‘Fallen Leaves of Humanity’: Famines in Ireland Before and After the Great Famine 9781138200777, 9781138200944, 9781315513898, 9781315513652

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THE HISTORY OF THE IRISH FAMINE

THE HISTORY OF THE IRISH FAMINE Edited by Christine Kinealy, Gerard Moran and Jason King Volume III ‘Fallen Leaves of Humanity’: Famines in Ireland Before and After the Great Famine Edited by Christine Kinealy and Gerard Moran

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Christine Kinealy, Gerard Moran and Jason King; individual owners retain copyright in their own material. The right of Christine Kinealy, Gerard Moran and Jason King to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-20077-7 (set) ISBN: 978-1-138-20094-4 (volume III) eISBN: 978-1-315-51389-8 (set) eISBN: 978-1-315-51365-2 (volume III) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

Chronology of Ireland’s Forgotten Faminesxii Introduction1 PART I

The crises of the late 1720s

33

  1 The letters of Hugh Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh (1727–1729)35 PART II

The famine of 1740 to 1741: ‘the Year of Slaughter’

43

  2 The year of slaughter. Various English newspapers (1740–1742)45  3 Anon, The groans of Ireland: in a letter to a member of Parliament (Dublin: George Faulkner, 1741) PART III

50

The famine of 1816 and 1817

65

  4 ‘Distilleries—scarcity of provisions in Ireland’ in Hansard, House of Commons debates, 10 March 1817, vol. 35 cc. 917–20

69

 5 ‘Distilleries’, Hansard, House of Lords debates, 14 March 1817, vol. 35, cc. 1079–80

72

v

C ontents

PART IV

The famine of 1822 to 1823: British and Irish philanthropy (1822 and 1823)

75

  6 ‘Scarcity of provisions in Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons debates, 29 April 1822, vol. 7 cc. 146–50

77

  7 The famine of 1822. British and Irish philanthropy from various newspapers (1822 and 1823)

80

PART V

Famine in the 1830s

93

  8 ‘Famine in a fertile land’; reports in the newspapers (1831)

95

PART VI

The crises of the 1860s

107

  9 Henry Coulter, The west of Ireland: its existing condition and prospects (Dublin: Hodges & Smith and London: Hurst & Blackett, 1862), pp. 21–37

111

10 The famine from parliamentary papers, Hansard, House of Commons debates (1862)

122

11 Reports of the Mansion-House Committee for the relief of distress in Ireland; and of the Central Relief Committee (1862)

174

PART VII

Distress in the west in 1867 and 1869

185

12 Correspondence from the Clifden Poor Law guardians (Galway County Library, Clifden Poor Law minute book, week ending 18 May 1867)

187

13 The Irish Times Commissioner’s report from Connemara and west Mayo, September 1869, stating the condition of the peasantry, Irish Times, 29 September 1869

189

vi

C ontents

PART VIII

The ‘forgotten famine’ of 1879–81

195

14 Petition from the Claremorris Board of Guardians to the Lord Lieutenant (Freeman’s Journal, 4 October 1879)

199

15 ‘Letter from Maurice Brooks, M.P. on the distress and suggesting measures such as the provision of houses for farmers and labourers, to counteract it’, Freeman’s Journal, 4 October 1879

201

16 ‘In the West’, Nation, 1 November 1879

203

17 ‘Declaration of the Catholic hierarchy calling on the government to introduce relief measures, other than the Poor Law, to save the people’, Freeman’s Journal, 29 October 1879

210

18 ‘Letter of Patrick Greally, outlining the level of distress in his parish, and advocating emigration as the panacea to the perennial destitution of the people,’ Nation, 10 January 1880

212

19 John Donovan to Edward McCabe (Dublin Diocesan Archives, McCabe Papers, secular priests), 3 January 1880

215

20 Speech by Rev. Patrick Coyne, Catholic Administrator of the parish of Killanin, who chaired the local Land League meeting in November 1879, highlighting conditions in the parish’, Nation, 22 November, 1879

217

21 Report of distress in the parish of Geesala, Co. Mayo from Rev. Patrick McHugh, C.C., the local priest, to E. Dwyer Gray, Lord Mayor of Dublin (Dublin City Archives, Mansion House Relief Committee Papers, 1880; ch/1/15/1)

220

22 Vere Foster’s letter to Charles Stewart Parnell (P.R.O.N.I., Vere Foster Papers, 10 January 1880)

222

23 Letter from Bishop Francis MacCormack to E. D. Dwyer Gray, Lord Mayor of Dublin (Dublin City Archives, Mansion House Relief Committee Papers, ch/1/10/g142, 27 January 1880)

225

vii

C ontents

24 ‘Report from the Glenties Poor Law Union, Co. Donegal’, James H. Tuke, Irish distress and its remedies. The land question: a visit to Donegal and Connaught in the spring of 1880 (London: W. Ridgeway, 1880), pp. 9–24

227

25 Bishop James Donnelly of Clogher to Archbishop Edward McCabe of Dublin (Dublin Diocesan Archives, McCabe Papers, Relief of Distress, 1879–80, 17 February 1880)

238

26 James Redpath, to Archbishop Edward McCabe of Dublin inquiring into the state of destitution and famine in the country (Dublin Diocesan Archives, McCabe Papers, Relief of Distress Papers, 15 March 1880)

240

27 Resolutions of the Charitable Irish Society in Boston (Minutes of Massachusetts Historical Society, Charitable Irish Society Papers, 17 March 1880)

242

28 Evidence of Rev. Canon Timothy Brosnan of Caherciveen, Co. Kerry (Report of Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Inquiry into the working of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, and the Acts amending the same, iii, HC 1881 xix (c – 2779 ii), pp. 793–797)

244

29 Bishop John McDonald of Aberdeen to Archbishop Edward McCabe of Dublin (Dublin Diocesan Archive, McCabe Papers, Relief of Distress Papers, 26 February 1880)

257

30 ‘Second report of Mr. J. A. Fox,’ in J. A. Fox, Reports on the condition of the peasantry of the County of Mayo during the famine crisis of 1880 (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1880), pp. 24–38

259

31 Report from Swineford, Co. Mayo from representative of the Mansion House Relief Committee, July 1880. Report of Dr. George Sigerson and Dr. Kenny on the fever in the Western Districts (Dublin City Archives, Mansion House Relief Committee Papers, CH1/4/p. 34, July 1880)

269

32 ‘Outbreak of fever’, Connaught Telegraph, 26 June 1880

273

viii

C ontents

33 Report from Captain Digby Morant on the distribution of relief on the west coast of Ireland. Report August 1880 from Captain D. Morant, in reference to relief of distressed population on the west coast of Ireland, H.C. 1880 lxii (195), pp. 1–5

275

34 Report on how the money donated by the Canadian government in 1880 for the relief of distress in Ireland was spent. Report of the Joint Committee, selected from the Committee of the Duchess of Marlborough Relief Fund and the Dublin Mansion House Fund for the relief of distress in Ireland, to be administered the sum of 100,000 dollars, voted by the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, towards the relief of distress in Ireland, H.C. 1881 (326) lxxv, pp. 3–4

283

35 Letter from the parish priest of Enniscrone, Co. Sligo on the girls that were assisted to North America under the Vere Foster scheme and suggesting how emigration schemes should be carried out. Second report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Land Law (Ireland); together with the proceedings of the Committee, minutes of evidence and appendix, HC 1882 (379) xi, p. 298

287

36 Illustration of the vessel the Nestorian which carried 650 of the Tuke emigrants and how the scheme was seen by people in North America. The illustration indicates paupers and the workhouse on a boat arriving into Boston. Dated 1883

289

37 Fanny Parnell’s, ‘Hold the Harvest’ (1880) ‘The Hovels of Ireland’ (1880)

291

PART IX

The crises of the 1880s and 1890s

339

38 MEMORANDA of STATEMENT made to His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by the Catholic Prelates of Connaught, relative to the destitution in their respective dioceses (9 January 1883)

341

ix

C ontents

39 Report from December 1885 on how Irish servant girls in Boston remit money back to Ireland to help their families (Boston Daily Globe, 14 December 1885)

343

40 The recollections from Henry Robinson of the government response to the crisis of 1885–1886. Henry Robinson, Memories: wise and otherwise (London: Cassell and Co., 1923), pp. 78–85

346

41 Evidence of Rev. T. Flannery of Clifden to the Poor Relief (Ireland) Inquiry on the 13 December 1886, outlining the level of distress in his parish and the public works that were put in place to counteract the destitution. Poor Relief (Ireland) Inquiry Commission: report and evidence, and appendices, H.C. 1887 (C-5403), pp. 145–146

351

42 Report of the distress and problems with the potato crop in the Partry area of Co. Mayo from the meeting of the Ballinrobe Board of Guardians

359

43 Memorial to the Right Honourable the Chief Secretary, from the Mt. Partry and Maumtrasna Districts, calling for relief works

361

44 Achill and West of Ireland Seed Potato Fund

363

45 Letter from Rev. Michael Mahony telling how the Tuke emigrants from Connemara, who had been taken from poverty and famine, were progressing well in Minnesota although they still had frugal accommodation, but they purchased the best of food and groceries because of the good wages they were earning. He also outlines how Irish emigrants coming to Minnesota could improve their economic and social position. Proceedings of Mr Tuke’s Committee (1889), pp. 176–8

378

46 Letter of James Hack Tuke to the London Times in 1889 suggesting that to counteract poverty and famine in West Donegal investment in railway construction should take place which would lead to the economic development of the region (The Times, 28 May, 1889)

382

x

C ontents

47 Chapter XVIII, ‘Famine’ from A servant of the Queen by Maud Gonne MacBride (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938)

391

48 Maud Gonne, ‘THE FAMINE QUEEN’ (United Irishman, 7 April 1900)

405

Bibliography408 Keywords414

xi

CHRONOLOGY OF IRELAND’S FORGOTTEN FAMINES

1698

Act for additional duty on woollen exports (10 William III c. 5)

1703

House of Industry (poor house) opens in south Dublin

1708–1709 Famine throughout Europe, including Ireland: fever in Cork 1716–1717 A drought leads to a poor grain harvest, especially severe in the north 1727–1728 Severe famine caused by failure of grain harvest; most severe in Dublin and rural Ulster 1729

Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public



Act for the more effectual punishment of vagabonds (3 Geo. II c. 17)



Act for the encouragement of tillage, and better employment of the poor, etc. (the first of many such acts) (3 Geo. II c. 3)

1735

House of Industry opens in Cork

1739

Onset of mini Ice Age in Europe

1740

Great Frost continues



May: bread riots in Dublin



October: Dublin Castle imposes an embargo on all food exports



Conolly’s Folly in County Kildare, commissioned by Katherine



Conolly, is commenced to provide employment to the local poor.



The completed monument stands 140 feet high

1741

December: Lord Lieutenant renews the embargo

1741–1742 An estimated 480,000 die. Remembered as ‘the year of slaughter’ or blaidhain an áir xii

C hronology of I reland ’ s F orgotten F amines

1742

13 April: first performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Music Hall in Fishamble Street, Dublin. Proceeds are for local poor



June: famine obelisk on Killiney Hill near Dublin is commissioned as a relief project by wealthy Catholic, John Mapas

1757

Potato and corn crops fail throughout Europe, coinciding with a depression in the linen industry in Ireland



The British government bans the export of grain from England

1765

Act to prevent the export of corn for a limited time (5 Geo. III c. 4)



First Magdalene asylum (for Protestant girls) opens in Dublin

1767

Harvest failure: impact lessened by corn exports and distillation stopped

1770

Widespread distress, especially severe in Dublin and the north

1771

Act to punish people who attempt to prevent the export of corn (11 Geo. III c. 4)

1773

House of Industry opens in north Dublin

1774

House of Industry opens in Limerick



Belfast Charitable Society opens

1783–1784 Exceptionally cold winter leading to bad harvests 1785

Act preventing the export of hay for a limited time (25 Geo. III c. 57)

1795

Poor harvests



Act against exporting starch (35 Geo. 3 c. 26)

1796

Act permitting the prohibition of bread and biscuit if price of corn increases above rates of exportation (36 Geo. III c. 43)



Act for the further advancement of agriculture, and a steady supply of corn for the city of Dublin, by extending the export bounties on corn and flour to the said city, and discounting all inland, canal and coast bounties thereto (37 Geo. III c.24)



Act to enable the lord lieutenant and council to prohibit the export of corn, grain, meal, malt, flour, bread, biscuit, peas, beans, potatoes, starch and hair powder for a limited time (36 Geo. III c. 8)

1799–1800 Bad harvest combined with wartime inflation 1800

Act to prohibit the making of malt, and the distilling of spirits for a limited time (40 Geo. III c. 6)



Bonus incentives to bring food to Dublin xiii

C hronology of I reland ’ s F orgotten F amines

1816

Abnormally cold weather – ‘the year without the summer’

1817

June: Poor Employment Act



September: establishment of National Fever Committee

1818

Select Committee on Contagious Fever in Ireland appointed

1821

Poor harvest

1822

Widespread distress



Mansion House Committee formed in Dublin



Tavern Committee formed in London

1823–1825 The Peter Robinson assisted emigration schemes from Blackwater region of north Munster to Canada 1831

Distress in the west



Mansion House Committee reconvened



Tavern Committee reconvened



Board of Works established

1835

Distress in the west

1838

Introduction of the Poor Law

1839

Night of the Big Wind (Oíche na Gaoithe Móire), widespread distress

1842

Widespread distress

1845–1852 The Great Famine (An Gorta Mór) 1861–1863 Poor harvest and poor turf crop as a result of exceptionally wet weather 1862

Mansion House Committee reconvened

1861–1865 Lancashire Cotton Famine 1867

Localized distress in the west of the country

1869

Localized distress in the west of the country

1879

December: Duchess of Marlborough Committee established

1880

Mansion House Committee reconvened

1879–1881 The forgotten famine, or the mini-famine (an Gorta Beag)

xiv

C hronology of I reland ’ s F orgotten F amines

1880

March: Distress Act gives guardians permission to grant relief to people holding land



March: the U.S. Department of Navy dispatches the U.S.S. Constellation to Ireland with more than 3,300 barrels of foodstuffs, plus clothing



Potato Crop Committee to consider alternative varieties of seed potatoes provided by various charities

1880–1883 Vere Foster assists 18,000 young women to emigrate 1882–1884 The James Hack Tuke assisted emigration schemes from Connemara and Mayo to North America 1885–1886 Potato failure in Connemara and west Mayo leads to seed potatoes having to be supplied 1887

Distressed Unions’ Bill

1888

Potato harvest deficient in County Donegal



Irish Distressed Ladies’ Fund formed

1890

Distress in the west



American Irish Famine Fund established

1897

Poor harvests in the west of Ireland, particularly County Mayo

1898

Mansion House Committee reconvened



Irish Distressed Ladies’ Fund reformed



Comité de Secours Aux Irlandais established in France



Manchester Committee to feed children in the west

1900

Queen Victoria visits Ireland for the fourth and final time; Maud Gonne designates her ‘The Famine Queen’

xv

INTRODUCTION

What constitutes a famine? Various definitions have been offered. Economic historian Cormac Ó Gráda has suggested that ‘famine refers to a shortage of food or purchasing power that leads directly to excess mortality from starvation or hunger-induced diseases’, but this has been criticized for its exclusions of the ‘dimensions of time and space’.1 More nuanced definitions have been provided by contemporary relief organizations including the United Nations which defines a famine as ‘when at least 20 per cent of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope; acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 per cent, and the death rate exceeds 2 persons per day per 10,000 persons’.2 Such a precise definition is helpful, but difficult to apply to situations where records do not exist. The first census return in Ireland was collected in 1821 (and every ten years thereafter) and the records of Births, Deaths and Marriages commenced only in 1864. The World Health Organization offers a more general definition, namely, ‘a regional failure of food production or supply, sufficient to cause a marked increase in disease and mortality due to severe lack of nutrition and necessitating emergency intervention, usually at an international level’.3 Again, this definition has limited application to historic famines in Ireland, although a surprising number of the country’s famines did attract external assistance. Can the modern history of Ireland be defined by its periodic famines and subsistence crises? When writing the introduction to the 1851 Census, William Wilde, a talented oculist, antiquarian and folklorist, identified 1,000 years of Irish famines.4 More recently, historians Margaret Crawford and Cormac Ó Gráda have provided overviews of the famines that occurred in Ireland between 1300 and 1900.5 Overall, however, they have received little sustained attention from historians. To some extent, this can be explained by the fragmentary nature of the early records, but not totally. The best-documented famine of the nineteenth century, the Great Famine, was the subject of few publications until the sesquicentenary in 1995. Wilde’s painstaking compilation of deaths points to the existence of sources prior to this date. For example, he identifies a document from 964, when the country experienced ‘A great miserable dearth in Ireland that the father sould [sic] his sonn [sic] and daughter for meat’.6 The cause of pre-1500 crop failures was frequently severe weather and war, and they were generally followed by plague, 1

I ntroduction

pestilence and epidemics.7 Ungenial weather conditions continued to play a role in subsequent famines.8 But bad weather alone does not cause a famine, and while environmental factors clearly played a part in each crisis, understanding the sociopolitical context is crucial. Moreover, famines are processes, not events, and a key to understanding their frequency in Ireland is the vulnerability of the poor. A modern definition (from 2012) characterizes famine vulnerability as: The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Such predisposition constitutes an internal characteristic of the affected element. In the field of disaster risk, this includes the characteristics of a person or group and their situation that influences their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist, and recover from the adverse effects of physical events.9 The frequency of famines in Ireland, whether local or national, suggests the continued vulnerability of the poor. Unlike England, Scotland and Wales, Ireland possessed no national system of poor relief until 1838. Moreover, Ireland’s subservient position as a colony of Britain, a position that did not change much after 1800, meant that, in the words of David Dickson, the country was ‘by contemporary European standards, lightly governed, materially poor, and socially polarised’.10 Following the Act of Union, the loss of a native parliament worked to Ireland’s disadvantage during periods of food shortages. Writing in 1918 about the eighteenth century, the Irish historian George O’Brien stated: To give particular dates as the occasions of famine years is, to some extent, to create a wrong impression of the Irish situation, the truth being that the country lived in a chronic state approaching famine, and that the particular years which are mentioned by historians as famine years were simply the years in which the chronic symptoms became acute.11 At the end of the nineteenth century, an English Quaker visitor to Ireland—who was no stranger to the country or to poverty—made a similar observation. As part of his investigation into the 1880 crisis in Donegal and Connacht, he reported widespread misery and destitution, which meant that, even during good times, the people existed at a subsistence level and had difficulties surviving.12 In a debate in the British House of Commons in 1901, one member pointed out: ‘Without touching on the famine of 1846–47, the question of distress was brought up before the House from 1831 to 1898 in 27 different years’.13 This cold statistic, uttered in the place where the policies that governed Ireland had been debated and determined, was a reminder that poverty, hunger and famine had been Ireland’s destiny in the century since the passing of the Act of Union. Moreover, as the new century commenced, the impact and legacy of the Great Famine were still visible, demographically, culturally and psychologically.14 2

I ntroduction

The documents that follow suggest a wealth of sources and eyewitness accounts regarding famines in Ireland prior to 1845 and post-1852. They focus on the period 1700 to 1900, two centuries bifurcated by the Act of Union and the creation of a United Kingdom. They end with the recollections of Maud Gonne, who coined the phrase ‘Famine Queen’ in response to Queen Victoria’s visit to Ireland in 1900. Victoria’s death in the following year not only marked the end of an era, it coincided with the centenary of the creation of the United Kingdom. This volume commences 200 years earlier. The early years of the eighteenth century were a time when the Protestant minority in Ireland (that is, the Anglican minority) consolidated its ascendancy. The passing of the Act of Settlement in 1701, which ensured that no Catholic could inherit the British throne, was an important part of this project.15 The erection of an equestrian statue of King William III on College Green in Dublin to mark the eleventh anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne was a visible reminder of the place of Catholicism within the country.16 Legislation from the newly confident Westminster parliament served to reinforce Ireland’s colonial status.17 The Navigation Acts of 1661, 1671, 1685 and 1696 banned the direct exportation of most Irish products to the colonies, requiring that they first travel to English ports, on English vessels.18 The Wool Act of 1699, also passed by the English parliament, favoured the English industry by deliberately restricting the Irish one.19 Furthermore, repeated legislation from both the London and the Dublin parliaments undermined the position of Catholics in the country, economically, politically, socially and culturally.20 As a consequence, Ireland entered the eighteenth century with weakened agricultural and maritime economies, and a divided and demoralized population. The famine of 1740–1741 has dominated the historiography of eighteenth century shortages, but historian James Kelly has estimated that, during this century, the country underwent ‘serious dearth on twelve occasions’, four of which he characterizes as famines, eight as subsistence crises. The difference in nomenclature is defined by Kelly in terms of demographic impact.21 In 1708–1709, extreme weather conditions caused crop failures throughout Europe. In Ireland, the impact was mitigated by the intervention of the Privy Council which placed an embargo on grain exports.22 In 1716 and 1717, there was a drought that was particularly severe in the north of the country and caused the corn crop to fail. One response was emigration, from all parts of the country, including the north.23 Between 1725 and 1729, there was a period of bad harvests in Ireland. The Irish government responded with highly interventionist measures—they imposed price controls and imported grain from overseas. Nonetheless, there was excess mortality, most notably in Dublin and rural Ulster.24 The fact that the north of the country was in the forefront of the suffering conforms with Patrick Fitzpatrick’s assertion that ‘the interconnecting themes of poverty, hunger and migration were very much central to an Ulster Protestant, and particularly Presbyterian, historical experience’.25 More specifically, Ian McBride has found that in the half century before 1760, the province of Ulster experienced numerous famine or near-famine conditions.26 3

