedom altogether different from low-class Europeans. Reverend George Taplin, Anglican Missionary, 1873
The Aborigines were in good physical condition at the beginning of colonisation, but that their health had been declining ever since that time.
I do not think it unadvisable to Christianize them; for I would rather they died as Christians than drag out a miserable existence as heathens. I believe that the race will disappear either way. Select Committee Report
Ireland/The Irish
Our Natives commonly attach some idea of inferiority to what is Irish. Reverend Gunther, Anglican Missionary, 1837
A set of ignorant creatures whose whole knowledge of household duties barely reaches to distinguishing the inside from the outside of a potato. The Melbourne Argus
Pure, innocent, Irish country girls are being placed in the closest contact, such as sleeping in the same berth, with English Protestants of the lowest class. Fr. Dunne to Cardinal Cullen, 1859
These London people … swamping us with a purely Irish population. I do not object to such a population as free emigrants … only … let us not have them exclusively, so as to have our noble Colony transformed into another Tipperary.
Whilst Famine is making damning strides in the United Kingdom, Port Phillip is, from the scarcity of labor, compelled annually to destroy vast quantities of human food. The Melbourne Argus
The Police force … is with one exception exclusively composed of Irish [i.e. Northern Protestants] and could not be prevailed upon to … prohibit the exhibition of party symbols and to prevent the further public procession of antagonistic political societies. Dr. Palmer, Mayor of Melbourne
Irish Relief Fund – But little interest appears to be taken in the Fund; indeed it must be admitted that the pockets of the Port Phillippians have already been pretty considerably drained for charitable purposes. The Melbourne Argus
We have no further intelligence of the potato disease, except of a negative character. Port Phillip Herald
CANADA
We cannot turn those people away famished like the Eastern United States and Liverpool did. John E. Mills, Mayor of Montreal
It would be better to simply send a battery of artillery from Quebec City to sink these ships to the bottom, than to let all these poor people suffer such a slow, agonizing death. Fr. E. A. Taschereau, Catholic Missionary, Grosse Île
They come out ignorant of everything beyond the use of the spade.
From the North of Ireland … as a class these people are much superior in intelligence to their countrymen from the South and West. Dr. George Mellis Douglas, Medical Superintendent, Grosse Île
It is of great importance that the Emigrant should be greeted, upon his landing, by the voice of the Church, whether a soothing or a warning voice. Reverend G. J. Mountain, Anglican Bishop of Montreal
The excrements arising from the dysentery of the sick frequently descend from the upper tier on the unfortunates in the lower tier. Fr. O’Reilly, Catholic Missionary, Grosse Île
The number of orphans is very great … Most will die … happy not to have known their misfortune here. Taschereau
Nearly all the nurses from Quebec have sickened, and the emigrants furnish but few from their own body. ‘Dan Drake’, Emigrant’s letter
I have not gone to bed for five nights … it is impossible that two priests will do, my legs are beginning to bother me. Fr. McGauran to Archbishop Signay, Quebec
The government cannot undertake to convey emigrants to Canada … some £150,000 would have to be spent in doing that which if we do not interfere with will be done for nothing. Lord Grey, Colonial Secretary, London
There is a large British force in Ireland, larger than the whole army and navy of the United States including the armies of Mexico. Quebec Mercury
Sailors took ashore a child who had died the day before; they brought a bit of snow with them when they returned. John Roberts, emigrant aboard the Clio
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The Irishman looks upon America as the refuge of his race … The Shores of England are farther off, in his heart’s geography, than those of New York or Massachusetts. Thomas Colley Grattan, author, 1859
That inefficiency of the pure Celtic race furnishes the answer to the question: How much use are the Irish to us in America? The native American answer is: ‘None at all’. Edward Everett Hale, American clergyman and author
The increase in foreign-born pauperism in our midst is an evil. Boston Daily Advertiser
One ship was sent away merely because no one would give bonds that the passengers … would not become a public charge … They come here to toil for their bread, not to become a public charge. The Boston Pilot
American citizens of Boston! The honorable Fathers of this City, have thought expedient to erect a hospital on Deer Island for the protection of foreign paupers! … American citizens be in at the death. Anti-Irish handbill, Boston
Most of these foreigners are Roman Catholics. In the name of the relig
ion of Him who rebuked the Pharisee’s bigotry … let us resolve to purge away once and forever, all sectarian bias and preference in our charities. Reverend Huntington, Protestant clergyman, South Congregational Church
What is death to Ireland is but augmented fortune to America; and we are actually fattening on the starvation of another people. General Irish Relief Committee, New York
That measures be adopted for preventing … the sanitary evils arising from foreign emigration … involves one of the most momentous … social problems ever presented to us for solution. Massachusetts Sanitary Commission Report
Several convalescent patients under diet restrictions escaped from the wards at night, and gained access to a neighboring cornfield, where they partook freely of the unripe fruit. The fatal diarrhea followed, without mercy. Dr.Upham, Deer Island Hospital
The want of forethought in them to save … the indulgence of their appetites for stimulating drinks … and their strong love for their native land, which is characteristic with them, are the fruitful causes of insanity among them. Massachusetts State Lunatic Hospital Annual Report
The average age of Irish life in Boston, does not exceed fourteen years. State Lunatic Hospital Report
We should make ourselves American as much as we can … This is our country now. Ireland is only a recollection. Bishop Fitzpatrick, Boston
IRELAND
Emigration
The Celts are gone with a vengeance, the Lord be praised.