I ntroduction

The famine of 1740–1741 has passed into folk memory as ‘the year of slaughter’ or blaidhain an áir. The crisis was precipitated by extreme weather conditions. In Ireland, the winter of 1739–1740 was the coldest it had been for half a millennium.27 While most of Europe experienced freezing conditions in 1739, in 1740, it was less widespread, although in Britain and Ireland the summer temperatures were 0.8 and 2.4 centigrade lower than normal, and the autumn was unusually cold.28 The freezing of the ports also meant it was impossible to import coal from overseas.29 At this stage, potatoes were the subsistence crop of many of the poor in the west and south, and the extreme cold not only destroyed these and other crops, but it also killed livestock as well as wild animals and birds. In the absence of a national system of welfare it was left to local elites and private charity to provide relief, not always successfully. For John Post, it was the weaknesses in Ireland’s social structure and the lack of welfare provision that made the suffering so acute.30 Private charity partly filled the gap.31 One of the most extravagant and visible philanthropic projects was that undertaken by Katherine Conolly of Celbridge House in County Kildare, who created a 140-foot obelisk near her estate as a way of providing employment.32 A similar and no less ambitious project was financed by John Mapas, a wealthy Catholic, who also commissioned an obelisk to be erected on Killiney Hill overlooking Dublin. The inscription reads: ‘Last year being hard with the POOR the Walls about these HILLS and THIS, etc. erected by JOHN MAPAS Esq. June 1742’. The 1740–1741 famine bears similarities with the tragedy of a century later in terms of massive excess mortality, although the earlier one may have claimed as many as 38 per cent of the population. However, unlike in the later, more famous, famine there was no mass emigration. This tragedy demonstrated the need for a national welfare and hospital system in Ireland although it took almost a further 100 years before such a system was implemented. No comparable memorials were created during the Great Famine. The final decades of the eighteenth century were marked by rapid population growth in Ireland which, in turn, increased dependence on the potato. They were also marked by intermittent poor harvests. There were poor corn and potato harvests in 1756–1757 and 1765–1766, which coincided with a depression in the linen industry. Consequently, the distress tended to be most severe in Dublin and in the north of the country. Emigration to Colonial America provided the desired safety valve for many northern Presbyterians.33 The distress in 1756 was Europeanwide, and the British government responded to it by banning grain exports from England.34 In subsequent periods of shortage in Ireland, similar legislation was enacted by the Irish parliament, notably in 1765.35 Only a short time after, in 1771, an act was legislated to punish people who attempted to stop corn being exported.36 In 1783, prohibiting the export of grain and corn was debated by the Irish legislature, but not enacted. During the poor harvests in the final decade of the century, legislation was passed to prevent many items of foodstuffs from leaving Ireland.37 Additional legislation ensured that the people of Dublin would have a constant supply of food, through the offering of bounties.38 For most of these 4

I ntroduction

years, Britain was at war with France and anxious to appease its neighbours in Ireland. Significantly, during the Great Famine, this type of intervention was viewed as a dangerous meddling in the market place and so shunned. The most serious food shortages since the 1740s occurred from 1782 to 1784. The Irish government, based in College Green, intervened directly in the movement of food both in and out of the country. The ports were closed temporarily to keep food in the country, while a bounty was offered to merchants to import additional foodstuffs.39 Prolonged war with France stimulated the Irish economy, but the century ended with poor harvests that combined with wartime inflation to bring widespread distress. Moreover, the activities of the United Irishmen, culminating in the 1798 rebellion, had resulted in the imposition of a brutal scorched earth policy by the authorities. The year in which the Act of Union was passed marked the onset of famine throughout Ireland as a result of the poor potato and corn harvests of 1799 and 1800. These shortages were felt throughout Europe—and in the midst of a war; in stark contrast to what would happen in the 1840s, the official response was swift and comprehensive and included importing additional provisions to Dublin and banning malting (until October 1801) and distilling (until January 1802).40 Such interventions helped not only to provide additional food resources, but also to stabilize prices. Moreover, in 1801, just as the United Kingdom was coming into existence, the Dublin Castle administration announced that it would give one-third matching funding to sums raised by private subscriptions.41 In addition, Charles Thorp, the Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1800, actively punished any tradesperson who was fore-stalling or exploiting the food shortages to increase their profits.42 For his actions, he was praised fulsomely: The natural visitation of scarcity, aggravated by the arts of wicked and avaricious men, had almost affirmed the form of determined Famine, and to your Lordship’s indefatigable exertions, aiding the wise and honest felicitude of superior power, it is principally owing that the streets of the Metropolis did not become the Golgotha of its poorer inhabitants.43 During these shortages, Charles Cornwallis, the 1st Marquess of Cornwallis, held the position of both Lord Lieutenant and Commander in Chief of Ireland, him being largely responsible for the final ruthless repression of the 1798 rebellion. He was responsible for overseeing the relief measures. He and his wife also were responsible for bringing a large supply of rice into Dublin, an action that was praised in the Irish press: The merciful and humane policy of our virtuous Chief Governor was early and gloriously displayed in saving a great portion of the Irish people from the sword of extermination, and in his provident wisdom may be ascribed that thousands in this metropolis have not since fallen beneath the miseries of famine.44 5

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The town of Belfast (a city after 1888) was not immune from the periodic food shortages in Ireland. The crop failure of 1799 had an immediate impact on the local population, resulting in the establishment of a soup kitchen committee.45 It was funded by subscriptions, based on a model that had been established in 1740. As early as November 1799, gruel was given to the ‘badged begging poor’.46 Although Ireland had not been included in the ‘Old Poor Law’, which had been an important part of English legislation since the sixteenth century, the 1697 Badging Act, which provided for a badge to be worn by paupers, was also utilized in some Irish towns. The act reinforced the idea of ‘deserving poor’, which would later form an integral part of the Irish Poor Law of 1838.47 Overall, the combination of intervention and regulation was for the most part successful and the actions contrasted with what was, or was not, carried out forty-five years later.

1816–1817 Weather played a role in the poor potato and corn harvests of 1817, with the previous summer being unusually cold and wet, and with snow and severe frost appearing as early as November 1816 in many parts of the country.48 In Belfast, the early snow-fall led the town’s elites to call on the wealthy citizens to make some provision for the poor, ‘because the case is urgent’.49 Snow-falls continued to the end of the year. Overall poor weather conditions had been evident in the north east during 1816, with 117 ‘fair days’ (as opposed to 199 in 1815), ninety wet days (forty-six in 1815) and 159 showery days (compared with 120 in 1815).50 Moreover, snow, wind and freezing weather continued until March 1817, leaving the poor not only without food, but also without fuel.51 In keeping with the adage ‘fever follows famine’, disease soon became as large a threat as hunger in endangering the lives of the Irish poor, although no class was totally safe. In response, in September 1817 a National Fever Committee was created in Dublin, but it was overwhelmed by the scale of the outbreak. Responding to the severity of the epidemic, in April 1818, the British House of Commons appointed a Select Committee to enquire into the contagious fever in Ireland and suggest measures to stop its spread.52 Regardless, the typhus fever continued into 1819 when it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. During that time, an estimated one and a half million people had been infected with fever, of which 65,000 had died.53 In 1821, the potato crop failed again.54 Although distress was widespread, it was most severe in Counties Galway, Mayo, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Sligo and Limerick on the western coast, and inland, in Roscommon and Leitrim. By July 1822, an estimated one million people in these counties were living on the edge of starvation.55 The shortages, before and following the Act of Union, had been dealt with by using imaginative and effective measures to provide the people with cheap food, usually with Dublin Castle in the vanguard. In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, new attitudes were emerging regarding the responsibility of the government towards providing poor relief, whether permanent or emergency. In Ireland, the 6

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new orthodoxy was summed up by William Gregory, Under Secretary in Dublin Castle from 1813 to 1831.56 He opined: I am adverse to the plan of sending Potatoes to the South in the Manner you propose, not from any doubt of the great partial distress but from the principle that the government are not on all occasions to be the first resort when any pressure occurs without the Gentry contributing to the relief of their impoverished tenantry.57 Gregory’s concerns were justified because in 1822, as in later famines, absentee landlords contributed little to relief, thus throwing an even greater burden on those who were resident.58 The 1822 famine was accompanied by unrest in parts of Ireland. The British government responded by introducing repressive measures, including an Insurrection Act in February 1822 and the suspension of Habeas Corpus.59 The Act was supposed to remain in place only until August, but in July the House of Commons debated its renewal.60 Additionally, in August, the Irish Constabulary Act (also known as the Peace Preservation Act) was passed, which created provincial constabularies. In contrast, the Tory government seemed little concerned with the unfolding food shortages in Ireland. Lord Monteagle, a landowner in County Limerick, spoke out against these repressive actions, appealing for intervention in the form of relief rather than military. At the same time, he acknowledged the generosity of English people in raising money for Ireland.61 He was not alone. Nonetheless, in a debate in the House of Commons on 17 May 1822, the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool,62 informed his fellow politicians: The government of Ireland, had resorted to measures for the purpose of obtaining information as to the state of Ireland, both politically and with regard to the supply of food. It was found, that at that period there was a great abundance of articles of food, and at low prices, and no apprehensions were entertained of any scarcity. He thought it right here to observe that great delicacy and difficulty were necessarily involved in any question of interfering with regard to the supply of food; as such interference tended to do much mischief by interfering with individual speculations, and enhancing the price of articles of the first necessity.63 Liverpool also criticized the policies of the government in 1800, when they had intervened in trade and offered bounties on the importation of grain, adding, ‘he believed all were now agreed that that measure did more harm than good, as the grain would have been sold at a cheaper rate, had the bounty not been given’.64 Again, private philanthropy played a major role, often compensating for lack of government action. Unusually, however, it came from across the Irish Sea, most notably from London.65 The London Tavern Committee, also known as the Irish Relief Fund, was a major provider of relief during the famine of 7

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1822. Their work was facilitated by close co-operation with the Irish Executive in Dublin Castle, notably with Thomas Spring Rice, MP, in London, working closely with Henry Goulburn, Chief Secretary, Dublin Castle.66 The committee had been constituted on 7 May 1822 and within weeks it was receiving detailed accounts from the west of Ireland describing how the money had been expended.67 Despite requests, they decided that their relief should not be used in cases of fever, Spring Rice explaining, ‘The committee does not at present apply itself to the subject of the progress of fever in Ireland because they feel a confidence from the past efforts of the Irish Government that steps may be taken to provide against so urgent a danger’.68 In total, the London Committee raised £304,180. This included large amounts from overseas, notably: from Calcutta, there was no less than £19,084 received; from Madras £8,971, from Bombay £7,059 and from St. Helena £280, making altogether £35,394. From these sums, the committee distributed in cash, food or clothes the greatest amounts to: Clare Cork Galway Kerry Leitrim

₤35,167 £35,513 £31,357 £27,781 £7,810

Limerick Mayo Roscommon Sligo Tipperary

₤18,605 £32,657 £15,825 £14,882 £8,210

The committee kept detailed accounts on income and expenditure, and in terms of their correspondence, they published in 1823 a 377-page account of their activities.69 An offshoot of the all-male London Tavern Committee was the ‘British and Irish Ladies’ Society, for Improving the Condition and promoting the Industry and Welfare of the Female Peasantry of Ireland’. Famines and food shortages in Ireland also presented an opportunity for long-time social improvement and moral reform, rather than simply for providing temporary relief. This was the aim of the British and Irish Ladies’ Society although, unlike a number of other evangelical societies, they were overtly secular. Irish poverty and hunger, however, often provided an opportunity for an interplay of philanthropy and evangelism in what a number of historians have characterized as an English ‘civilizing mission’ to reform ‘the heathen at home’.70 Middle-class women were particularly important in this project, it allowing them an area where they could legitimately operate in the public sphere.71 The British and Irish Ladies’ Society appointed Hannah Kilham, a committed English missionary, as their agent in Ireland.72 While working in Ireland, Kilham formulated two principles which guided her work here and later in Africa:  . . . that it was as important to educate the children of poor people to feed them (and that even in the worst conditions parents longed for teaching for their children), and that no society could be satisfactory unless its poorest members could be consumers as well as workers.73 8

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The deeply devout Kilham attributed some of the perennial poverty in Ireland to ‘intoxication’, while also deprecating the influence of Catholic priests.74 The Society successfully campaigned for upper-class Anglo-Irish women to give them support, while lamenting the fact that the Irish middle-class was so small. They stated their aims to be: The chief object of the British and Irish Society has been, and still is, to draw the attention of the superior classes to the situation of the peasantry; and as far as its influence has extended, the committee have the gratification of seeing that object accomplished, and they trust it will eventually lead to a progressive improvement in civilization and comfort. Perseverance will be necessary to enable the ladies in Ireland to carry on the arduous work in which they are engaged. To effectuate at once a general correctness of conduct and a due elevation of mind and manners throughout the native of Ireland is not to be hoped for. Yet great indeed, and difficult as the task may be, of reforming the habits and correcting the moral feelings of the great mass of a whole people, the committee cannot but think that their endeavours, through the active and persevering exertions of the Irish ladies, are calculated to attempt many things with peculiar advantage. By the influence of the ladies over the female peasantry in their respective districts, they hope that not only ideas of comfort and cleanliness, hitherto not known, may be introduced and industry excited by the prospect of due remuneration; but that likewise the benefits of a higher nature may be conferred, by the improvement of moral principle and the repression of mean, degrading, and vicious habits; and though the reformation may be gradual, and the immediate change not strikingly apparent, yet every real advancement in the moral feeling, on the part of the future mothers of the families of Ireland, is calculated to have the most extensive and durable effects on the habits of the rising generation.75 Cleanliness, education and employment were at the centre of the reforming mission, the society even suggesting that pigs should be banished from living in cabins, and manure heaps should be kept at a distance from the homes.76 When Kilham arrived in Africa at the end of 1823, only months after leaving Ireland, she drew comparisons between the degraded condition of Irish living quarters and those of African huts.77 The British and Irish Ladies’ Society was successful in recruiting Irish women as by 1823, 135 auxiliary societies had been formed within Ireland; by 1824, this had grown to 254, stretching across twenty-nine counties.78 In addition to providing advice about moral reform, the Society gave grants of money to local societies usually for the purchase of spinning wheels or of flax. Some of these grants continued after 1822 and 1823, when good harvests had returned to Ireland.79 Like their male counterparts, the women kept thorough records of their activities, which were also published in the Irish press.80 9

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Money was also raised within Ireland. In Dublin, a Mansion House Committee was formed under the auspices of the Lord Mayor. The reconvening of this committee was to be a feature of famine relief throughout the nineteenth century. Shortly following the formation of the London Committee, the town of Belfast also established a body ‘for the relief of the suffering poor in the southern and western counties’. At its inaugural meeting, on 15 May, J. S. Ferguson,81 a local businessman, spoke of his satisfaction that the meeting was so well attended because, ‘This circumstance proved how warmly the inhabitants of Belfast sympathized with their fellow-countrymen in the southern and western parts of Ireland. Such prompt benevolence was honorable to their feelings and would, he hoped, excite a similar spirit in other parts of the country’.82 This public expression of sympathy from the town of Belfast contrasted with attitudes expressed in 1849, during the Rate in Aid debate.83 The Belfast Committee raised in the region of £2,000, much of which was sent to Counties Galway, Mayo and Roscommon. In August 1822, a letter from the Grand Jury of Galway was sent to the Belfast Committee: . . . as a feeble effort expressive of their sense of the extensive, liberal, and effective assistance, so humanely afforded to the suffering poor of this county, and of Ireland in general, by the Belfast Committee. Great is the pleasure afforded me by being made the vehicle of this act of justice; but were I to attempt by language to add force to the expression of our feelings, as embodied in the resolution, I feel that I should fail. A population rescued by benevolence thank their benefactors and the kindly affection shewn has kindled a reciprocity of affection which I trust no time can allay.84 Food shortages occurred intermittently in Ireland throughout the 1830s. The decade was also one in which the question of poverty, and how to alleviate it, was at the forefront of political discourse within the United Kingdom. At that stage, Ireland was unique in having no national Poor Law. While these debates were to lead to major changes in poor relief in England, Wales and Scotland, in Ireland they led to the introduction of the 1838 Poor Law.85 Although the new legislation was intended to be implemented swiftly, the building and opening of the country’s 130 workhouses took a few years to be realized. In the absence of a national system of poor relief, therefore, it was left to a combination of special government measures, interventions by the local elites and private individuals, to respond to the distress. The poor harvest in 1831 was attributed to a series of Atlantic storms in August and September 1830, which damaged the crops. They also disrupted the usual deposits of sea-moss, which was traditionally used as manure for the potatoes, while the supply of fish was much reduced.86 As had been the case in 1822, a number of fund-raising committees were established, both in England and in Ireland. In Dublin, the Mansion House Committee was reconvened.87 In Dublin also, the Sackville Street Committee was created, 10

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which not only raised funds, but shared their local knowledge with committees in England. Private philanthropy was at times more responsive to the crisis than the government. When, for example. the attention of the PM, Earl Grey, was drawn to distress in Mayo in February 1831, he responded, ‘the Irish Government was already informed on the subject, and had given notice of its intention to afford relief, and no doubt could be entertained of its anxiety to do so’.88 The lack of intervention to the government resulted in some of the Irish elites calling on the Lord Mayor of Dublin to take action on behalf of Mayo, with a petition signed by 100 men, including the Marquesses of Leinster and Sligo, and by Arthur Guinness and Sons, stating: We, the undersigned Noblemen, Gentlemen and Clergy, Bankers, Merchants and Traders of the City of Dublin, feeling deeply concerned for the lamentable state of Distress to which a great portion of the Population of several extensive Districts in the County of Mayo are reduced, request your Lordship will convene a Meeting of the Inhabitants of this City, for the purpose of considering the best mode of procuring means to afford immediate RELIEF to the great mass of our fellow-countrymen who are faced with an appalling Famine in those districts.89 The Mayor, Robert Harty, agreed to this request and convened a special meeting at the Mansion House on 5 April.90 The main committees in London were the Irish Distress Fund and the Western Committee. The London Tavern Committee reformed and started sending relief to the west, including a cargo of potatoes to the impoverished town of Newport.91 In total, this committee raised £100,000 in 1831—approximately one-third of the sum they had raised in 1822.92 In England, the Irish Distress Committee had been convened by the Lord Mayor of London in the Mansion House on 24 March 1831, for the purpose of ‘adopting measures for the temporary relief of the distress that unhappily prevailed in certain districts in the west of Ireland’.93 They appointed a committee which met a few days later at number 37 Cornhill and adopted the name Irish Distress Committee, although they were unofficially referred to as the Cornhill Committee. The Earl of Caledon, an Irish landowner, was appointed chairman.94 As had become the general practice, the names and donations of subscribers were published in newspapers. One of first acts of the committee was to purchase four ships’ cargoes of potatoes in Liverpool and Glasgow to be sent to Westport, Newport and Ballina in Mayo, and Clifden in Galway and Killibegs in Donegal. In Westport, the cargo was put under the care of the Marquis of Sligo. Later cargoes were oatmeal rather than potatoes, on grounds of economy. In June 1831, the committee sent 400 tons of Indian Meal.95 The committee asked the High Sheriffs of Counties Galway and Mayo to appoint central committees to oversee distribution of the foodstuffs, them, in turn, working with local committees. The guiding principle was that nothing should be under the control of an individual, but only of a committee as 11

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a way of minimizing abuse.96 The local committees were to include clergy of all denominations.97 The London Relief Fund published monthly reports of their activities, which were printed in the Times. All money raised was channelled through the Londonbased firm of bankers Smith, Payne and Smith, who would play a similar role during the Great Famine. In the summer of 1831, the committee made another appeal for Ireland. Ladies of the nobility were also mobilized. Under the auspices of Her Majesty, they organized a bazaar in Hanover Square Rooms in June 1831. It raised £3,596-6-6, which was ‘the means of giving prompt and liberal relief to many hundred destitute families’.98 By July, however, donations had dried up, but the committee then received the proceeds from a Royal Ball in the Drury Lane Theatre organized by ‘noblemen and gentlemen under patronage of their majesties’. The King and his family attended. The ball raised £1,675. At that stage, the committee had received 291,000 applications for relief from Mayo and Galway.99 In total, they had donated £7,900 to County Mayo and £6,100 to County Galway. Independent of this, a donation of £1,000 was sent by the people of Birmingham in England to the west of Ireland.100 The committee kept giving relief until August 1831 when the new harvest was ready. They allowed the residual money to be given to sick people, to allow them to purchase medicine and clothing. In its six months of existence, the Irish Relief Fund had raised £50,939-19-1.101 As they wound down their activities, the committee noted with some satisfaction that ‘the afflicted peasantry has evinced the warmest feelings of gratitude towards their British benefactors’.102 Large amounts of money were also raised within Ireland. The Marquesses of Downshire and Sligo, and the Archbishop of Tuam, made regular donations to the various relief funds.103 The landowners and shopkeepers of County Mayo had raised £8,000 for relief. By June 1831, when the distress was peaking, the money was exhausted and a delegation, which included Rev. John MacHale and Sir Francis Lynch Blosse, travelled to Dublin to appeal on behalf of the poor of Galway and Mayo. On 6 June, a meeting, chaired by the Lord Mayor, was held in Morrison’s Great Room on Nassau Street. The meeting was informed that ‘there are 150,000 in Mayo and 100,000 in Galway the greater part of whom are literally in danger of dying of starvation’.104 The local landlords who had not helped the poor, but who wanted the charitable funds raised to be used to pay rent, were criticized. A further purpose of the meeting was to debate whether the residue of funds raised by the Mansion House Committee in 1822 – and which amounted to £15,000 – could now be used. The trustees of the fund were sympathetic to this request.105 The sums raised by the Sackville Street Committee in Dublin were far smaller, amounting to approximately £300, a large portion of which had come from the town of Limavady in County Derry.106 Regardless of the welcome intervention of private charity, there was a feeling that the government was not doing enough and appeals were made to them by Irish MPs to be more interventionist.107 As was the case in other periods of shortages, food continued to be exported from areas in which the people were starving, 12

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adding to the desperation of the poor. In Newport in Mayo, for example, when oats were leaving the area for England, there was an attempt to raid the ship. This action was prevented by the intervention of the local priest, Father James Hughes.108 Reporting on the starvation now apparent in many parts of the county, the local newspaper, the Telegraph and Connaught Ranger, criticized the apathy of the government and asked, ‘Are not the Irish peasantry entitled to the protection of the Government? !!’109 The editor, Frederick Cavendish, was a champion of the poor, who repeated his criticisms of the British government after 1845.110 The Irish administration in Dublin Castle was also criticized at a meeting held in Tiverton in Devon on 3 June 1831. It was chaired by Rev. Thomas Carew who criticized the government for not doing more to help the poor in Ireland. Although the meeting raised a donation for the London Committee in the Mansion House, Carew made it clear that they did not want their donation to be used to help Irish landlords, ‘on whom the burden of feeding their poor ought to rest’.111 Some of these same arguments were repeated after 1845. Compelling evidence of the widespread poverty and repeated hunger of the Irish poor in the 1830s was provided by the three-year Poor Enquiry Commission, which sat between 1833 and 1836. Although appointed by the British government, the Commission’s final report on the extent and perennial nature of poverty in Ireland, and their comprehensive programme of solutions, did not conform to orthodox views on why the poor were poor. Although their report was bypassed, it provided one of the most comprehensive insights into Ireland only a decade before the potato blight appeared in Ireland.112 Furthermore, the continuation of intermittent distress during the decade was observed by various overseas visitors to Ireland. This included the Scottish-born Henry David Inglis, who toured the country in 1834.113 The following year, the French diplomat, philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville travelled around Ireland for six weeks in July and August.114 He was accompanied by fellow-Frenchman Gustave de Beaumont.115 While in the west, the two men decided to visit Newport in County Mayo as they had heard reports of a local famine, largely due to the letters written to the Irish newspapers by Father James Hughes (see later).116 The men were shocked by what they witnessed. During their stay, they were shown around by Father Hughes, ‘who received us with open arms’. Writing to his mother, Tocqueville observed: On the edges of the sea besides the great ocean is a population poorer than the rest of the population, that is to say, they actually die of hunger there when the potatoes fail as they did last year . . . It is a frightening thing, I assure you, to see a whole population fasting like Trappists, and not being sure by fasting of surviving to the next harvest, which is still not expected for another ten days.117 Three years following this visit, an English Quaker, Jonathan Binns, who was touring the country on behalf of the Poor Enquiry Commission, published a personal memoir, Miseries and Beauties of Ireland (1837). He not only referred to 13

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the ‘continual starvation’ of the people, but also identified the starving state of the animals (chickens and sheep) that they owned.118 The final year of the decade closed with another famine, which was partly due to crop failure, but also to extreme weather conditions. The ‘Night of the Big Wind’ (Oíche na Gaoithe Móire) commenced in the late afternoon of 6 January 1839, when the country experienced the most devastating gales in living memory.119 All over Ireland, houses and cabins were destroyed, trees were toppled and rivers broke their banks. Standing stacks of grain were blown away.120 Fishing boats and ships were destroyed.121 Turf, flax and hay crops were scattered, and sheep were killed. The heavy falls of snow that preceded and followed the hurricane added to the misery of the poor in particular.122 Although mortality was relatively low (around 100 people on land and at sea) the impact of the wind on people’s homes and livelihoods was devastating. Later that year, there was partial failure of the potato crop, but as Captain Chad, a government commissioner, recognized, ‘The distress this season has been occasioned not only by the partial failure of the potato crop on the west coast, but also from the violent storm on the 6th of January last, which scattered and destroyed the greatest part of the fodder for the cattle’. Chad hoped that the introduction of a Poor Law would end the high dependence on the potato and the expectation of government assistance during periods of shortages. With few exceptions, he described Irish landowners as showing their ‘accustomed indifference and coldness’ to the poor.123 Although there were calls for outdoor relief to be given in 1829 and 1840, using the administrative machinery of the new Poor Law, this was unequivocally rejected by the Poor Law Commissioners on the grounds that: They cannot direct or sanction any action having for its object the administration of outdoor relief, that being a description of relief which the law not only does not sanction, but expressly prohibits.124 The determination to separate ordinary relief from extraordinary relief, and not to permit outdoor relief, was again adhered to in 1842 and again in 1845 and 1846. The early 1860s coincided with a period of international turmoil, occasioned by the American Civil War, making the United States a less desirable destination for Irish emigrants. Its impact in England, mainly in the industrialized north west, led to a period of shortages and unemployment. During the various parliamentary debates, comparisons were frequently made between the Irish poor and the poor in the industrial parts of Lancashire in the north west of England, many of whom were unemployed or under-employed during the concurrent economic depression known as ‘the Cotton Famine’.125 The use of the word ‘famine’ in an English context is particularly interesting, at a time when there was a reluctance amongst British politicians to use it in the Irish context. As in previous and subsequent periods of shortage, weather played a part in exacerbating the distress. The prolonged rain put a halt to outdoor work and 14

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prevented the collection of peat. During the course of the debates, the Chief Secretary of Ireland, Sir Robert Peel (son of the Robert Peel who had been British Prime Minister during the first year of the Great Famine), quoted actual statistics of rainfall: 57 inches had fallen in County Galway, with 24 inches in the traditionally drier months of July, August and September.126 During the 1861 to 1863 famine, a number of committees that had previously assisted the poor were revived. One of the most prominent of these was the Mansion House Committee, which operated throughout 1862.127 The Committee included the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Denis Moylan,128 and the Rev. Dr Cullen.129 The Committee closed its operations in August 1862, believing that the worst of the famine was over. A number of Quakers, who had assisted during the Great Famine, again became involved in fund-raising. At the forefront of this movement was Jonathan Pim. As had been the case in the 1840s, large amounts of money came from the U.S., possibly donated by people who were themselves refugees from the Great Famine. Some of the most remarkable donations came from soldiers fighting in the Civil War, remarkable because, ‘despite the ongoing hardships of life at the front, thousands were willing to contribute to ease the suffering of the Irish poor’.130 Another similarity was that the shortages coincided with a visit by Queen Victoria to Ireland from 21 to 29 August 1861.131 It was her third visit to the country, the first one having taken place in 1849, and the second in 1853.132 Victoria would visit Ireland on only one further occasion, in 1900, when she was virtually blind and wheelchair bound. In 1861, the Royal family (she was accompanied by Prince Albert and three of their children) visited the Prince of Wales who was training in the Curragh camp, and then travelled to Killarney. By visiting the west of Ireland, the Royal party were close to some of the areas that were experiencing food and fuel shortages. However, even before arriving there, during the train journey, the Queen made reference to the emptiness of the countryside, commenting, ‘It is astonishing how utterly denuded of population the whole country is’.133 In Dublin, she observed that part of the crowds cheering her were ‘dirty, ragged people’, adding that they were ‘decidedly the worst for whiskey’.134 The famine of 1879 to 1881, sometimes referred to as Gorta Beag, or minifamine, was perhaps the most serious of the crises that befell Ireland after the Great Famine. There were indications of a crisis over the previous three years because of bad weather which had impacted the potato and turf crops. The average yield for the potato between 1870 and 1876 was 3.2 tons per acre, but in 1879 this was down to 1.4 tons, the lowest since 1847. A combination of factors was responsible for the crisis of 1879–1881: Irish agriculture was facing increasing competition from American imports as a result of the opening up of the Mid-West by the railroads, the earnings from seasonal migration to Britain was declining because British agriculture was being mechanized, and the kelp industry, the financial mainstay of coastal communities on the west coast, was under threat from guano from South America and potash produced by Germany. In the past, farmers had relied on shopkeepers to provide them with credit, but by 1879 15

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this was no longer available as merchants attempted to recoup the large sums of money they were owed. It was the failure of the potato, however, which was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The summer of 1879 was exceptionally wet, it raining for two out of every three days. The heavy rain continued into September, resulting in some flooding.135 As early as June 1879 the government had been informed that a crisis was imminent and that unless the government took action the scenes of 1847 would descend on the country. The clergy were the main group to highlight the approaching distress existing among their parishioners. At a meeting in October 1879, the Catholic hierarchy called on the government to introduce remedial works to ward off the approaching famine.136 At the same time, the government received memorials from more than 160 public bodies in Ireland and from seventy Irish MPs calling for the opening of public works. Not for the first time, though, the official attitude was that the Irish were prone to exaggeration about distress and responded that the Poor Law had the ability to deal with the crisis. Even Local Government Board inspectors such as Henry Robinson did not accept that there was a famine crisis. The reports from neutral observers such as the English Quaker and philanthropist James Hack Tuke, the American newspaper reporter James Redpath and others, indicated that the crisis was real, and their powerful eyewitness testimonies forced a change in the government’s approach. It was the letter from the Duchess of Marlborough, the wife of the Irish Lord Lieutenant, to the Times on 16 December 1879, asking English people to donate, which indicated that a famine was taking place. The Irish newspapers picked up this story, with the nationalist press opining that any money collected was a debt and not a gift: If Ireland had been fairly governed, and her own resources expended in Ireland instead of being drained away – applied to relieve or lessen taxation in Great Britain – Ireland would not require any aid from the other aide of the Irish Channel. Anything that is now raised should be considered restitution, but we conclude the British people will think we should feel grateful for the aid they may give.137 Nonetheless, as a result of this letter the Duchess of Marlborough’s Relief Committee was established in late December and donations flowed in, mainly from Britain. During its operations, the Duchess of Marlborough spent £135,000 on the distribution of meal and seed potatoes. The famine of 1879–1881, and contemporaries did describe it as a famine, was largely overshadowed by the agrarian agitation which took place at the same time.138 The activities of the Land League tended to get more attention in the local newspapers than the food shortages, although many of the speakers at the demonstrations, in particular the clergy, did alert the public to the food crisis. At its height, more than one million out of a population of two and half million people who lived along the west coast were kept alive by the relief from private charities, with 171,000 in County Mayo and 133,000 in County Galway needing aid.139 16

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The poorest Poor Law Unions suffered most with 80 per cent of the populations in Clifden, Dunfanaghy and Oughterard in distress. However, the distress also impacted other parts of the country such as Monaghan, Cork and Kildare. As in earlier and later famines, private charity played an important role. The Mansion House Committee again reconvened, receiving donations from as far away as India and Australia. Yet again, America provided substantial amounts of relief, £26,875, with £94,916 coming from Australia, £32,153 from Europe and £20,576 from Asia.140 The Buenos Ayres Relief Committee sent £3,000 to the Mansion House Relief Committee.141 In total, the Mansion House Committee spent £181,000 in its relief operations. This money was used to provide relief to 840 local committees throughout the country, which in turn were responsible for helping 514,000 people. Parallels with the Great Famine were evident, with the arrival of relief ships from across the Atlantic. The American journalist James Redpath estimated that the United States sent $5 million towards the relief efforts of 1879–1881.142 The most famous was the U.S.S. Constellation, which left America on 27 March 1880, carrying 3,300 barrels of foodstuffs, plus articles of clothing.143 The Duke of Edinburgh was visiting Ireland at the time, in what was described as his ‘Relief of Irish Distress’ tour of the south and west coast. He was accompanied by the artist Charles William Cole, who captured his visit in ink and pencil.144 The Duke did take part in the distribution of relief off the west coast in the spring of 1880. There were other relief committees that were engaged helping ward off famine during this period. These included the New York Herald Relief Committee, established by the proprietor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, who provided $100,000 to start the fund and which contributed £35,000 in total for relief operations in Ireland. The Land League was a reluctant participant in the relief operations and became involved only after Michael Davitt’s visit to Connemara and Mayo in December 1879. The League felt that this function took away from its main objective, that of land agitation. However, the founder of the Ladies’ Land League, Fanny Parnell, was active in raising awareness of the suffering in Ireland and encouraging Irish Americans to donate. Her interventions were highly praised in Ireland.145 Funds were also sent to the Irish bishops directly from their counterparts in Europe, North America and Australia. Much of this made its way to Archbishop Edward McCabe of Dublin, who then distributed it to the most destitute dioceses in the country. Archbishop John MacHale of Tuam, a veteran of the Great Famine, received £26,000 for the relief of distress in his diocese.146 There were two aspects that the relief committees had to deal with: providing meal to those who had no other food and providing seed potatoes to those who had consumed their seeds when they had no other food. Because of the latter, there was a fear that the crisis would be prolonged into the following year as the people would not have seeds to plant. For this reason, the government and the private relief organizations ensured that funds were made available for the purchase of seed potatoes. One-third of the money from the New York Herald Relief Fund, one-fifth of the contributions to the Mansion House Relief Committee and 17

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a proportion of the sums that the bishops received were allocated to the purchase of seed potatoes. The government also made £600,000 available under the Seed Supply Act. Additionally, they created a ‘Potato Crop Committee’ to recommend and promote the usage of alternative varieties of potatoes.147 Most of this money was used to purchase the Champion variety of potato as it was said to be more blight resistant. However, the sums set aside for the purchase of the seed potatoes were not sufficient, highlighting the extent of the problem and resulting in many families having to resort to eating their supply of seed potatoes in order to survive. In 1886, a similar intercession proved to be necessary.148 A number of factors were responsible for the fact that the crisis of 1879–1881 never reached the levels of the Great Famine. First, the population was smaller and it was easier to provide relief. Second, there was an ability to secure alternative foods, in particular Indian Meal, at moderate prices, so that those in distress could be fed. Third, a large section of the population had raised themselves above the position of absolute dependence on the potato and the crisis was more regional than national. Fourth, the world became aware of the crisis from the very beginning because of the publicity from newspapers and international aid was brought into action quickly. Fifth, the role of the private relief organizations, in particular the Mansion House and Duchess of Marlborough Relief Committees, was imperative in overcoming the crisis as these organizations developed networks at a local level to distribute relief in a timely and efficient manner. More than £2½ million was spent on the crisis of 1879 to 1881 and, without this expenditure, many would have died. However, it opened a debate as to how remedial action should be taken in relation to those areas where there were perennial crop failures. For the first time, the alleviation of destitution and famine appeared to be given serious consideration by the British government. Unfortunately, further bad harvests and resulting periods of distress over the following two decades suggested that in reality little had changed when it came to alleviating famine in Ireland. The 1890s was a decade of political turbulence in the United Kingdom, with the question of Home Rule creating new alliances and divisions. The public demise of Charles Stewart Parnell in 1890 split the Home Rule movement, with the rift continuing after his death in 1891. Just as had been the case in the 1840s, the nationalist movement was divided at a time when strong leadership was required.149 The decade was also marked by a series of potato failures and localized famines in Ireland. The first failure occurred in 1890 along the western seaboard. For the most part, the response to the failure was polarized along the nationalist/unionist fault line. In November 1890, for example, Blackwood’s Magazine accused nationalists of displaying their ‘usual cunning’ in prematurely declaring there were shortages simply so that they could call for another No-Rent manifesto. The ‘Romish clergy’ were also described as being part of the conspiracy in promoting ‘ludicrous exaggerations’.150 In 1890, there was a poor potato harvest in the west of Ireland. A. J. Balfour, the Chief Secretary, appeared unworried by the consequences of the failure. His 18

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sanguinary comments in parliament where he stated that there was no need for early intervention drew criticisms in Ireland and America. In August of that year, the United Ireland journal included a free illustration depicting Balfour playing golf while ‘Ireland wrestles with Famine’.151 This interpretation was picked up by the Irish American press, one commentating that ‘as to Mr Balfour, he is so busy playing golf in England that he has no time to run over to Ireland and look after the troublesome natives, over whom he is nominally Chief Secretary’.152 It concluded by warning, ‘It will not do to wait until Irishmen have starved to death to prove there is a famine’.153 Such criticisms led Balfour, accompanied by his sister, Alice, to undertake a ‘mission of mercy’ tour of Connemara and Donegal in October 1890. They were generally well received.154 As in earlier famines, in 1890, an American Relief Committee was formed. However, unlike in earlier shortages, the American Irish Famine Fund became bogged down in controversy. On 2 October 1890, an editorial in the London Times accused it of being a front for Irish nationalists, to which the Secretary responded: The American Committee for the relief of famine in Ireland has nothing to do with American politics, nothing to do with Irish politics, nothing to do with any kind of politics whatsoever. The American Committee simply aim to send aid to thousands of famine shadowed Irish cabins, so that human lives may be saved, human suffering prevented. The disaster resulting from the failure of the potato crop threatens to be so general in Ireland that in spite of all efforts at relief, there will be many empty bellies, many half-clad bodies among worthy peasantry before the winter is over. The American Committee cannot for an instant believe that England or any other civilised nation can for one moment object to a movement whose only aim is the feeding of the hungry and clothing of the naked. 155 Nonetheless, a number of prominent Irish Americans doubted the authenticity of the distress. To answer these concerns, the Fund sent an agent to the west of Ireland.156 In 1891, as distress continued to rage in the west of Ireland, a measure was introduced to provide a more permanent solution to the perennial food shortages. The Congested Districts Board was an initiative by A. J. Balfour to alleviate persistent rural poverty. Initially, the funding for the Board came from the Church of Ireland.157 It was part of a policy of ‘constructive unionism’, an aim being to counter the rising tide of the Home Rule movement. Parnell’s spectacular fall from grace, however, had provided an abrupt ending to unity of constitutional nationalism. The Board financed projects to support local agriculture and fisheries, including bee-keeping, lace-making, fish-curing, harbour development and furniture-making. Regardless of its successes in slowly improving the condition of the poor, the Congested Districts Board divided nationalist opinion. Michael Davitt, however, praised the Board for introducing a form of benign state socialism.158 19