In a few years more a Celtic Irishman will be as rare in Connemara as is the Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan. The Times, London
The departure of thousands of papist Celts must be a blessing to the country they quit … Some English and Scots settlers have arrived. Clarendon
Although the population has been diminished in so remarkable a manner by Famine, disease and emigration between 1841 and 1851, and has been since decreasing, the results of the Irish census of 1851 are, on the whole, satisfactory, demonstrating as they do the general advancement of the country. General Report Census Commissioners on 1851 Census of Ireland
Politicians
If you are ambitious of a monument, the bones of a people, slain with the sword of Famine, piled into cairns more numerous than the ancient Pyramids, shall tell posterity the triumphs of your brief but disastrous administration. Archbishop MacHale to Russell
I consider the Union … was but a parchment and an unsubstantial union, if Ireland is not to be treated in the hour of difficulty and distress, as an integral part of the United Kingdom. Russell
The judgement of God … sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. Trevelyan
We have tried to govern Ireland by conciliation and have failed … no other means are open except to … govern Ireland through Rome. Russell
The greatest evil we have to face … is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people. Trevelyan
I saw Trevelyan’s claw in the vitals of those children. Mitchel
Posterity will trace up to that Famine … that on this, as on many other occasions, Supreme Wisdom has educed permanent good out of transient evil. Trevelyan
Ireland … is in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. I predict with the sincerest conviction that a quarter of her population will perish unless you come to her relief. Daniel O’Connell (The Liberator), British House of Commons
A neglect of public duty has occurred … some authority ought to be held responsible, or would long since have been held responsible had those things occurred in any union in England. British Parliament Select Committee of Inquiry
The Union; the dissolution of which would involve not merely the repeal of an act of parliament, but the dismemberment of this great empire. Peel, 1843
Ireland is the one deep blot on the brightness of British honour, Ireland is our disgrace. Lord Grey, House of Lords
We shall be equally blamed for keeping them alive or letting them die. Clarendon
The Lord Lieutenant had no power and Downing Street had no heart. The Times, London
I don’t think there is another legislative in Europe that would disregard such suffering as now exists in the west of Ireland, or so coldly persist in a policy of extermination. Clarendon
The destitution here is so horrible and the indifference of the House of Commons to it so manifest … a policy that must be one of extermination. Edward Twistleton, Chief Poor Law Commissioner (resigned in March 1849)
We must not complain of what we really want to obtain. If small farmers go, and their landlords are reduced to sell portions of their estates to persons who will invest capital, we shall at last arrive at something like a satisfactory settlement of the country. Trevelyan to Twistleton
What the patient now requires is rest and quiet and time for the remedies which have been given to operate.