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In 1895, there was again distress throughout the country, with even the industrial flagship city of Belfast opening soup kitchens and relief works. The crisis was caused by a bad potato harvest in 1894 and an industrial downswing, both of which were compounded by an exceptionally cold winter. At this stage, the Chief Secretary was John Morley. Blackburn-born Morley had commenced his career as a journalist and editor, and following a few unsuccessful attempts had been elected Liberal MP for Newcastle in 1883. He worked closely with William Gladstone on the 1886 Home Rule Bill.159 In 1886 and again from 1892 to 1895, he was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. Morley responded to the shortages by making a loan available to Poor Law guardians for the purchase of seed potatoes and, at the beginning of 1895, he announced he would appoint a special commission to enquire into the need for relief works.160 He also allowed a number of the most distressed unions to relax the conditions under which they provided outdoor relief. Overall, though, he believed that no extraordinary interventions by the government were necessary, pointing to stability in numbers seeking poor relief. His statements drew criticism from Irish MPs, who pointed to the unwillingness of the Irish poor to avail of Poor Law relief.161 Throughout the early months of 1895 the guardians of Poor Law Unions found themselves under extreme pressure from people who wanted relief work and not Poor Law relief. The Kanturk guardians, for example, responded by providing ‘hundreds of half-famished labourers’ with a meal of bread and milk in the dining room of the workhouse. They also appealed to Chief Secretary Morley to expedite his enquiry and provide relief works.162 The guardians of the Claremorris Union in County Mayo, which had been created during the Great Famine, also made a direct appeal to Morley. In early February, a deputation of poor people led by Father MacAlpine of Ballindine attended the weekly meeting of the guardians to ask for relief works to be provided immediately. The priest explained that the people had pawned their possessions and ‘the pinch of dire hunger was not far off’.163 The impact of the potato failure in the union had been made worse by the annual flooding of the river Robe. The guardians, who were sympathetic to the deputation, sent a memorial to Morley asking that relief works be provided to prevent this happening again. Copies were also sent to nationalist MPs John Dillon and William O’Brien. Their memorial ended with a direct criticism of the spending choices made by the Congested Districts Board, warning ‘the light railways and vast expenditures on the untenanted hills of Connemara and elsewhere would evidently appear what future generations will regard them as the bribes and sops – the fads and follies of a reckless Administration of coercion and misrule’.164 In early 1895, meetings were held and memorials were sent to Morley from many parts of Ireland. Although unions in the west were most active, appeals were also made for additional relief from distressed districts in Fermanagh and Cavan.165 When challenged in the House of Commons to introduce relief works, Morley continued to insist that the unions had sufficient resources to handle the distress.166 In May 1895, however, the poor in the Schull Union were being forced to depend ‘on the precarious resources of the sea’.167 At this stage, the House of 20

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Commons voted the relatively small sum of £35,000 for the relief of distress in Ireland.168 A few weeks following this, a General Election was held in the United Kingdom. It was a massive victory for the Conservative Party, supported by the Liberal Unionist Party. One consequence was that John Morley was replaced as Chief Secretary by Gerald Balfour.169 In 1896, Irish newspapers were again reporting poor harvests in the west. In January of the following year, a number of Irish MPs, including Michael Davitt, raised the issue of food shortages in parliament. He described distress ‘of a most acute character’ existing in many parts of Mayo.170 A few days later, W. O’Malley, the MP for Galway, asked the Chief Secretary, Gerald Balfour (brother of A. J.), if he would intervene to relieve distress in Connemara. The answer to these and similar questions was that ‘abnormal distress does not at present exist’ and that the resources of the Poor Law were sufficient to cope with the demand.171 In subsequent debates it was clear that distress was extensive along the western seaboard, especially in Counties Kerry and Donegal.172 In May 1897, during a debate in the House of Commons, Balfour refuted that he had denied the existence of distress in Ireland. However, he did challenge its extent and believed that no extraordinary relief measures were necessary.173 Nonetheless, in July, Balfour introduced a bill ‘to make temporary provision for the relief of distress in Ireland . . . extending the powers of guardians of distressed unions to give outdoor relief in food and fuel’.174 A few months later, two leading nationalist MPs, Timothy Harrington and John Dillon, presented a memorial to A. J. Balfour warning that the failure of the potato crop would ‘inevitably result in a famine if not met by prompt and adequate measures of relief by the Government’.175 Mirroring its attitude in the 1840s, the London Times was dismissive, pointing to the holding of a number of athletic competitions as proof that ‘the people are not very downhearted but take a lively interest in local amusements’.176 In 1897, there was famine in another part of the empire – India. In the Queen’s Speech made in January 1897, she said, ‘It is with much regret and with feelings of the deepest sympathy that I have heard that, owing to the failure of the autumn rains, scarcity and famine affect a large portion of my Dominions in India’.177 No mention was made of the distress in Ireland. In the early months of 1898 nationalist MPs in parliament continued to press Chief Secretary Gerard Balfour about the need for government intervention. Balfour remained adamant that the Irish Poor Law and local authorities could cope. In April, Balfour reported: No special inquiry appears to be necessary. Relief works subsidised by the Government have been opened by the Boards of Guardians of every union in counties Mayo and Galway, in which exceptional distress is believed to exist, and about 4,300 heads of families, representing over 20,000 people, have been authorised to be employed, and the Board cannot find that the guardians have refused relief to any persons who really required it.178 21

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He added: The guardians of the unions in Cork and Kerry, in which distress is alleged to exist, have been offered financial assistance in affording relief to the people on the same lines as in Mayo and Galway, but they have not so far thought it necessary to accept the Government aid, and are relieving all persons who need assistance from the rates in the ordinary way.179 A few days later, when questioned by Dillon about a statement by the Mayor of Dublin about the distress in the west, Balfour responded: I have read the statement of the Lord Mayor of Dublin with reference to the west of Ireland, but I must say it is a highly-coloured representation of the actual facts. Relief works, subsidised by the Government, have been opened by the boards of guardians of every union in the counties of Mayo and Galway, in which exceptional distress is believed to exist, and about 4,300 heads of families, representing over 20,000 people, have been authorised to be employed, and the Local Government Board cannot find that the guardians have refused relief to any persons who really required it. Many vague complaints have been made as to the alleged insufficiency of the Government relief measures on this, as on previous occasions, when distress existed. The Local Government Board will be at all times prepared immediately to inquire into any definite case that may be brought to their notice.180 In the long and acrimonious debate that followed this statement, Dillon suggested that the salary of the Chief Secretary should be reduced. In language redolent of the late 1840s, he spoke of the parsimony and inadequacy of the government’s response to the crisis. Unionist sensibilities were also appealed to – including a reference to Edward Carson, made by Swift McNeill, the MP for Donegal. McNeill pointed out that Carson, ‘who would support, through thick and thin, a Unionist administration in Ireland’, when he heard the letter of the Lord Mayor, had ‘contributed £10 towards the relief of the distress’. Carson responded, ‘I may be allowed to say that I had not read the Lord Mayor’s letter containing a description of the distress; I had private information on the subject’.181 As had been the case during the famines earlier in the century, the Mansion House Committee was convened in Dublin under the guidance of the Lord Mayor, Daniel Tallon.182 Tallon, a supporter of the now-dead Charles Stewart Parnell, was an outspoken critic of the government’s policies on distress.183 He personally visited west Cork, travelling as far as Castletownberehaven to see the distress for himself. Funds given from the Mansion House Committee included money for road building in the area.184 A large part of the income of the Committee came from France, where a special body, the ‘Comité de Secours Aux Irlandais’, had been established to support the work of the Dublin Committee.185 22

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It was not just the Lord Mayor of Dublin who was concerned about the government’s lack of action. In Cork City, a distress fund was established to raise assistance for people in the south west of Ireland. The local Mayor, Patrick Hearne, claimed that this action had been forced upon him by the inertia of the government. Writing about the Cork fund, the Echo claimed that ‘even through the rose-tinted official vision the distress cannot but be quite apparent, but the government chose to ignore it’. They concluded that ‘They are not going to show any humanity now more than they ever did’.186 Inevitably, advanced nationalists and socialists were amongst the most vocal critics of the government’s actions. In March 1898, Gonne and Connolly published a pamphlet entitled The Rights of Life and the Rights of Property. Connolly also spent a number of weeks in Kerry, from where he sent reports of the famine to a New York newspaper, the socialist Weekly People.187 A feature of Irish famines throughout the nineteenth century was the role of philanthropy in alleviating it. During the Great Famine – which had attracted donations from all over the world – charity had often intervened to provide a lifeline when official relief proved inadequate. In other famines, charity was similarly important. This was recognized by the Irish administration in the famine of 1890 to 1891, when the government had tried to avoid introducing any extraordinary relief measures. Instead, at the beginning of 1891, the Lord Lieutenant appealed for public charity to relieve the distress. For the nationalist press, such an appeal was further proof of the indifference of officialdom, the Irish Examiner opining: It is something unusual for a government in the Queen’s dominions to have to appeal to private charity for relief of any national distress. Such an appeal is a sort of acknowledgement of administrative bankruptcy, or, at least, of administrative incapacity.188 In 1898, as had become the pattern throughout the nineteenth century, committees were formed both inside Ireland and further afield to provide assistance. Women were again important, with one of the most significant contributions coming from the Irish Distressed Ladies Fund, which was presided over by Lady Portifex.189 Their role was important, but short term, with most of the funds being exhausted by spring 1898. This was also the case with the Manchester Committee, which had been concentrating on feeding school children in the west of Ireland.190 Moreover, the Mansion House Committee, which had been formed during all the major subsistence crises of the nineteenth century, had exhausted its funds by April 1898 – just as the impact was most severe.191 By this stage, they had given: £4,895 in relief grants of cash; £2,158 for feeding destitute children attending school; £1,620 for seed potatoes; £867 for seed oats; £504 for meal; and £267 for fishing tackle.192 The partition of Ireland did not end poverty or subsistence crises throughout the two new states. According to the historian T. P. O’Neill the last time that the descriptor ‘famine’ was used in County Galway was in 1925. External intervention 23

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was required to fend off starvation. As she had so often before, Irish America came to the rescue of the Irish poor.193 In 1933, there was high unemployment in Belfast resulting in the opening of soup kitchens, most notably in Protestant east Belfast. As had become an established tradition, they were largely funded by private subscriptions.194 Despite gaps in historiography, there was no gap in famines. Taken together, these sources demonstrate that, for the poor in Ireland, there never was a gap in famines. A famine was something that every generation in Ireland experienced. The documents that follow are a sad reminder that famines in Ireland did not commence in 1845, nor end in 1851. Christine Kinealy Gerard Moran

Notes 1 Steven Engler and Johannes P. Werner, ‘Processes prior and during the early 18th century Irish Famines – weather extremes and migration’, Climate, 3 (2015), pp. 1035– 1056, 1035–1036. 2 ‘When a food security crisis becomes a famine’, United Nations, 2011, www.un.org/ apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39113, accessed 4 May 2017. 3 ‘WHO famine risk’, 2012, www.who.int/entity/ceh/indicators/faminerisk.pdf, accessed 3 June 2017. 4 William Wilde’s ‘Table of Irish Famines’, in The census for Ireland for the year 1851, part v, Table of Deaths. 5 Cormac Ó Gráda, ‘Famine in Ireland, 1300–1900’, UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series, May 2015, http://irserver.ucd.ie/bitstream/handle/10197/6604/ WP15_13.pdf?sequence=1, accessed 10 October 2016. 6 Wilde’s ‘Table of Irish Famines’. 7 Mary Lyons, ‘Weather, famine, pestilence and plague in Ireland, 900–1500’, in E. Margaret Crawford (ed.), Famine: The Irish Experience 900–1900 (Edinburgh: John MacDonald, 1989), pp. 31–74. 8 Engler and Werner, Climate. 9 ‘Special report on intergovernmental panel on climate change’, www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ special-reports/srex/SREX_FD_SPM_final.pdf, accessed 5 June 2017. 10 David Dickson, Arctic Ireland: The Extraordinary Story of the Great Frost (Belfast: White Row Press, 1997), p. 16. 11 George O’Brien, The Economic History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (Dublin: Maunsell and Co., 1918), p. 102. 12 James H. Tuke, Irish Distress and Its Remedies. The Land Question: A Visit to Donegal and Connaught in the Spring of 1880 (London: W. Ridgeway, 1880), pp. 9–24. 13 This statement was made during a debate on Congested Districts in Ireland, in The Parliamentary Debates, fourth series, vol. xc, February to March 1901 (London: HMSO, 1901), p. 1436. 14 One of the legacies of the Great Famine was high incidences of mental disease, see Oonagh Walsh, ‘ “An invisible but inescapable trauma”: Epigenetics and the Great Famine’, in Christine Kinealy et al. (eds), Women and the Great Hunger (Hamden, CT: Quinnipiac University Press, 2016), pp. 173–184.

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15 An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject (12 and 13 Will 3 c. 2). 16 The statue was mutilated on a number of occasions and, following an attempt to blow it up at the end of 1928, it was removed in 1929. 17 The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 to 1689 resulted in the deposition of Catholic King James II and his replacement with his son-in-law, Protestant William of Orange. Upon William accepting, he was asked to summon the parliament, one of the first acts of which was to create a Bill of Rights. It was regarded as ‘glorious’ because it was achieved without bloodshed in England, although James and William were subsequently to engage in warfare in Ireland, culminating in the Battle of the Boyne (1690) and the Battle of Aughrim (1691). In Ireland, William’s victories were regarded as a victory of Protestantism over Catholicism; in England, it was also regarded as a victory of parliament over absolute monarchy. 18 The Navigation Acts were passed by the English parliament at the end of the seventeenth century. They were intended to regulate the lucrative trade with the colonies in favour of England. 19 The Wool Act of 1699 (or the Woollens Act) was passed by the English parliament (11 Will. III c. 13). 20 The legislation was collectively referred to as ‘The Penal Laws’. Although it was mostly directed at Catholics (‘papists’), some of the restrictions also applied to other non-conformist groups. 21 ‘Abstract’, James Kelly, ‘Scarcity and poor relief in eighteenth-century Ireland: The subsistence crisis of 1782–84’, Irish Historical Studies, xxviii.109 (May 1992), pp.  38–62, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/irish-historical-studies/article/divclasstitlescarcity-and-poor-relief-in-eighteenth-century-ireland-the-subsistence-crisisof-17824div/080D12CD29FB99082150F27F825BDF60, accessed 7 December 2016. 22 James Kelly, ‘Famine and harvest crisis in Ireland before the Great Famine’ (Unpublished Paper, 1995). I am grateful to the author for giving me permission to publish from his paper. 23 There is a memorial in Larne that commemorates the departure of the Goodwill from this port in May  1717. No mention is made that the ship had first picked up emigrants in Dublin. For more on this see Patrick Fitzgerald, ‘Irish Hunger, migration and denomination, 1550–1850’, in Patrick Fitzgerald et al. (eds), Irish Hunger and Migration: Myth, Memory and Memorialization (Hamden, CT: Quinnipiac University Press, 2015), p. 22. 24 James Kelly, ‘Harvests and hardship: Famine and scarcity in Ireland in the late 1820s’, Studia Hibernica, xxvi (1991–1992), pp. 87–93. 25 Fitzgerald, ‘Irish Hunger, migration and denomination’, pp. 17–28. 26 Ian McBride, Eighteenth-Century Ireland: The Isle of Slaves (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2009), p. 106. 27 David Dickson, ‘1740–41 famine’, in John Crowley et al. (eds), Atlas of the Great Irish Famine (Cork: Cork University Press, 2012), p. 23. 28 Engler, Climate. 29 Dickson, Arctic Ireland. 30 John D. Post, Food Shortage, Climatic Variability, and Epidemic Disease in Preindustrial Europe: The Mortality Peak in the Early 1740s (New York: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 269–270. 31 Christine Kinealy, Charity and the Great Hunger: The Kindness of Strangers (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), pp. 16–17. 32 Dickson, Atlas, p. 25. 33 Patrick Fitzpatrick, ‘Irish Hunger, migration and denomination’, pp. 17–28.

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34 A Citizen of Waterford, Letters on Ireland to refute Mr George Barne’s Statistical Account (Waterford: William Smith, 1813), p. 73. 35 Act to prevent the export of corn for a limited time (5 Geo. III c. 4). 36 Act to punish people who attempt to prevent the export of corn (11 Geo. III c. 4). 37 Act to enable the lord lieutenant and council to prohibit the export of corn, grain, meal, malt, flour, bread, biscuit, peas, beans, potatoes, starch and hair powder for a limited time (36 Geo. III c. 8). 38 Act for the further advancement of agriculture, and a steady supply of corn for the city of Dublin, by extending the export bounties on corn and flour to the said city, and discounting all inland, canal and coast bounties thereto (37 Geo. III c.24). 39 James Kelly, ‘Scarcity and poor relief in eighteenth-century Ireland: The subsistence crisis of 1782–84’, Irish Historical Studies, xxviii.109 (May 1992), pp. 38–62. 40 Adrian Randall and Andrew Charlesworth, Markets, Market Culture and Popular Protest in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), pp. 172–173. 41 Cork Advertiser, 12 March 1801. 42 ‘Address to the Late Lord Mayor, Alderman Charles Thorp’, Freeman’s Journal, 17 October 1801. 43 ‘Corporation of Hosiers’, Freeman’s Journal, 1 October 1801. 44 ‘Dublin, Oct. 26’, Freeman’s Journal, 23 October 1800. 45 Ian Budge, Belfast: Approach to Crisis: A Study of Belfast Politics 1613–1970 (London: Macmillan, 1973), p. 15. 46 Randall, Markets, Market Culture, p. 173. 47 Kinealy, ‘The role of the poor law during the Famine’, in Cathal Póirtéir (ed.), The Great Irish Famine (Cork: Mercier Press, 1995). 48 No title, Belfast News-Letter, 12 November 1816. 49 ‘Provision for the poor’, Belfast News-Letter, 12 November 1816. 50 ‘Diary of the weather’, Belfast News-Letter, 17 January 1817. 51 ‘Provincial intelligence’, Freeman’s Journal, 14 March 1817. 52 The Select Committee made two reports, in 1818 and in 1819. 53 Hugh Fenning, ‘Typhus epidemic in Ireland, 1817–1819: Priests, ministers, doctors’, Collectanea Hibernica, 41 (1999), pp. 117–152, 17. See also, William Harty, Historic Sketch of the Causes, Extent, and Mortality of Contagious Fever Epidemic in Ireland in 1741: And During 1817, 1818, and 1819; Together With a Review of the Causes, Medical and Statistical, Productive of Epidemic Fever in Ireland (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1820). 54 The historiography on the 1822 famine is limited. Two of the most comprehensive works are T. P. O’Neill, ‘The Famine of 1822’, MA Thesis (National University of Ireland, 1966), and the excellent local study by Gerard MacAtasney, The Other Famine: The 1822 Crisis in County Leitrim (Dublin: The History Press, 2010). 55 Conor McNamara, ‘Pray pity your poor people . . . the Mahon papers and the famine of 1822 in the west’, History Ireland, 19.5 (September/October 2011), pp. 26–27. 56 William Gregory (1766–1840), whose family seat was Coole Park in County Galway, served in the Irish parliament from 1798 to 1800. He was grandfather of William Gregory (1816–92) who was responsible for the introduction of the draconian Gregory Clause in 1847. 57 W. Gregory to C. Grant, 1819 (n.d.), in Lady Gregory (ed.), Mr Gregory’s Letter Box, 1813–30 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1898), p. 217. 58 Stephen A. Royle, ‘Irish Famine relief in the early nineteenth century: The 1822 Famine on the Aran Islands’, Irish Economic and Social History, 11 (1984), pp. 44–59, 46.

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59 An Act to suppress Insurrection and prevent Disturbance of the Public Peace in Ireland, until the First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and twenty two. [11 February 1822]. 60 Irish Insurrection Act, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 2 July 1822, vol. 7, cc.1498–500. 61 Lord Monteagle (1790–1866), http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820– 1832/member/rice-thomas-, accessed 10 October 2016. 62 Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828) was an English Conservative politician. He served as Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827. Liverpool was noted for his repressive response to riots in England in 1819, and in Ireland in 1822 and 1825. 63 Earl of Liverpool, Distress in Ireland, Hansard, House of Lords Debates, 17 May 1822, vol. 7, c.671. 64 Ibid. 65 Cormac Ó Gráda, Famine: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), p. 218. 66 Report of the Committee for the Relief of the Distressed Districts in Ireland: Appointed at a General Meeting Held at the City of London Tavern, on the 7th of May, 1822, With an Appendix by Committee for the Relief of the Distressed Districts in Ireland (London: William Phillips, 1823). 67 For example, Letters from William Henry Stackpole, Lifford, County Donegal, to Michael William Troy, honorary secretary, Committee for Irish Relief Fund, London, outlining relief in County Clare, 1 to 22 June 1822, NAI, CSO/RP/1822/432: http:// www.csorp.nationalarchives.ie/search/index.php?browse=true&category=27&subcat egory=180&offset=430&browseresults=true 68 Ibid., Thomas Spring Rice to Henry Goulburn, 8 May 1822, CSO/RP/1822/434. 69 Report of Committee . . . The papers of the Tavern Committee are held in the London Metropolitan Archive: Mss 7440–3, 7469); general financial records 1822–4 (Mss 7444–7); letter books 1822–3 (Mss 7451–4); resolutions, some minutes and correspondence 1822–4 (Mss 7455–8); vouchers, receipts and miscellaneous papers 1822–3 (Mss 7459–64); agents’ reports 1822 (Ms 7465) and reports and papers re local administration of relief, arranged by county, 1822–4 (Mss 7470–92). 70 Alison Twells, The Civilising Mission and the English Middle Class, 1792–1850: The ‘Heathen’ at Home and Overseas (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 71 See Kinealy, Kindness of Strangers, chapters 7 and 11. 72 Hannah Kilham (1774–1832) was born in Sheffield in England. She converted to Quakerism following the death of her husband and daughter. She devoted her life to philanthropy and missionary work, most notably in Africa. 73 ‘Hannah Kilham’, Women’s History Network, http://womenshistorynetwork.org/ black-history-month-hannah-kilham-1774-1832/, accessed January 2017. 74 Hannah Kilham and Sarah Biller, Memoir of the Late Hannah Kilham: Chiefly Compiled From Her Journal, and Edited by Her Daughter-in-Law, Sarah Biller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 7–9. 75 ‘First report of British and Irish ladies’ society’, printed in Connaught Telegraph or Mayo Telegraph, 27 November 1823. 76 Ibid. 77 Twells, The Civilizing Mission, pp. 132–133. 78 Ibid., p. 128. 79 P. Besnard, Report From the Associations in the Provinces of Munster and Connaught, to Whom Aid Has Been Granted by the Trustees of the Linen Manufacture, in Answer to Queries From P. Besnard (Cork: Edwards & Savage, 1826).

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80 The First Report of the British and Irish Ladies Society for Improving the Condition and Promoting the Industry and Welfare of the Female Peasantry in Ireland, MDCCCXXIII: With an Appendix and a List of Subscribers (London: William Phelps, 1823). 81 John Stephenson/Stevenson Ferguson (1763–1833) was a successful linen merchant. He was President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce from 1821 to 1832 and a member of the committee of the Belfast Charitable Society. He had helped to found the Linenhall Library in Belfast. 82 ‘Town meeting’, Belfast News-Letter, 17 May 1822. 83 Christine Kinealy, A Death Dealing Famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland (London: Pluto Press, 1997). 84 ‘Relief and gratitude’, Belfast News-Letter, 23 August 1822. 85 Christine Kinealy, A Disunited Kingdom: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, 1800–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 and re-printed, 2008). 86 Report of the Committee Appointed at the Mansion House in London . . . 24th March, 1831 for the Purpose of Adopting Measures for the Temporary Relief of the Distress . . . in the West of Ireland, Together With an Appendix (hereafter, Irish Distress Committee) (London: George Taylor, 1831), p. 3. 87 ‘Public distress’, Dublin Evening Mail, 9 February 1831. 88 Earl Grey, ‘Distress in Ireland’, Hansard, House of Lords Debates, 28 February 1831, vol. 2, c.1000. 89 ‘Famine in Mayo’, Freeman’s Journal, 4 April 1831. 90 Robert Harty, Lord Mayor, 29 March 1831, Freeman’s Journal, 4 April 1831. 91 ‘Newport Relief Committee’, The Telegraph and Connaught Ranger, 13 April 1831. 92 On both occasions, the chair of the committee was John Smith, MP, a successful banker. See Eneas Macdonnell, The ‘Crisis’ Unmasked: Respectfully Inscribed to the British People (London: John Oliver, 1843), pp. 3–4. 93 Irish Distress Committee. 94 Du Pré Alexander, 2nd Earl of Caledon (1777–1839), had briefly been a politician in the pre-1800 Irish parliament, for Newtownards. He was a landowner in Caledon in County Tyrone and served as Lord Lieutenant of the county from 1831 to 1839. 95 Irish Distress Committee, pp. 41–42. 96 Ibid., pp. 3–6. 97 Ibid., p. 13. 98 Ibid., p. 8. 99 Ibid., p. 16. 100 ‘Distress in the west of Ireland’, Belfast News-Letter, 5 July 1831. 101 Irish Distress Committee, p. 37. 102 Ibid., pp. 9, 35, 36. 103 ‘Distress in the west of Ireland’. 104 ‘Distress in Mayo and Galway’, Freeman’s Journal, 7 June 1831. 105 Ibid. 106 ‘Distress in the west of Ireland’, Belfast News-Letter, 5 July 1831. 107 F. L. Blosse, 5 May 1831, Irish Distress Committee, p. 27. 108 ‘Famine in Mayo’, Connaught Telegraph, 1 June 1831. 109 Ibid. 110 In a series of editorials, Cavendish spoke out against food being exported from the country, Connaught Telegraph, 1 October and 15 October 1845. 111 Irish Distress Committee, p. 33. 112 Also referred to as the ‘Whately Commission’ after its Chair, Archbishop Whately, it was officially entitled The Royal Commission for Inquiring Into the Condition of the Poorer Classes in Ireland (London: HMSO, 1836), it consisted of three reports. 113 Henry David Inglis (1795–1835) was a travel writer and journalist.

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114 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was an influential political economist and writer. In the same year that he visited Ireland, his Democracy in America was published. Tocqueville expressed considerable sympathy with the poor in Ireland. 115 Comte Gustave de Beaumont (1802–1866) was a French reformer and social thinker. He accompanied Tocqueville on a number of his fact-finding missions. In 1839, he published Ireland, Ireland: Social, Political, and Religious, based on his two visits to Ireland. 116 Throughout July 1835, the Freeman’s Journal published a series of letters by Father Hughes, describing the wretched condition of his parishioners. 117 Tocqueville to his mother, 10 August 1835, quoted in Alexis de Tocqueville and Emmet J. Larkin, Journey in Ireland, July–August, 1835 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1990), pp. 13–14. 118 Jonathan Binns, Miseries and Beauties of Ireland (London: Longman, Orme, Brown and Co., 1837), pp. 40, 219, 288, 321, 322, 433. 119 Peter Carr, The Night of the Big Wind (Belfast: White Row Press, 1991). 120 ‘The storm in Newry’, Freeman’s Journal, 10 January 1839. 121 ‘Awful and destructive storm’, Freeman’s Journal, 8 January 1839. 122 ‘The storm’, Freeman’s Journal, 9 January 1839. 123 Captain Chads to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 22 August 1839 (marked confidential), in ‘Relief of suffering arising from Scarcity in Ireland’, in Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons (London: HMSO, 1846, vol. 37). 124 ‘Relief of temporary distress in Ireland’, in Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners (London: Poor Law Commission Office, 1840, vol. 6), p. 58. 125 The Lancashire Cotton Famine lasted from 1861 to 1865 and arose from the blockade of the Southern Confederacy, which was the major supplier of raw cotton to the mills in the north east of England. As a consequence, one-quarter of a million people who engaged in cotton manufacture were out of work and dependent on relief or charity. There was international sympathy for the Lancashire poor, for example, New York Times, 26 November 1862, http://www.nytimes.com/1862/11/26/news/distress-lan cashire-terrible-effects-cotton-famine-england-quarter-million.html?pagewanted=all 126 Sir Robert Peel in, ‘Distress in Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 21 February 1862, vol. 165, cc. 548–592. 127 Reports of the Mansion-House Committee for the Relief of Distress in Ireland, 1862; and of the Central Relief Committee, 1862–63 (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1864). 128 Moylan was a Liberal. He was also a monarchist, him leading to move to erect a statue to Prince Albert following his premature death in late 1861. See James H. Murphy, Abject Loyalty: Nationalism and Monarchy in Ireland During the Reign of Queen Victoria (Cork: Cork University Press, 2001), p. 136. 129 Paul Cullen (1803–78) was Archbishop of Dublin from 1852 until his death. He was theologically and politically conservative, being an outspoken critic of radical nationalism. 130 Damien Shiels, ‘Irish relief fund: The remarkable contribution of union soldiers and sailors’, https://irishamericancivilwar.com/2012/11/24/irish-relief-fund-the-remarkable-contri bution-of-union-soldiers-sailors-part-1/ 131 ‘Departure of Queen Victoria’, Dundalk Democrat, 31 August 1861. 132 Christine Kinealy, ‘Queen Victoria and the Great Famine’, in John Crowley, William J. Smyth and Mike Murphy (eds), Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, 1845–52 (Cork: Cork University Press, 2012), pp. 96–99. 133 Quoted in Richard J. Kelly, ‘Queen Victoria’s 1861 visit to Ireland and the burgeoning of Irish nationalism’, p. 11, http://www.vssj.jp/journal/9/kelly.pdf 134 Ibid., p. 17. 135 ‘The rains – flooding’, Belfast News-Letter, 9 September 1879.

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136 Nation, 15 November 1879. 137 Munster Express, 27 December 1879. 138 See for example, J. A. Fox, Reports on the Conditions on the Peasantry of the County of Mayo During the Famine Crisis of 1880 (Dublin: Brown and Nolan, 1880). 139 Ibid., pp. 43–44. 140 The Irish Crisis of 1879–80: Proceedings of the Mansion House Relief Committee (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1881), p. 27. 141 Minutes of meeting for 24 April 1880 (Dublin City Archives, Mansion House Relief Committee Papers, 1880). 142 N. D. Palmer, The Irish Land League Crisis (reprinted, New York: Octogan Press, 1978), p. 104. 143 ‘The Herald of relief from America’, Harper’s Weekly, 28 February 1880. 144 The main image, ‘District visiting. Connemara. (Mainland.) At Lochcneira, Connemara’ accompanied by Major Gaskell is held by the National Library of Ireland, http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000040448, accessed 5 May 2017. 145 ‘American help for the farmers of the West of Ireland’, The Irishman (Dublin), 20 September 1879. 146 Tim. P. O’Neill, ‘Minor famines and relief in county Galway, 1815–1925’, in Gerard Moran and Raymond Gillespie (eds), Galway: History and Society (Dublin: Geography Publications, 1996), p. 467. 147 ‘Ireland—Potato Crop Committee, 1880’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 25 April 1882, vol. 268, cc. 1408–1409. 148 James Hack Tuke, Report of the Distribution of the Seed Potato Fund in the Spring of 1886: With Some Suggestions for the Permanent Relief of the Districts (London: William Ridgway, 1886). 149 Christine Kinealy, Repeal and Revolution: 1848 in Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009). 150 Quoted in The Potato Blight in Ireland (Dublin: The Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, December 1890), p. 4. 151 ‘Ireland wrestles with famine, while Mr. Balfour plays golf’, United Ireland, 23 August 1890. 152 ‘Ireland’s Famine’, The Illustrated American, 8 November 1890, p. 353. 153 Ibid., p. 361. 154 Miss Balfour’s Visit to Ireland: A Mission of Mercy. Illustration from Cassell’s History of England (Stockton-on-Tees: A. W. Cowan, c.1890, special edition). 155 ‘The Relief Committee and the Times’, Freeman’s Journal, 6 October 1890. 156 ‘The American Irish Fund: Threatened collapse’, Kerry Weekly Reporter, 18 October 1890. 157 Ciara Breathnach, The Congested Districts Board, 1891–1923: Poverty and Development in the West of Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005). 158 Lewis Perry Curtis, Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland 1880–1892: A Study in Conservative Unionism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 360–363. 159 Catalogue of the papers, 1829–1923, of John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923), Bodleian Library, University of Oxford: http://www.bodley.ox.ac. uk/dept/scwmss/wmss/online/modern/morley/morley.html#morley, accessed 15 November 2016. 160 ‘The distress in the country: The West’, Freeman’s Journal, 2 March 1895. 161 ‘Distress in Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 22 February 1895. vol. 30, c. 1426. 162 ‘Kanturk labourers clamouring for bread or work’, Freeman’s Journal, 2 March 1895. 163 ‘The distress in Claremorris union’, Western People, 16 February 1895.

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164 ‘The distress in the country: The West’. 165 For example, by E. Vesey Knox, MP for Cavan, in ‘Distress in Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 25 March 1895, vol. 32, cc. 27–29. 166 ‘Relief works in Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 15 March 1895, vol. 31, c.1156. 167 ‘Distress in Schull and Castletown Unions’, Skibbereen Eagle, 9 May 1895. 168 Relief of Distress bill, ‘Relief works in Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 6 May 1895, vol. 33, cc. 529–530. 169 Unusually, Balfour did not sit in the Cabinet as was the general practice, but the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Cadogan, did. 170 ‘Agricultural distress (Westport Union)’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 21 January 1897, vol. 45, cc. 174–176. 171 ‘Distress (Connemara)’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 25 January 1897, vol. 45, c. 385. 172 For example, questions raised by Michael Austin, MP for Limerick, ‘Distress (Listowel Union)’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 8 February 1897, vol. 45, c. 1541. 173 ‘Local Government Board, Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 21 May 1897, vol. 49, cols. 1100–1102. 174 ‘Out-door relief (Ireland) bill’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 15 July 1897, vol. 51, c. 200. 175 Quoted in ‘Irish MPs memorial’, London Standard, 24 September 1897. 176 The Times, 21 September 1897. 177 ‘The Queen’s speech’, Hansard, House of Lords Debates, 19 January 1897, vol. 45, cc. 2–5. 178 ‘Distress in the South and West of Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 19 April 1898, vol. 56, cc. 414–415. 179 Ibid. 180 ‘Distress in the West of Ireland’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 21 April 1898, vol. 56, c. 657. 181 Ibid. 182 Daniel Tallon (1836–1908). In addition to being Lord Mayor, he was also High Sherriff of Dublin. Tallon visited America in 1899 to raise money for the Parnell Monument, ‘Proposed monument to Parnell’, Chicago Tribune, 24 August 1899. There are a number of portraits of Tallin in the National Portrait Gallery in London: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp97368/daniel-tallon, accessed 5 February 2017. 183 Daniel Tallon, Distress in the South and West (Dublin: M.H. Gill and Son, 1898). 184 The main built was named Tallon Road as a tribute to the Mayor, ‘West Cork remembers the Famine . . .’ Irish Times, 11 August 1998. 185 The Irish Crisis of 1879–80; Proceedings of the Dublin Mansion House Relief Committee, 1880 (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1881), pp. 18–19. 186 ‘The distress fund’, Echo, reprinted in Irish Examiner, 30 March 1898. 187 Peter Beresford Ellis, James Connolly: Selected Writings (London: Pluto Press, 1988), p. 304. 188 ‘The Irish distress’, Irish Examiner, 8 January 1891. 189 ‘Our Irish letter’, The Sacred Heart Review, 20.23 (3 December 1898). 190 These schemes had parallels with one introduced by Count Strzelecki in 1846–1848, See Christine Kinealy, ‘A Polish count in County Mayo: Paul de Strzelecki and the Great Hunger’, in Nollaig Ó Muraíle and Gerard Moran (eds), Mayo: History and Society (Dublin: Geography Publications, 2015), Chapter 19.

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191 ‘Irish distress’, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 28 April 1898, vol. 56, cc. 1387–1338. 192 ‘Our Irish letter’, The Sacred Heart Review, 20.19 (5 November 1898). 193 T. P. O’Neill, ‘Minor famines and relief in Galway 1815–1925’, in Gerard P. Moran and Raymond Gillespie (eds), Galway: History and Society (Dublin: Geography Publications, 1996), pp. 472–475. 194 Budge, Belfast: Approach to Crisis, p. 152.

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Part I THE CRISES OF THE LATE 1720s

1 THE LETTERS OF HUGH BOULTER, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH (1727–1729)

Hugh Boulter (1672–1742) was born in London. Educated at Oxford, he was made Fellow of Magdalen College. In 1719, Boulter served as chaplain to Hanover, on behalf of King George I.1 In 1724, George nominated Boulter to the Primacy of the Protestant church in Ireland, then vacant, which he hesitated to accept.2 He arrived in Ireland in November of that year. The sending of English-born Bishops to Ireland was viewed by the Westminster government as ‘an indispensable condition of the preservation of English supremacy in the government of Ireland’.3 During his time in the country, Boulter quickly established himself as a central figure in the government of Ireland where he assiduously promoted the English interest, which also meant the Protestant interest, in the country. In accordance with the latter aim, Boulter was involved in a number of projects to found schools for the conversion of Catholics. They were largely unsuccessful. Boulter’s first years in Ireland coincided with a series of bad harvests,4 and solutions to the perennial problem of hunger and famine preoccupied him. The poor harvests coincided with a period of economic stagnation, exacerbated by a shortage of silver and gold. The bankers were widely blamed for this economic downswing, with Dean Jonathan Swift even suggesting that a new law should be introduced to ‘hang up half a dozen bankers every year, and thereby interpose [at] least some short delay to the further ruin of Ireland’.5 Boulter was active in assisting during the shortages, including in raising subscriptions. In gratitude for his generosity to the poor of Ireland, in 1741 a fulllength portrait of him by Francis Bindon6 was placed in the hall of the poor house in Dublin. Boulter died in London. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on 12 November 1742, his memorial being designed by Sir Henry Cheere.7 A selection of Boulter’s letters was printed in two volumes at Oxford in 1769, under the superintendence of Ambrose Philips,8 who had been his secretary in Ireland. This series consists of letters from November 1724 to December 1738, to state officials and eminent churchmen in England. They were republished at Dublin in 1770 by George Faulkner, who, in his introduction to them, observed 35

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that Boulter, with all his virtues, ‘was too partially favourable to the people of England and too much prejudiced against the natives of Ireland.’ The letters show that Boulter’s interests combined political with ecclesiastical – with the former usually taking precedence. Four letters by Hugh Boulter from, Letters written by His Excellency Hugh Boulter, D.D., Lord Primate of all Ireland, &c.9 to several ministers of state in England, and some others: containing an account of the most interesting transactions which passed in Ireland from 1724 to 1738, second volume (Dublin; G. Faulkner and J. Williams, 1770).10 1.  To the Archbishop of Canterbury11 Dublin, July 20, 1727. My Lord, I have had the honour of your Excellency’s of the 13th, and before the receipt of this your Lordship will receive the two lists of officers which are of importance in our present state, and with all possible speed an account of all other patents for places. We have been in such a hurry with getting the bills ready to be sent to England, that I have not had time to draw up a short account of the Bishop of Cloyne’s case for your information, but will do it by the first opportunity. My Lord Chancellor has written so fully about the bills we have sent, that I have little to add. The whole council were satisfied it was our duty to transmit a money bill, but we think if your Excellency is here early enough it will be better to make no use of it; as to the corn and tillage bill, the great damage to this kingdom by landlords tying up their tenants from ploughing, the throwing so many families out of work that might be employed by tillage, and the terrible scarcity next to a famine that a great part of the kingdom now labours under by the corn not yielding well last year, and to which we are liable upon any the least accident in our harvest, make us all very desirous of having it past; and as it is only five acres out of an hundred that are to be tilled, and that every farmer has till Michaelmas12 come two years to lay out his schemes of ploughing, we hope it will not be counted any hardship to force them to plough so small a proportion of their land. The want of such a provision as is made in the bill about mending bridges, has often occasioned 50 or 100/. expense to the county, where 5 or 10/. would have done at first. The indemnifying bill speaks for itself. As to the bill requiring for a years conversion in papists before they practice the law, your Lordship knows the bad case we are in here with new converts practicing, and the dangerous consequence it may have in length of time; your Lordship has likewise seen, that nothing can be moved about papists or converts in either 36

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house but what is at last so clogged as to come to nothing which made us willing to send over a bill to this sore point ; if there are political reasons on the other side of the water for dropping it, the crown is under no difficulty, because we have sent bills enough without it; but I believe if it is returned, it will certainly pass here. I hear this day, that the address yesterday presented by some Roman Catholicks, occasions great heats and divisions among those of that religion here. I am, &c 2.  To the Archbishop of Canterbury Dublin, Feb. 24, 1727 My Lord, I have troubled your Grace with two long letters already, and must beg leave to trouble you with a third, about some other bills we are sending over, in getting which returned hither I must beg your Grace’s assistance at the council. As many of the parishes here are very large and intermixed with other parishes, and others of too little income to subsist by themselves, and little enough for extent to be united to some other parish or part of a parish, there was an act passed in the 14th and 15th of King Charles the second, by which parishes might be divided or united for conveniency’s sake, with proper consents and the approbation of the chief governor and the council. As that act was expired, a new act was passed 2nd Georgii, for the real union and division of parishes, in which was a proviso, that no union made in virtue of the former act of King Charles the second should be capable of being dissolved, nor any part of such union be united to any other parish, unless the parish Church of such united parish does lye three country miles from some part of such parish, &c. Now as three country miles are often five or six measured miles; and as several of those unions were made without regard to the conveniency of the people, but purely to make a rich benefice; as we are now endeavouring to make it possible to have the worship of God celebrated in all parts of this kingdom, we find it necessary to repeal this clause, and to lay such parishes open to a division as well as other old parishes. There is another clause added to that bill, which relates to the removing of the site of Churches. By the act 2nd Georgii for the real union and division of parishes, it is enacted that the site of an inconvenient Church may be changed for one more convenient with the consent of the patron, &c. Now with us many Churches stand at the end of a long parish, or on the wrong side of a bog or river, in respect of the greatest part of the parishioners, or at least protestants; so that it would be very convenient to change such situation of the Church -, but where the King is patron, as his consent is to be had, the expense of having a letter from England to give his Majesty’s consent under the broad seal 37