God grant that the generation to which this great opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part, and that we may not relax our efforts until Ireland fully participates in the social health and physical prosperity of Great Britain, which will be the true consummation of their union. Trevelyan
What can be more wicked … by talking of Ireland being a drain upon the English Treasury? If the Union be not a mockery, there exists no such thing as an English Treasury. The exchequer is the exchequer of the United Kingdom. If Cornwall had been visited with the scenes that have desolated Cork, would similar arguments have been used. Isaac Butt, Professor of Political Economy, Trinity College, Dublin
I have called it an artificial Famine … potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no Famine save in Ireland. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine. Mitchel, 1860
A fearful murder committed on the mass of the people. Charles Gavan Duffy, Young Ireland leader, later Premier, State of Victoria, Australia
The Irish people have profited much by the Famine, the lesson was severe; but so rooted were they in old prejudices and old ways, that no teacher could have induced them to make the changes which this Visitation of Divine Providence has brought about. Lord George Hill, landlord, author, 1853
They that die by Famine die by inches. Matthew Henry, English author, 1662-1714
AUTHOR’S NOTE
IRELAND
The Census of 1841 gives Ireland’s population as 8.2 million. By 1845, at the onset of the Famine, the population is variously estimated to have grown to between eight-and-a-half and nine million people − over half the combined population of England and Wales. As an immediate result of the Great Hunger, over a million people died and over another million fled Ireland. In Connacht alone, one in four of the people perished. By 1900, more than four million Irish had gone to the ‘New World or the Next’, a legacy which has left Ireland as the only country in Europe whose population has decreased rather than increased since the 1840s.
Tourmakeady Lodge, during the time of the Great Hunger, was in fact owned by Bishop Plunkett, the Protestant Bishop of Tuam. The local landlord, he later was responsible for the infamous ‘Partry Evictions’ of Catholics who refused to convert to his religion.
Delphi Lodge, formerly owned by the Marquess of Sligo, is now a fishing retreat. In 1850, The Lodge, including fishing rights, was leased to the Honourable and Reverend William C. Plunkett, a brother of Bishop Plunkett of Tourmakeady Lodge. The Delphi or Doo Lough Tragedy, as described in the story, occurred in March, 1849. Two monuments now stand at either end of the Doolough Pass Road in memory of those who died en route to the Lodge; some being swept into Doo Lough’s black waters. A walk commemorating the ‘Death March’ from Louisburg to Doo Lough takes place annually in May.
Crucán na bPáiste, the burial place of the children, restored by the local community in 1996, remains overlooking Maamtrasna and Lough Nafooey. Beal a tSnámha – the Mouth of the Swimming Place – is today known as the Ferry Bridge. Bóithrín
a tSléibhe, ‘the little road over the mountain’, still links Maamtrasna with Finny. To the right of the Bóithrín on the way to Finny is a large rock split in two – the leac which was Ellen’s rock.
The Finny Church – the Church of the Immaculate Conception – was first built in 1836. Lord Leitrim, who owned the church and had its roof burned a number of times during the Famine years, was assassinated in 1878. He was a cousin of Lord Lucan. The church was rebuilt to a design by a Spanish architect who, while on holiday in the area, was taken by the great beauty of its location and donated his drawings to the Archdiocese of Tuam, knowing that his design would not see fruition in post Civil War Spain.
References to ‘the Slám’ are based on people’s experiences as recounted to me.
Visitors to Dublin’s Botanic Gardens today can see Rosa chinensis, the Jenkinstown Rose – sometimes called ‘Old Blush’ or ‘The Thomas Moore Rose’ after the composer-poet who immortalized it as ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ (Irish Melodies,1813). The rose bush from the original was presented to the Gardens by the Thomas Moore Society in 1950. The potato patch with the original lumper variety, where curator David Moore – no relation to Thomas Moore – first discovered the blight, still remains. Moore became Director of the Gardens in 1869, and remained so until his death in 1879. The story of his search for a cure is based on fact.
No cure was found in David Moore’s lifetime; it was not until 1885 that a French scientist named Millardet, seeking to eradicate Peronospora, a fungal blight on the vineyards of Bordeaux, developed a solution of copper sulphate and hydrated lime. This ‘Bordeaux Mixture’, as it came to be known, not only saved the vineyards but proved effective in treating potato crops blighted with Phytophthorainfestans. Ironically, it was not dissimilar to the ‘Bluestone steeps’ David Moore had experimented with some forty years earlier in the Botanic Gardens, the key difference being that Millardet sprayed the leaves with the solution rather than steeping the diseased tubers in it.
The Whitest Flower Page 55