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here to such a change, and pending a patent for it, is so great, as to discourage these removals: and I can assure your Grace 10/. is harder to be raised here upon a country parish than 100/. is in England upon a parish of the same extent, and our gentry part with money on such occasions as unwillingly as the peasantry. It is therefore provided in the same bill, that the chief governor, &c. may consent for the King where the King is patron; and as the King’s patronage cannot be hurt by such a change of the site of a Church, but the parish will probably prove of better value; and as the taking off of this expense may occasion the building several more convenient Churches, we hope the bill will be returned to us: And I can assure your Grace there are instances in two or three acts already where the chief governor, &c. is impowered to consent for the King. These two clauses make up an act, entitled, an act for repealing a clause in an act for the real union and division of parishes; and to enable the chief governor, &c. to consent for the crown, &c. There is part of another bill which will go over, that is of great consequence to this kingdom; the title of the act is, I think, an act to prevent frauds, &c. in buying corn, &c. and to encourage tillage. It is the latter part of this bill about tillage that is of great moment here. The bill does not encourage tillage by allowing any premium to the exporters of corn, but barely obliges every person occupying 100 acres or more (meadows, parks, bogs, &c. excepted) to till five acres out of every 100 and so in proportion for every greater quantity of land they occupy. And to make the law have some force, it sets the tenant at liberty to do this, notwithstanding any clause in his lease to the contrary. We have taken care to provide in the bill, that the tenant shall not be able to burn-beat any ground in virtue of this act;13 and since he is tied up from that, and from ploughing meadows, &c. the people skilled in husbandry say, he cannot hurt the land though he should go round the 100 acres in 20 years. I find my Lord Trevor objected to a bill we sent from council,14 that this was a breaking of private contracts, and invading property: but I think that nothing, since the lessor receives no damage by it, and the publick is very much benefitted; and this is no more than what is done every session in England, where rivers are made navigable or commons inclosed; and in many road bills. I shall now acquaint your Grace with the great want we are in of this bill: our present tillage falls very short of answering the demands of this nation, which occasions our importing corn from England and other places; and whilst our poor have bread to eat, we do not complain of this; but by tilling so little, if our crop fails, or yields indifferently, our poor have not money to buy bread. This was the case in 1725, and last year, and without a prodigious crop, will be more so this year. When I went my visitation last year, barley in some inland places, sold for 6s. a bushel, to make the bread of; and oatmeal (which is the bread of the north) sold for twice or thrice the usual price: and we met all the roads full of whole families that had left their homes to beg abroad, since their neighbours had nothing to relieve them with. 38

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And as the winter subsistence of the poor is chiefly potatoes, this scarcity drove the poor to begin with their potatoes before they were full grown, so that they have lost half the benefit of them, and have spent their stock about two months sooner than usual; and oatmeal is at this distance from harvest, in many parts of this kingdom three times the customary price; so that this summer must be more fatal to us than the last; when I fear many hundreds perished by famine. Now the occasion of this evil is, that many persons have hired large tracts of land, on to 3 or 4000 acres, and have stocked them with cattle, and have no other inhabitants on their land than so many cottiers as are necessary to look after their sheep and black cattle; so that in some of the finest counties, in many places there is neither house nor corn field to be seen in 10 or 15 miles travelling: and daily in some counties, many gentlemen (as their leases fall into their hands) tye up their tenants from tillage: and this is one of the main causes why so many venture to go into foreign service at the hazard of their lives, if taken, because they can get no land to till at home. And if some stop be not put to this evil, we must daily decrease in the numbers of our people. But we hope if this tillage bill takes place, to keep our youth at home, to employ our poor, and not be in danger of a famine among the poor upon any little miscarriage in our harvest. And I hope these are things of greater consequence than the breaking through a lease, so far as concerns ploughing five acres in an hundred. I shall trouble your Grace no more at present, but am. My Lord, &c. 3.  To the Duke of Newcastle.15 Dublin, May 25, 1728. My Lord, I HAD the honour of your Grace’s of the 7th inst. I am sensible of the great hurry you was in during the sessions of parliament, and am the more obliged to your Lordship for the great care you was pleased, in the midst of so much business of greater consequence, to take of our bills, and can assure your Grace the returning of all our publick bills was very gratefully taken here. I am satisfied we have in some of them laid a very good foundation for gradually strengthening the protestant interest here, and civilizing this country. The great distress the poor are in, through a great part of this country, has raised a resolution in many of the gentry to put the tillage bill in execution, which I hope will in a few years prevent our suffering little less than a famine almost every other year. I am very glad to hear that any accounts I sent of our bills were of service to the Attorney-General when he had them under consideration; and make my humblest acknowledgments for the regard shewn by your Grace and the other ministers, to what I suggested on that occasion. 39

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I am very much obliged to your Grace for your favourably representing my endeavours to serve his Majesty. As at the latter end of the sessions a scheme was formed by a Bishop to raise a party that might on occasion oppose the service of his Majesty in the House of Lords, I thought it my duty to acquaint your Grace with it at the first appearance. But I hope we shall easily defeat any future attempts of the same nature. As my Lord Lieutenant did his part towards procuring a quiet session of parliament here, so I must do that justice to the rest of the English in power here, to say that we were not in the least wanting in our several stations to promote the same good end. As the want of silver grows every day greater here, to the great prejudice of our manufactures, and the retail trade, I shall in a little time draw up a memorial on that subject, containing the true causes of our distress and the proper remedies, which I should be glad to have communicated to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he can find leisure to have it considered. I am. My Lord, &c. 4.  To the Duke of Newcastle, Dublin, Jan. 17, 1729. My Lord, IN my last to your Grace, I mentioned that the general report here was, that the Bishop of Cork was dead or dying.16 I do not find that report confirmed this week, so that I rather suppose he may be out of danger: as soon as I hear any thing to the contrary, I will acquaint your Grace with it. We have sent over to England a bill to make more effectual an act to encourage the draining and improving of bogs and unprofitable low grounds, &c. which act was passed in the second year of his late Majesty. The former act proposed draining bogs, &c. by voluntary undertakers, but as no such have since offered themselves, this act provides a fund for doing it, which is computed at about 4000/. per ann. and is likewise designed for the encouragement of tillage here. Last year we found the terrible effects of the want of tillage, by a want of corn little short of a famine; and when we endeavoured to cure this want by buying corn by subscription, and sending it to the several parts of the north to be sold there at a reasonable price, we found the land carriage of the corn, for want of some rivers being made navigable, (that it was hoped would have been so by the act of the second of his late Majesty) to come to a much greater sum than there was occasion to abate in the price given for our corn. So that the intention of this act is to prevent our falling into the like calamity again, by a miscarriage of one or two harvests here. And this act is what the whole nation with reason apprehend to be so much for their common interest, that I most humbly intreat it may be sent us back. I am, my Lord, &c. 40

T he L etters of H ugh B oulter

Notes 1 George I (1660–1727) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 until his death. He was also ruler of the Hanover, where he had been born. George had succeeded his second cousin Queen Anne. Although he was not the closest relative in terms of succession, he was her nearest Protestant relative—Catholics not being allowed to be monarch as a consequence of the Act of Settlement (1701). 2 Dictionary of National Biography at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Boulter,_Hugh_ (DNB00), accessed 8 April 2017. 3 Norman Sykes, William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1657–1737 (Cambridge University Press, 1957), p. 228. 4 J. Kelly, ‘Harvests and hardship: famine and scarcity in Ireland in the late 1720s’, Studia Hibernica 26 (1992), pp. 65–105. 5 Quoted in Gordon Rees, ‘’Hang up half a dozen bankers’: attitudes to bankers in mideighteenth-century Ireland’ in History Ireland, Issue 5, vol. 20 (Sept/Oct 2012). 6 Francis Bindon (c.1690 – 1765) was a painter and architect who was based in Dublin. While there, he painting a number of famous Irishmen including the blind harpist, Turlough Carolan, and Jonathan Swift. 7 http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history/people/hugh-boulter 8 Ambrose Philips (1674–1749) was an English-born poet, who was often cast as a rival of Alexander Pope. He was also interested in politics and in 1718 he and Boulter founded the Whig paper, The Free-Thinker. When Boulter was made Archbishop of Armagh, Philips accompanied him to Ireland as his secretary. Between 1727 and 1749, Philips sat in the Irish House of Commons as representative for Armagh Borough. 9 Abbreviation for the Latin phrase Et cetera, which means ‘and so forth’. 10 The typeface of the letters has been modernized for ease of reading. 11 William Wake (1657–1737) was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1716 until his death. 12 A Christian festival celebrated on 29 September. It the secular calendar, it was one of the ‘quarter days’, the day on which all accounts had to be settled. 13 Burn-beat—to prepare the land for use by burning the topsoil. 14 Possibly Baron Trevor, of Rostrevor in County of Down. 15 Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle (1693–1768) was an influential British Whig politician. He served as Prime Minister from 1757 to 1762. 16 The Anglican Bishop of Cork and Ross, since 1710, was Peter Browne (c. 1665–1735). He was known for his intellect and abstentious life-style.

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Part II THE FAMINE OF 1740 TO 1741: ‘THE YEAR OF SLAUGHTER’ Just as the history of Irish hunger in the nineteenth century is dominated by the catastrophe of the late 1840s, in the eighteenth century, the crisis of 1740 to 1741 has overshadowed other subsistence crises. Similarly to the Great Famine, the earlier one has its own designation, Bliain an Áir, meaning ‘the Year of Slaughter’. The exceptionally cold winter of 1739 to 1740, when temperatures were possibly as low as minus 12 centigrade (10°F) was the trigger for crop failures. In the words of David Dickson, such extreme weather ‘was quite outside British or Irish experience’.1 The arctic conditions not only damaged crops, but the potatoes and turf could not be dug out of the frozen earth, and corn could not be ground as rivers froze over, rendering mills inoperative. The ungenial weather also hampered the sowing of crops for the following season. People and animals found it difficult to survive and thousands died of hypothermia. One immediate impact was a sharp rise in food prices, which put provisions out of the reach of the poor. Rioting, social dislocation, disease, mortality, food exports and philanthropic interventions (mostly from within Ireland) were all features of this famine. The backdrop to the suffering, however, was war with Spain—England’s perennial enemy. Responding to fears of a Spanish invasion of Ireland, in May 1740, a count was made of the number of freemen with arms in Ireland.2 One English newspaper reported: By Letters from the North we are assur’d, that the Protestants, who amount to 150,000 Fighting Men, are fitting up their Arms; and the poorest People, who have only Swords or Daggers, are cleaning them in the best Manner, and wish for nothing more than an opportunity of attacking their Enemies. If the Spaniards should be so rash as to attempt an Invasion, what would become of them in the Hands of these gallant Men, whose glorious Ancestors so bravely defended Derry, Inniskilling, &c. in the late Wars?3 On 3 October 1740, Dublin Castle placed an embargo on the export of all provisions—the imposition of such a blanket ban being unusual. It was, however,

T he famine of 1 7 4 0 to 1 7 4 1

largely motivated by the war in Europe and Britain’s unwillingness to provide food to her enemies.4 The Irish famine of 1740 to 1742 long predated the collection of census returns (1821) and the keeping of death statistics (1863), but what records do exist suggest that is was one of the most lethal famines in modern history.5 It may have claimed as many as 480,000 lives, which is proportionately more than the excess mortality during the Great Famine, and over a shorter period of time. One of the key differentiators was the way in which the country developed in the wake of this crisis, and how the population not only recovered, but grew rapidly. Moreover, in the following decades, a healthy transatlantic trade and proto-industrialization changed the Irish towns and countryside, increasing wealth in the country.6 The continuation of localized famines in the late eighteenth century, however, and large-scale emigration to Colonial America particularly from the north, suggest that these improvements did not trickle down to the most vulnerable in society and that for many, the bad times continued. The famine of 1740 to 1741 is first explored through a selection of English newspapers. The role of the weather in triggering the food shortages is clear. For the authorities, a further concern is the war with Spain and the threat of invasion. The final document, ‘The Groans of Ireland’. was written by an anonymous author as a letter directed at an un-named Member of Parliament. While prompted by the Famine of 1741, it discusses Irish famines in general. In it, the author asks how a country with so many natural resources as Ireland can be so poor. His main solution is to increase the number of granaries in the country, in which grain can be stored in good years, which he outlines in great detail. Like Jonathan Swift writing in 1729, the author believes that bad policies from England had increased the tensions between the countries, while deliberately damaging Irish development. He highlights the Wool Trade as an example of England hampering Ireland’s industries. The letter opens by describing the distressing scenes in Ireland during its most recent famine.

Notes 1 David Dickson, Artic Ireland: The Extraordinary Story of the Great Frost and Forgotten Famine of 1740–41 (Belfast: White Row Press, 1997), p.12. 2 As a result of the Penal Laws, Catholics were not allowed to carry arms in Ireland, which was a source of grievance. The legislation was repealed at the end of the eighteenth century. 3 ‘Ireland’, Ipswich Journal, 7 June 1740. 4 David Dickson, Old World Colony: Cork and South Munster, 1630–1830 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), p. 158. 5 Cormac Ó Gráda, Famine in Ireland, 1300–1900 at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3, accessed 10 May 2017. 6 David Dickson has argued that wealth or capital accumulation meant that ‘good times’ in Ireland became a lot better. See Dickson, Famine and Economic Change in EighteenthCentury Ireland (Oxford Handbooks Online, 2014): http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/ view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199549344.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199549344–e-021, accessed 18 May 2016.

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2 THE YEAR OF SLAUGHTER. VARIOUS ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS (1740–1742) Stamford Mercury, 17 January 1740 IRELAND. Dublin, Jan. 5. Since last Wednesday we have had the most violent cold Weather that was ever known in this Kingdom; hard Frost began that Evening, which has continued ever since, with a very stormy Wind at South-East. All the Rivers are frozen hard enough for any Carriage to pass over, and all the Ships and Boats in the Liffey are frozen as far as Ringsend.

Ipswich Journal,1 16 February 1740 IRELAND. Dublin, Jan. 29. Last Friday his Grace the Duke of Devonshire gave 50l. more towards the Relief of poor Tradesmen, &c. And several Ladies of Quality and Distinction have actually agreed to give all the Money they win at Quadrille, &c. to the distressed Poor, while this hard Weather continues; and some of them have sent hand-some Sums to the Churchwardens of several Parishes.

Derby Mercury, 17 April 1740 IRELAND. Extract of a Letter from Dublin, March 26. We have Advice from Cork, that Provisions of all kinds are risen two thirds more than usual; that many of the poorer sort of People die with Hunger; and that the clandestine Exportation of Wooll [sic] is carry’d on more vigorous now than ever. From whence we may expect Ireland will never shape out a Law to prevent Wooll Smuggling (and if she did ’tis probable it would be rejected) therefore it must take its Rise in England, as being the eldest Brother, and having the Prerogative; for none but England can form this Law; and except she admits Ireland an Interest in Trade, they never will regard an English Act, nor pass it in their House; so that ’tis humbly conceived it is all in the Power of Great Britain to prevent the running of Wooll to France, &c.

Ipswich Journal, 26 April 1740 IRELAND. Dublin, April 5. There is now as great Scarcity of Provisions in this City as ever known, and it is much to be fear’d all over the Kingdom, every 45

T he famine of 1 7 4 0 to 1 7 4 1

Kind of Food being at vast high Prices, which is owing to the great Drought we have had ever since last Christmas, there not having been one Day’s Rain during that Time. Forty thousand Sheep have died in Connaught within these two Months.

Ipswich Journal, 31 May 1740 IRELAND. Dublin, May 13. On Sunday Night there begun to fall a fine gentle Rain, which continued a great Part of yesterday: We have not had here for these six Months and odd Days last past, two Hours of a continued Rain, so that our Grass and Corn were all burnt up, and the Fields looked as red as Foxes, as likewise did our Gardens, which yielded little or no Herbage, and most of our WaterMills flood, and no Corn could be ground at them for Bread, &c.

Ipswich Journal, 14 June 1740 IRELAND. Dublin, June 3. On Saturday Night last the Police of this City rose on the Account of the Dearness of Bread, Meal, &c. and the Bakers refusing to bake any Household Bread, they went to the Houses of the Bakers and Meal-men, broke open their Shop, and where they found any Bread or Meal, sold it at a low Price to the Poor: On Sunday a great number of them went on board a Ship in the River and took out some Beef, which they were selling at a low Price; but the Right Hon, the Lord Mayor, attended by a Company of Soldiers went down, and took some of them Prisoners, and committed them to Newgate; they continued yesterday to commit great Outrages, and brought the Meal from several Mills about this City, and sold it. Great Damage has been done on this Occasion, some Persons are killed, and several wounded, but by the great Care and Diligence of the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, who has been very active, and attended by the Army, we hope is now happily quell’d. Last Night a Serjeant and twelve Men were quarter’d at each Watch house, a Company was posted at the Market-house, and another at the Tholsel,2 and a Party of Dragoons patrolled all Night to preserve the Peace of the City. His Excellency the Lord Primate, being acquainted with the Necessities of the Poor, thro’ the want of Corn, and that Merchants would import if they were indemnified for any Losses that might, happen, (a late eminent Merchant having been ruin’d by an Importation on a like Occasion) his Excellency, according to his usual Generosity, was pleased to declare, that should any Loss happen, he would himself give 500l. and prevail on his Friends to contribute, if wanting. By Letters yesterday from Cork, we are assur’d, that last Market Day, Meal fell 6s. a Hundred, and Wheat 6s. a Barrel, on Account of several Ships being arriv’d there from Philadelphia, laden with Wheat and Flower[sic], and more expected. The Merchants write, that on Account of this sudden fall, several of those Ships are now on their Voyage to this City.

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Various E nglish newspapers ( 1 7 4 0 – 1 7 4 2 )

Derby Mercury, 6 August 1740 IRELAND. Extracts of a Letter from Cork, June 16. Every thing is very dear here. Butter that used to be at Three Half-pence and Two-pence per Pound, is now at Six-pence, and Beef at Three- pence. Here are thousands of Poor starving for Want of Food; the Streets are so crowded with Beggars that there is no passing for them. We have no Men of War nor Press here, but expect Sir John Norris daily with 26 Sail.3 Here is one Letter of Marque of eighteen Guns, and two sail’d last Week. A Ship belonging to London has been seized here, laden with Provisions for Spain. She had got 200 Tons of Beef on board, and had just received a Protection from the King of Spain, but it was not at all regarded by the King of Great Britain’s Officers. The Captain is in Prison, but what will be his Fate is not yet known.

Stamford Mercury, 23 October 1740 IRELAND. Dublin, 4th We hear there Man of War station’d at Cork to keep a strict eye upon all going out and coming in, to answer the Purposes of the Embargo. Yesterday the Price of Cattle fell at Smithfield ; and we hear that several come from England for buying up beef. Dublin. Oct. 11th The Man of War before mentioned to be stationed at Cork is the Lynna 20 gun Ship, Lord Montague Bertie, Commander, who observing a French Ship coming out, fir’d a first and second Gun at her, which he took Notice of; upon which, he ordered out his Pinace [sic]4 and brought her back.

Ipswich Journal, 20 December 1740 IRELAND. Cork, Nov. 28. Yesterday arriv’d the Charles and Molly, of and from New York, with Wheat and Flour, (but last from Kinsale) where she was forced in the 18th Instant by contrary Winds and want of Water. The Owner being inform’d of her Arrival there, went to give Bond and obtain Liberty for her sailing to Cork, and some Persons there offering him 7s. per Barrel lower than the Currency of the Market of Cork, which he refused, above 200 Rioters boarded her, cut away her Sails, and carried her from her Moorings up to the Town; but by the Assistance of the Collector, &c the Ship was got clear of the Mob, and sail’d to Cork.

Derby Mercury, 25 December 1740 IRELAND. Mallow, in the County of Cork, Dec. 5. Here is an uncommon Mortality among the poor People by Fevers and Fluxes, owing no doubt in a great Measure to their poor Living, the price of Corn being risen to excessive a Rate by Forestallers. By the last Letters from Cork we hear, that they are unshipping the Beef, Pork, &c. from the French Ships, and putting them on board our Transports, to be sent

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immediately, under a Convey of Men of War, to our Fleet in the West Indies. This plainly shews of what great Advantage the Kingdom of Ireland is to England.

Ipswich Journal, 7 March 1741 IRELAND. Extract of a Letter from Cork in Ireland Feb. 2. I have nothing to add to the former, but to inform you of the Misery of this poor wretched Country, which is really more than I can express. I am sorry to be a daily Eye-witness to the constant melancholy state of the Poor, who die (numbers in a Week) for Want, and Disorders bred by the unwholesome Diet they are obliged to eat, and this in the City; but as to the Country, there it is much worse. Having Occasion some time since to go about sixteen Miles from Town, in the Road so many miserable Objects melted my Eyes, such as some dead, and others dying by the Ditch Side, whose Groans and Cries, for want of Bread, pierced my Heart, and struck such a Damp in me, that I chose to return by Sea (tho’ dangerous) rather than go thro’ the fame Scene again, and am since informed, that many Villages are near unpopulated, and the Mortality still raging; so that if God in his Mercy does not put a Stop to our Calamity, we are an undone Nation. Last Year’s Frost is felt more severe here than in other Countries, having destroyed the Potatoes (which are the chief Support of our Poor) in such a manner, that the same Quantity we used to buy for Two pence Half-penny is not sold now under Ten-pence, and they not good. But as one Misfortune seldom comes alone, this Spanish War has completed ours,5 by the Stagnation it has given to our Trade and Manufactures, by which the poor trades-men, who by their daily Labour used to live well, are now turned off Work, and have no other way to subsist than by begging. Beggars were always too plenty here, but are now so much increased, that I believe, by a modest Computation, there cannot be less than one to every ten Houses – their Numbers make it impossible for all to get Relief; and as the Markets still rise, the Apprehensions of great Calamity do increase. Good Beef is Five-pence, Mutton Three-pence, and Butter Eight-pence per Pound; Bread and Corn in proportion: And if other Countries do not Relieve us with Corn, we can expect nothing but a perfect Famine, our Harvest having mostly failed last Year.

Newcastle Courant, 1 August 1741 IRELAND Galway, July 8. The Fever rages so in this Town, that Physicians say ’tis more like a Plague, and refuse to visit for any Fee whatever. Gentlemen carry little Boxes of Tar about them, and there is scarce a Shop without some of it in their Windows, and Sprigs of Wormwood.6

Newcastle Courant, 9 January 1742 IRELAND. Dublin, Jan. 2. On Wednesday last a Proclamation was issued by his Grace the Lord Lieutenant, for continuing the general Embargo laid on the 3rd of 48

Various E nglish newspapers ( 1 7 4 0 – 1 7 4 2 )

October, 1740, on all outward-bound Ships and Vessels, laden with Provisions, save only as to Butter, which they do permit to be exported to the 15th of February next, and no longer.

Notes 1 Ipswich Journal or, The Weekly Mercury was published from 1720 to 1902 and included a lot of coverage from Ireland. 2 Tholsel (in Irish, tólsail), a public building. The Dublin Tholsel was a late medieval building at the corner of Nicholas St. and Christ Church place. Initially it was erected as a merchants’ hall, and by the eighteenth century it was used as a court-house. It was demolished in 1820. 3 Sir John Norris (c.1671–1749) was an officer in the British Navy. He was commanderin-Chief of the Channel Fleet at the outset of the ‘War of Jenkins’ Ear’ against Spain in 1739. 4 More usually ‘pinnace’, a light sailing ship that accompanies a larger one. 5 The Spanish War, also known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear, was a conflict between Britain and Spain that lasted from 1739 to 1748. 6 Wormwood is a herb. The plant parts and oil are used for medicine and for alcoholic drinks.

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3 ANON, THE GROANS OF IRELAND: IN A LETTER TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT (DUBLIN: GEORGE FAULKNER, 1741) Sir, I have been absent from this country for some years, and on my return to it last summer, found it the most miserable scene of universal distress that I have ever read of in History: Want and Misery in every Face, the Rich unable almost, as they were willing, to relieve the Poor; the Roads spread with dead and dying Bodies; Mankind of the Colour of the Docks and Nettles which they fed on; two or three, sometimes more, on a Car going to the Grave for want of Bearers to carry them and many buried only in the Fields and Ditches where they perished.1 The universal Scarcity was ensued by Fluxes and malignant Fevers, which swept off Multitudes of all Sorts – whole Villages were laid waste by Want and Sickness, and Death in various Shapes, and scarcely a House in the whole island escaped from Tears and Mourning. It were to be wished, Sir, that some curious Enquirer had made a Calculation of the numbers lost in this terrible Calamity. If one for every House in the kingdom died (and that is very probable when we consider that whole Families and Villages were swept off in many Parts together) the loss must be upwards of 400,000 Souls. A Loss too great for this ill-peopled Country to bear; and the more Grievous, as this Loss was mostly of the grown-up Part of the Working People.2 Sir, when a Stranger travels through this Country, and beholds its wide extended and fertile Plains, its great Flocks of Sheep and Black Cattle, and all its natural Wealth, and Conveniences for Tillage, Manufactures and Trade, he must be astonished, that such Misery and Want could possibly be felt by it Inhabitants; but you, who know the Constitution, and are acquainted with its Weaknesses, can easily see the Reason. Laws are the wisdom of the Collective Body; they are devised by the most prudent and wise Men in the State; and to honest Men, are Lessons of Prudence, Oeconomy,3 and Social Virtue; or may be considered as Pacts between the whole People, which they are to keep and perform; and to these certain Rewards and Punishments are annexed, to encourage the Slothful and deter the Hardy. ’Tis by these Lights that a People are guided, and where they are wanted, the Particulars left to the weak Guidance of their private Opinions, go astray, and wander in a Maze of Absurdities and Mistakes; and ’tis from the Want of them, 50

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that this country, one of the most fertile in the World, is subject to such frequent Wants and Famines as it feels; this is the third I have seen in the Compass of twenty Years; ’Tis indeed the severest, and attended with the most dismal Consequences. But about twelves or thirteen Years ago, there was one very near as bad, and from whence can this proceed, Sir?—From the Want of the proper Tillage Laws to guide,4 and to protect the Husbandman in the Pursuit of his Business, one scarce Year sets all Hands to the Plow, this begets a great Plenty, there are neither Granaries to receive, nor Bounties to encourage the Exportation of this Plenty, the Husbandman cannot get for his Grain what his Labour cost him, he sinks under its Weight, deserts the Plow, stocks with Sheep, and in a few Years there is another Scarcity, another Famine: This is the known Course of our Tillage in this Country, and it must ever be so whilst Laws are wanting, by Premiums, to take off the Loads of a plentiful Year, which without them, must necessarily suffocate and oppress the Tillage. Probably, Sir, when you have read thus far, you may conclude, as most of the Gentlemen whom I have discoursed on this Head have done, that this is an Evil without remedy: for that as we are to submit to the Judgement of another Country in all Bills sent over by us, this which would set us above Want, and of consequence, above buying our Bread from them, cannot be granted to us, and I must therefore beg Leave to give you my Sentiments upon it. England thinks itself the Mother Country, and imagines that it has a Right to settle proper Pacts and Agreements with us, whereby the Trade and the Business of the one should not interfere or clash with that of the other, but that each applying to their particular Occupation, should have an Opportunity to employ their Hands usefully, and the Grand Business in Contemplation on the Occasion was the Woollen and Linnen [sic] Manufactures, to us they gave the Linnen, and reserved the Woollen to themselves.5 This Matter has been mistaken by us of this Side of the Water, we thought it a Grievance to be restrained in any Particular, conscious of our Zeal and Affection for them, we grew jealous of the Partiality; Anger and Disgust ensued, and the one and the other begot such Sentiments in us, that exercising our natural Rights and the Liberty which we thought ourselves deprived of by Power and Injustice, we fell upon a clandestine Trade with France and Holland, and sent to them our Raw Wool, by which they were enabled to grow in the Manufacture, and to rival England (which restrained us) in almost all the Branches of it, and in almost all the foreign Markets in the World. These Rivals at foreign Markets engrossing the customers, left daily less to be done in Britain, and the Manufacturers of England consequently stood daily less and less in need of Irish Wool, their own Growth became sufficient for the Demands upon them: and since that fatal Time, the Price of our Wool at home fell gradually with the English Manufactures, till at this present Time there being no Demand for it but from the French Market, it has sunk down to five and six shillings per Stone, from twelve, thirteen, or fourteen Shillings. A Price which the Grower about twenty or twenty-five years ago, frequently had from England. 51

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This is the fatal Bone of Dissension, the grand Matter of Jealousy from the other Side, they have lost the Woollen Manufacture, a Fund of immense Riches and Power, a Fund which enabled them to defend the invaded World: Times past, it is taken from their Side of the Balance, and put into that of France, which wanted nothing but Money to enable them to execute their ambitious Schemes on the Liberties of the World, and what the Consequence may be in a very few Years, the present Situation of Affairs in Europe gives great Reason to fear. The French prevail in all of the Councils of Christendom, by the Influence of their Money; they kindle Wars and prescribe Peace at Pleasure; they grow still great in Reputation and Dominion by every Negotiation and at this very Instant, are in the Bowels of the Empire, ready to impose an Emperor of their own on the Germanick Body, formerly the Rival, and the Stay of France, from Universal Monarchy. There are dismal Consequences of the ill-judged Policy of England, in the Restraints placed upon us, and of our fatal Resentment therefore, and no wonder if it must cause Jealousies from them in their Turn, to fee Ireland, whose Liberties have lately rescued from Popery and Slavery in so dangerous and bloody a Conflict, the Means, and the willing Cause thereof. Thus stands the unfortunate Jealousy between the two Countries, and it were greatly to be wished, that by Concessions on the one Side and the other, it might be so managed, as to remove the Dispute, and make us one People, with one Interest and one Will But, until that is done. Prudence must guide, and England must give us such Amends as may determine us on the Point of our own Interest (the only infallible Means to do it) to contract our Sheep Walks, and to employ them in the more useful Branches of Tillage and Flax. This is what they must plainly see to be now their only Remedy, the Lands employed in Sheep Walk are the best in the Kingdom for Corn. Tillage with proper Premiums to encourage the Exportation of Corn, is vastly more profitable to the Occupier, than Sheep, whose Growth we can only export raw and unmanufactured, and if proper Laws are granted us the immediate Consequence must be, to break up our Sheep Walk for Corn, shortening the Sheep Walk, must shorten of Consequence the clandestine Exportation of Wool for France, and by that means cramp and distress their Manufactures until at last, that Business settles down again on its ancient Basis, and becomes as it once was, the Staple Commodity of Britain; and that it certainly will do, if such Encouragements are given to Corn and Flax, as we in Reason may desire, and they in Prudence grant us. Now, Sir, on this View of the Affair it seems to me more than a Probability, that if a Bill is contrived and sent over this Session of Parliament, it cannot fail of a ready Concurrence there, and it may be necessary therefore to consider in what Shape we should prepare it. In England, ’tis true, there are no publick Granaries, every Farmer has one whereby he receives Grain for such Markets as flatter him with the most agreeable Prospect of Advantage to himself; he is sure it cannot lye upon his Hand, there is a Medium price established, at which the Farmer may well live and pay his Rent; if it comes below that, in comes the Bounty to the Exporter, and he by this Premium from 52

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the Publick is enabled to give the Husbandman his Price, and exports the Corn to foreign Countries, by which it immediately becomes an Accession of new Riches to the Country, and repays the Publick manyfold the Premium by them generously advanced for the Exportation; and by this means the Plow is kept always going, there is never a Scarcity or Famine in the Land, but there is a constant Flow of Riches into it, from the Labours of the industrious and painstaking Husbandman. And thus it stands with them. It may not be amiss for us to consider, whether we shall stop here, and form our Bill on the Plan of the English Tillage Act, or go further, and add to it Granaries for the more present Relief of the Farmer, the more immediate Encourgement of the Plow, and the Encrease of a proper and Safe circulating Credit, to supply the great Scarcity of Money, which is occasioned in this Country by the Drafts of Absentees and the sinking Ballance [sic] of Trade; For my part, I am inclined to believe we should go thus far, and I believe we shall find it one of the most immediate Reliefs that can be contrived for many of the Evils we labour under. In the first Place, Money is so very scarce in Ireland, the Interest is so high, and what there is of it, in the Hands of so few People, that it throws a great Damp on every Branch of our Business, and prevents many useful Undertakings amongst us; the Embargoes on our Beef, from which so much Money was annually returned into this Country, must very quickly increase this Scarcity, (especially if we continue to take our Wines from France, which I hope we shall not) and the clandestine Trade with France has grown so fast upon us since they have got into the entire Possession of our Wool, and found the way to furnish the middle Orders of Farmers with such good Pennyworths of Wines, Spirits, East India goods, and other French Trifles, instead of the ready Money formerly had for it, that it is much to be feared that a very few Years may beat many Undertakers out of the little Manufactures and Business we possess, by the meer want of Money, and by bringing Poverty and Ruin on the middle industrious Part of the People, by this new and unnatural Luxury, lower the Price of Lands, and draw down an universal Distress on the whole Country, if some means be not speedily contrived on one Hand to put a stop to the clandestine Trade, and on the other to establish a Paper Credit, which may circulate in the Place of Money, and this I must own to you, Sir, is one principal Motive with me, to think that Publick Granaries might yet be an Improvement upon the Tillage Laws of England, very suitable, and even necessary for us in our present Circumstances. There is (’tis true) a paper circulating Credit already in the Country, but the Basis on which it is built, is too narrow for the Superstructure, and we have found by the Experience of some Years, that the best have given way, and suffered the whole Fabrick to tumble down, to the great Astonishment of all, and to the ruin of many of their airy Inhabitants. And tho’ all, which at present subsist, are of undoubted Credit and Utility, it were a Matter much to be wished, to see a Credit established in the Nation, on a Foundation which could not give way, and which must necessarily give Life and Vigour to the Whole. 53

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There was some Years ago a Mention made of a National Bank, and some Subscriptions were taken in thereupon, but upon a serious Discussion of the Affair, it was determined that a National Bank might be the means of putting too much into the Hands of a few, and giving them an Opportunity, by getting into the Schemes of a Court or Ministry, to betray the Liberties of the Country, and it was laid aside,6 as was, if I forget not, another Scheme for a Credit established on the Lands of Ireland, and that for some such Reason; probably it was a true Publick Spirit, and not the Interest of any particular private Societies, that prevailed on the Occasion. But, if I do not greatly err in my Judgment, a circulating Credit on the Tillage, under a Scheme of publick Granaries might be so contrived, as to be liable to none of those Objections. Let us suppose then, that a certain Number of publick Granaries were erected in the Sea Ports, or other Towns situated on navigable Rivers, so disposed always, as that might take in the Corn to two or more Countries, in the whole, to the Number of ten or fifteen. 2d. Suppose that for each Granary there were chosen by Parliament in the Body of the Act, eight Directors, vested with a Power to chose proper Persons as well for the Management of the Corn in the Granary, as for keeping the Books etc, these Directors to serve by Turns, two for every Quarter of the Year, and to be worth at least One Thousand Pounds per Annum, real Estate, or 20,000l in Cash, or some such Estate or Fortune, and at the End of every two Years, four of these Directors to be balloted out, and four new ones elected in their Stead, to serve in like manner quarterly, an old Director and a new one every Quarter, and from thenceforth the four old Directors to be out of Course every two Years, and four new ones to be elected in their Stead; so that at all Times, there may be Directors of Experience to assist the new ones. 3d. All elections for Directors to be by the Proprietors of the Corn Bills, living within the Districts of the Granaries, as they are the Persons principally interested in the Success, and the fittest therefore to make the Choice. 4th. A Medium Price for Corn to be fixed up by Parliament; suppose five Shillings per Bushel; and the Directors to issue Promissory Notes for all Corn with them lodged, at that Rate, and all Forgings and Counterfeitings of Corn Bills to be Death. 5th. No Corn to be exported, but what is bought at the Granaries; but whenever the price in the Country Markets falls below the Medium Price, then the Exporter to have a Bounty by Debenture as in England: by this means the Granaries, by giving the best Price in the Country, would be kept full, their Bills would be multiplied, and the Exporter would never be at a Loss where to load his Grain. 6th. All Granaries in selling for Exportation, to sell at the best Price they can get from the Exporter; and every Exporter of Grain in his Invoice, to be obliged by Law, to make Affidavit at the Custom House, before the Collector or other proper Officer, what Number of Barrels, and of what Specie, and what Price he paid for the same, and a particular Book to be kept in every Sea Port where there is a 54

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Granary, for this Purpose, to regulate not only the Debenture for Exportation, but to be ready to lay before the General Court, and to be a check upon the Directors in their Accounts before them. 7th. In all Sales of Corn to the Country for home Consumption, no Granary to take or demand a higher Price than one Shilling per Bushel more than the medium Price, and the advanced Price, with the Profit on Sales to Exporters of Corn, to go towards the defraying of the Expenses of the Granary. By these means Corn and Bread must always continue plenty and cheap, and a Fund may be provided for the Expense of the Circulation etc. 8th. A General Court of Directors to be held every two years or oftener as Occasion calls, to audit the Accounts of the Granaries, see the Salleries [sic] of the Officers discharged, pay off the Debts of the Granary for Repairs etc, state and settle the Accounts between the Circulators of the Corn Bills and the Granaries, and see the Balance paid, make bye-laws for the better Government of the Granaries, and chose new Directors for the ensuing two years, and every person who is possessed of 1000l in Corn Bills, to have a Vote at this Court of general Directors. 9th. No Director of any Granary to deal in Corn by themselves, or any Person in Trust for them, on the severest Penalty, and no Director of a Granary to lend out Money, discount Notes, take Mortgages, or make any other use of the Cash in Hand, than as the General Court shall order, on Pain of Death or some other the most weighty Penalty. And, in order to give a Circulation of these Bills, suppose that 100,000l worth of Corn Bills may be issued in one Year, by the Granaries in each Province; then suppose, that a Book be opened for a Subscription of 100,000l for each Province, or more or less as shall be judged necessary, and every Subscriber to pay down into the Hands of Hugh Henry Esq.,7 one fifth Part of his Sum subscribed, in three Days after his Subscription, or his Subscription to be void. 2dly That no person be admitted a Subscriber unless he be really and bone fide worth four times more than the Sum subscribed, and obliges himself by such Contracts as such be agreed upon at the first Meeting after the Subscription is full, to pay in any such farther Sum, not exceeding the Sum subscribed, which the Company shall have Occasion to make a Call for on the Body of the Subscribers. 3dly That the first Meeting be fixed, as well with respect to Time as Place, so that when the Subscription is full, and proper Advertisement thereof given in the publick Papers, the Subscribers may be at no Loss when and where to meet, and settle Rules and Orders for their future Government. 4thly That every Corn Bank shall be obliged to circulate the Corn Bills and pay Cash for them at their respective Banks, in order to give them Credit in the Country, and a free Circulation, and that the Granaries in each Province shall be obliged to pay yearly to such bank the Sum of three per cent Discount for such Circulation. 5thly That the Corn banks shall issue no Bills, or Notes for Value received in Corn, under the Penalty of Forgery, unless by Law authorised. 6thly That they shall have some certain number of Directors, to be chosen from amongst the most weighty of the Subscribers, by the whole Body of them, and one 55

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half of them to be changed every two Years, as in the Granaries, still provided that no residing Director shall be a Subscriber or Proprietor of less than 5000l Stock in the Company. Such Banks as these would immediately give a Circulation, and a Credit to the Corn Bills; and the Subscribers would well undertake the Circulation for three per cent for one fifth Part of the whole issued Credit, in ready Money, must always be sufficient to circulate the Corn Bills. ’Tis the Standing Rule in the Bank of England, and I believe, in all Banks of good Credit, so that tho’ the three per cent sounds but little in our Ears, the Subscribers would in Effect receive fifteen per cent, for if one hundred pounds deposited does the business of 500, in this Case, the Subscriber being out of Pocket but 100, receives 12l for his Credit, and three for his ready Money; which is in Effect, 15 per cent for his ready Money, so that the Subscribers at three per cent must undoubtedly come in very readily, and 100l in this Stock would soon grow probably more valuable, than any so much Money in any Stock now existing, whereas in reality, ’tis every way as useful to the Publick, to have their Business done by a Deposit of the fifth Part, as of the Whole Money, provided the Subscribers have an estate to answer the Calls (if any should be) upon them; a thing which must be taken Care of on the first Subscription, or might effectually be provided for by a Clause in the Bill for this Purpose, importing, that every Subscriber into the corn banks, and every Purchaser of any Subscription, shall be at the Time of such Subscription or Purchase, be worth four times more than the Capital subscribed or purchased, on Pain of forfeiting the original Stock subscribed or purchased. Such a Clause would provide sufficiently against that Mischief, and as the Bills must meet with a ready Circulation, they would soon come into the greatest Credit, and be lent out by the Proprietors as Cash on Mortgages and other Securities. By this means there would be a great Plenty of Money, or Credit equally valuable, the Interest of Money would necessarily be lowered hereby to four or five per Cent. All Persons who could make good Securities could readily have it at that Rate, the Manufacturers would no longer be oppressed and caught up with exorbitant usury, and the Manufacturers which they produced, could of consequence be afforded to much lower than they are at present, that it must enable us to undersell the World in any Branch of Business we undertake. This Advantage would reach to all Orders and Societies, the Grower, the Manufacturer, the Exporter, the Tenant, the Landlord, the Creditor, in short, every man in the Nation, let his business or Occupation be what it will, must share in the advantage. And as the Banks and the Granaries are to be two distinct Bodies, they would be for ever a Check up on one another, the Granary could discount no Notes, the Bank could issue no Bills, they would have each of them their distinct Business, and the Books of the Granary would rectify always any overcharge on the Circulation. Now, Sir, as to the Objection which was made the Land-Bank, it could not affect here; the Provincial Banks would keep the Cash of the Nation rather better separated, and more out of the reach of a Ministry, than it is at present 56

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in the Hands of the Bankers of Dublin, in which the Bulk of our whole Cash generally lies. The Conduct of the Whole, both Granaries and Banks, would be in the hands of the Proprietors who must be the Body of the Landed Interest, and if any body of people can be safe from the ministerial Influence (as it is called) sure they must be the Men. Then, it would make the Credit of the Nation more equal than it is present, every person who could make a good Security, would find Faith in his Provincial Bank where he and his fortune must be known and it would be a great safety to the Kingdom is general that they could be so provided in their Necessity, without making an expensive Journey to the Capital, where the Money borrowed for more weighty Occasions, is often broke into before they can clear themselves out of it. And, as to the Gentlemen who are at present engaged in the Bankers Business, the whole Foreign Exchange would be left free and open to them, with as much of the inland business as their friends and customers and long known good, Credit in the Kingdom could afford them. But if it should otherwise happen, they may, if so disposed, become Subscribers into the Corn Banks, and there, follow the same Business. I believe, Sir, I need not use many words to convince you, that such a Regulation as this, must be a great Encouragement to our Tillage; the medium Price would keep the Husbandmen constantly at the Plow, it would then become a Business, which is now but a Shift, no Plenty, however great, could discourage him, and the consequence would be, that the Sheep Walks which at present afford the Occupier, for Landlord, Labour and Profit, but at a Medium of six or seven Shillings per acre, would in a short time be taken into Tillage, and return on the same Articles from fifty Shillings and three Pounds, to six, seven, and eight Pounds per Acre. Rents must rise, interest fall. Tythes be punctually and well paid, without any fear of failing, and the Manufactures flourish, Trade revives, with many other advantages which will naturally occur to you, and all, without any other ill consequence, but this, – the runners of French Goods must betake themselves to honester benefits, and the French Manufacturers, losing our Wool by the change of our Oeconomy, must shrink up and go to nothing: Evil, which I am sure no friend of these Dominions, or well wisher to the liberties of Europe, can repine at, so that I am in hopes, Sir, you will think Granaries will be no bad improvement to a Tillage Bill. This is certainly the fittest Time for Ireland to go upon this Affair, the late Scarcity has given a Spring to Tillage, and in two years, if a proper vent is provided for the labors of the Husbandmen, it will make a great change in our Affairs for the better: whereas, if neglected, the same two Years must draw upon such a plenty of Corn, as must necessarily discourage that Branch of Business, and in a very few years after, bring about such a Scarcity as we have lately felt. If then, Sir, it may be thought fit to go upon the Granaries at this time, a great Difficulty will be in this universal Scarcity of Money, and Decay of Trade, where to find cash to build the Granaries, but, Sir, I am very much of the opinion, that the 57

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Miseries we have lately seen and felt, will be a Spur to every man in the Kingdom to contribute towards the Undertaking; every one must give Cheerfully to a Fund, that is to shut out doors against Want and Famine, and to open news Channels from Plenty of Riches. The Turnpikes have not wanted a Credit to perfect their roads; tis but appointing to Directors and vesting them with Proper Powers, they cannot want Credit. And though we should be obliged to appropriate some Branch of our Revenue, a small one will do, sure I am, Sir. It may be as useful a fund as that for navigating our Rivers, the Concordatum, or the Barrack Funds, but though we should not think fit to carry the scheme so far as the Granaries, it is much to be wished that we may not slip this opportunity to apply for a Tillage Act, when the great and almost unequalled Miseries which we have suffered within this last Year has moved all the World to compassionate our Distresses and Misfortune; and when it is so impatiently expected from our neighbors of England, that we should pass some Laws here from the restraining the Great Export of Wool to France, which can never be more effectually done, nor with more real service both to Britain and Ireland, than by encouraging our Tillage, and by that means breaking in upon the French Sheep Walk. When, Sir, I took my Pen in Hand, I did not intend to trouble you with more than what related to the Tillage and Granaries, but some other matters have since occurred, which not, my Hand is in, I shall submit to your Consideration. The Woollen Manufacture is certainly the Bone of Dissention between England and Ireland. They have in a manner lost it, and we have not got it; such is the Misfortune of the Controversy between us the Farmers in all the running countries have fallen into a new and unnatural Expense, not from any increase of Riches, but from the good pennyworths of the French Run Goods which are daily ordered by them, the Persons concerned in the clandestine Wool Trade, and their Under-Agents, which must certainly impoverish and eat them up in a few years, the fair Traders are everywhere undersold by the Smugglers, the revenue is greatly sunk by the Decay of the open and fair Trade, the nation is run into a Debt, which if timely Care be not taken must certainly bring upon us a new land tax, (for the quit-rents and hearth Money are already of a tax above two shillings in the pound, a matter which at this time I would have very well understood) and the French are the only Gainers by it, for the growers of Wool receive not near so good a price as they did, when the English manufacturers flourished, the Price of Wool has greatly sunk as they decayed, and at this time the Price is lowering so, that the Stock-masters are almost undone too, so that it is very unfortunate, for both countries, that this Affair is not set upon a proper Footing. The English have lost the Woollen Trade, they are no Strangers to our Running Business, they lay all the Blame upon us, not discerning their own unfortunate incapacity to carry it on in all its Branches, and Incapacity which they must forever labor under whilst their heavy Debts and Taxes continue, and they vainly imagine, that if our running of Wool could be prevented, they might again recover that valuable Trade, this have put them upon several Schemes, Guard Ships to

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watch our coasts, penal laws in various shapes, all to no purpose. But the thinking few amongst them see plainly the inward distemper that disables them, and would be very willing to indulge us in the liberty of Certain Branches of Woollen Manufacturer, if they could depend upon us, under the advantage of such an Indulgence, to guard our own Coasts, and no Wool to France for it is certain, that the French could not extend their Woollen Business to any great matter of national profit, without Irish or English Wool. They see plainly, Sir, that the policy of King Charles’s II’s time, and of King William’s, cannot at all suit with this; in those days, the French had nothing to say, to the Woollen Trade, and every Piece of manufacture which was exported from Ireland, was in so much a loss to them, we were the only rivals in the Trade, but at present the case is altered, the question is not between England and Ireland, but between the British Dominions and the French, and in truth and in fact, every Piece of Woollen Goods now exported from Ireland, far from hurting the English Manufacturer, helps him, for it prevents the French from working up Three times as much (the usual allowance being one third of our Wool, to two of theirs, which without our Wool would be perfectly useless) and it at the same time takes from them at foreign Markets (where it is well known we undersell them) a customer for one of theirs, and by this means, England has an opportunity to make a Gain of their Loss, and to find room at the Foreign Markets for three Pieces of their goods in the room of those which the French would have been able to send out, had they the Premium of the single Piece we wrought up and exported. They see also, that where a whole People pique themselves upon exporting a commodity in which they think themselves unjustly restrained, ’tis impossible for any Power, they can send to watch them, by any threatened Penalties to restrain them from it, but that if they had at once given us a reasonable share in the Manufactures, it would then be our interest to keep from our rivals Primum of the Manufacture, and we should every Man in Ireland be a guarda costa8 to restrain it. This the men of sense on all sides the question see and know, and thus they have reasoned in the last session of Parliament, upon the angry Motion made in their House of Commons for the Repeal of the Act passed the Year before, for taking off the duties of Yarn exported from Ireland for England, and for licensing new Ports here. Now, Sir, it is certain, that on the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and the Mediterranean, in the stuffs etc., which we send them, we, under all the difficulties of a Clandestine Trade, undersell the French eight per cent and it is as Certain, that the French undersell the English as much, it has been said eleven per cent. What room for hesitation? Can our Trade to those parts clash with the English? Who can suffer but the French? If the French are beat out of the Trade, we shall gain indeed, but the English must gain twice as much; every Piece we sell must be a Drawback of three upon the French experts, because it keeps from France a Primum which would give Vent to their twice as much otherways useless Wool, England would have the benefit upon that Article, which to be sure, would they consider

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rightly, must be an inducement to them to let us at work in that Branch of trade, and if they do so, all jealousies must naturally subside, the false Patriotism which at present prevails of encouraging the clandestine Wool Trade with France, must instantly change itself into a true Spirit against all such Traders, and not one Lock of Wool can afterwards be shipp’d from this County to France. I would submit to your Consideration, Sir, whether it may not therefore be seasonable to bring in a Bill to prevent the Exportation of Wool, or Woollen Manufactures to France, or any other Country but England, and in this Bill, to have Clauses of Exemption for such Manufactures as we sell in the Countries above mentioned. On this Occasion, it will be necessary to be well apprised of what those Goods particularly are, and to take Care not to Clash with England in such Branches as they are yet able to follow. If this be done, I have no doubt upon me but the Bill may meet with a ready Concurrence, particularly if it be sent over in the Hands of Persons who have Capacity to reason upon it before the Council, and to conduct it as it should. And here, Sir, I must observe to you, a Defect, or what appears to me a great Defect in our Management, we are (whatever our Rights may be) to all Intents a depending Country, all our Laws must have the Concurrence of the English Council;9 we are cramped in several Branches of Trade, in which we might be useful to England, our Manufactures, particularly the Linnens, want still farther Encouragements; we are the poorest Country in Europe and of consequence can work the cheapest, our Situation, with respect to England, which is the Fountain of Pleasure as well as Preferment to all these Dominions, draws our men of Fortune in such Crowds into it, that let our Acquisitions by Trade and Manufactures be what they will, let our riches be ever so great, it must all center there; and there never can remain at home so much as to enhance the Price of Labour, or put our Manufactures in such a condition as to become too dear for foreign Markets, so that England must for ever have here between two and three millions of people, possessed of a fertile Country, possessed of infinite Treasure in Wool and Flax, ready and able to beat France or any other Country out of those Branches of Trade, and this, Sir, is a Blessing, which no other Prince in the World, that I can at present recollect, is possessed of, but our own; But, with all these Advantages, we are neglected by England, and suffered to remain idle and inactive, to starve for want of Occupation, whilst we furnish an infinite number of Hands in France with Matter to employ them profitably upon, and we remain useless to our Mother Country, which, if well informed of our Circumstances, and their own Interest in us, could never overlook us as it does. I say, therefore, that it is a great Defect in our Management, not to have a Resident in London, to take Care of our Interest there, since in reality there is nothing wanting but a good Understanding between us, a proper Ecclairissement upon the Matter, to convince the Men in Power there, how much it is in the Interest of England to, and with how much Benefit to themselves they could, grant us many Advantages in Trade and Manufactures, for want of which we at present languish and decay. 60

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The Linnen trade is one which is yet capable of great Enlargements, for there is one single-Branch for which England pays 500,000l per annum to Germany, they are a certain coarse brown Linnens, made use of in England for Lappings, Packings, Carters Frocks, etc. and in the Plantations, for clothing of Negroes, Servants etc. There is, ’tis true, a heavy Duty upon the Importation, so that we can very near undersell the Germans in England, but all the Duties to a Trifle are drawn back on the Re-exportation to the Plantations, so that there they meet us on a Par, and the Assistance of England will be necessary, whenever we are in a condition to furnish more than their own Consumption requires. This is a Branch of the fittest to introduce the Linnen manufacture into those Parts of this Kingdom which are at present idle, the Flax of which it is made is coarse, and the Tow is wrought up with it, so that there is no Waste, the Spinning is fit for Beginners, and so is the Weaving; little Art of any Sort is required about it, so that in two Years, a whole Country where there is Flax enough for them, might be called out to work, it would serve but as a School to the People, and in a few Years would necessarily beget fine Yarn and Linnen, and good Workmen from the natural Desire which is in all Men to excel, and this Branch wants nothing to set it on, but a small Premium per Ell10 to the Exporter, for every Beginning is dear, and the natural Indolence of Mankind must be called out, and solicited by Profit to Work and Labour, or it will not do. I know, Sir, a Gentleman who went upon this Business in Connaught, and in little more than a Year, he exported 150,000 Ells, some his Correspondent exported to the Plantations, there he was undersold by the old experienced Germans, who met him on a Level by the Benefit of their Drawbacks, the rest were put into the hands of Huy and Wilcox in London, who lately stopt payment there, and I fear they are gone to a worse Market. It is a Pity this Gentleman has not met with the Encouragement such an Undertaking deserved, if he had, the whole Country would have at once fallen into that Business, but must probably now quit it, and that will throw such a Damp on that Branch, that it will be very hard to bring it to Life again, and could it be push’d on with Success, it would certainly in ten Years, in so short a Time as ten Years, bring up 500,000l per annum. It will be well to consider likewise, Sir, that it is a great Neglect in us not to grow our own Flax Seeds, it is of the greatest consequence to us, on my Opinion, to employ our Thoughts about Means to be furnished with Seed at home; for our great Demands upon Germany for Seed, make them grow vast Quantities of Flax which they would not otherways do, there is a Sort of Necessity upon the people to work it up in one sort or other, when it is once produced; and the Grower has such a Profit on the Seed, that he affords the Flax for little or nothing, so it is no wonder if they undersell us in that Branch, and I am really of opinion, that could we get the Flax seed produced at home, it would have the same effect upon us, we should have plenty of Flax sufficient to employ all the Hands in the Kingdom; and if the Flax were plenty and cheap, it would find enough willing to work upon it; there would be a plenty of linnens of all sorts, and they could be afforded in so 61

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much the cheaper, as the Primum is cheaper. Besides, Sir, as this Sort of Linnen requires the coarse Flax, the people could afford to let the Seed ripen, whereas for want of a fabric for it, they at present pull their Flax before the Seed is ripe, that it may be fine enough for their present Business. In my Apprehension, Sir, this is a Season which calls upon us very particularly to enlarge our Flax Grounds, and set all hands to work on that Branch. The Spanish West Indies is now open to us, and it is highly probable at least we have a reason to hope that the Gentlemen at the Helm, whenever there is a Peace, may stipulate for an open Trade for our Irish Linnens there; in which case, if we can be ready, the Linnen Trade must be an infinite fund of riches to a whole people possessed thereof, in one of the Countries the fittest for it of any in Europe. And, Sir, before I have done with this, I must observe to you, that England upon the same Principle on which I expect their Concurrence to a Tillage Bill, must necessarily give us all the Encouragement in their Power. The five Counties of the North which have effectually betaken themselves to the Linnen manufacturers, have not enough of Wool to clothe themselves, all their land is taken up for Corn, Potatoes and Flax to feed themselves withal, and far from exporting Wool clandestinely to France, they are obliged to buy their Clothing from the other Provinces and this would certainly be the case of the whole Kingdom, of the Tillage and Linnen Manufacturers were once effectually spread through it; so that if this matter is once well understood in England, we need not doubt of their ready Concurrence with any Request we can make, either for encouragement of our tillage Linnen manufacturers and if we have all Hands once at work, it matters not whether it be Wool or Linnen they work upon, we shall not need to dispute it with them. I must observe to you, Sir, that the Germans (and their Factors in England) have lately got into a Method of counterfeiting our Irish stamps upon their foreign Linnens, and by that Means avoiding the Duty, and, which is almost as bad, by affixing our Seals to the worst of their Linnens, they discredit the Irish Manufacture there: the Scotch too, have got this policy from the Germans, and I have heard several Gentlemen in the Irish Linnen Trade make heavy Complaints of this Matter. If I mistake not, there is a present no law to punish the proceeding, or if the be, no single Factor will be at the expense, unless he be assured of the Reimbursement from the Linnen Board. This, Sir, is I assure, a great and growing Evil, and ought to be immediately attended to, for the Scotch are growing fast in the Manufacture, and if we cannot find a way to punish this their artful way of discrediting our Manufactures it may be attended with great Evils to our Sales in England, which is a present our only Market for Linnen. I shall detain you no longer, Sir, but just observe to you, that we have manifested a most unpardonable Supineness, in so many Years as have passed since the Revolution,11 by our neglect to put the Properties of this Kingdom upon a foot of greater Security than it is at present.

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We were last year alarmed with an intended Invasion;12 and it was so far believed, that the Government was at a considerable expense to furnish Magazines, and to provide for a Defense. All Europe is at this present time in Arms; and in case of a general War, no one knows what Attempts may be made upon these Kingdoms by the Enemies of our Religion and our Liberties. I hope we shall always be safe, but we cannot forget to have seen the Pretender in Britain, at the Head of a formidable Number of rebellious troops. He was defeated, and his Designs were baffled, but had he unfortunately succeeded there, it would have been a very terrible Circumstance, that the protestants of Ireland who were in Arms for all that was dear to them, their Religion, their Property and their Liberty, should be exposed to the same Evils that the papists of Ireland suffered on the Revolution, they did but what we should have done, took up arms for the King de Facto, the Prince to whom they have sworn Allegiance; we should certainly have done so (God avert the Occasion) tomorrow, were there need. And is it not a frightful thought? Enough to cool the hottest Zealot? That had we failed in the Attempt, we should all of us forfeit our Estates as the Jacobites in ’88 have done;13 there is no Law for us, the Statute of Henry VII which provides a security for all those who take arms for the King de Facto, or fight under their Allegiance, was passed a year or two after Poining’s Law, [sic] and does not extend to Ireland, so that we are left exposed in case of any attempt on us, to the greatest Danger imaginable; and tis much to be feared, that a Reflection of this Sort might in time of need throw a damp upon many, who are otherways the bravest and most zealous Protestants amongst us, and leave us a disunited and weak Support to the Protestant succession. It is high Time, therefore, Sir, to think seriously of this Matter, and not to lose a Day before a Bill is brought in to this Purpose, we have a Right to expect it, we have fought for the Revolution, and we are no inconsiderable part of the Protestant Interest, let us be made safe, let us be united in one general security, and our Lives are ready to stake for the Protestant Succession, his Majesty, and his Family will be sure of Friends, that will Man by Man die for him, it will add greatly to his security, it will forever disappoint the hopes of any Popish Pretender to his Dominions, and deter a certain Power (who has for some years taken upon him to dispose of kingdoms and principalities at Will, and to weaken all, that the whole may one Day fall an easier Prey to it Ambition) from saying with an arbitrary Voice, one of the infants of Spain must have Ireland. Upon the Whole, Sir, you may easily see that there are many Things of great Importance to the Welfare of this Country, that call upon you, and the rest of your Brethren in Power, for your speedy Attention, tis a pity to waste much Time upon Trifles, when weightier matters call upon us. Ireland is but an Infant in the Manufactures, we must not lie under a shameful Despondency; and because Rumour is spread, that England is no friend to Ireland, (which is in itself an unnatural Falsehood) make no Tryals of their Friendship and Regard to us; the Attempt can cost us nothing but a Portion of that Time which is spent upon Enquiries into over Drawings, Controverted Elections, and Party Disputes. What is it to Ireland who is

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the Great Man, if neither the one nor the other will labour in its interest, let us not be divided upon it, but let every Man lay his Head and his Heart to the good of his Country, and pursue with a steady attention the greater Matters, the Increase of our Manufactures, the Inlargement of our Trade, the Encouragement of our Tillage, the Security of our Liberties and Properties, and the Welfare of the whole Kingdom. This is what I wish you may all do; and if you resolve upon it, the Face of this poor Country will be soon changed from what is was the last Summer, and put on a healthy and florid Complexion. I am, Sir, You most obedient, and most humble Servant. Nov 15, 1741

Notes 1 The spellings and typeface have been modernized by the transcriber. 2 By these estimates, one-fifth of the population was lost. 3 A Branch of governance, also an archaic way of spelling economy. 4 The Tillage Act of 1563 was intended to regulate land use and to prevent the conversion of arable to pasture. 5 The Wool Act of 1699 (or the Woollens Act) was passed by the English Parliament (11 Will. III c. 13) to control the colonial Trade in Wool. It limiting Wool production in Ireland in order to favour English production. 6 It was not until 1781 that the Bank of Ireland Act was passed by the Parliament in Dublin. The Bank opened in 1783. 7 Possibly Hugh Henry who was MP for Antrim from 1727 to 1743. Son of a Presbyterian Minister, in 1710, Henry had established a banking business in Dublin. 8 A bodyguard. 9 A reference to Poyning’s Law (1494), passed during the reign of Henry VIII, which required all legislation passed by the Irish Parliament to have the approval of the English Parliament in Westminster. 10 An Ell is a traditional unit of measurement – from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. 11 The Glorious Revolution of 1688 to 1689, during which the Catholic monarch, James II, was replaced by his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange. 12 There had been a fear of invasion by Spain. 13 Jacobites were the supporters of James II. James’ son – the Pretender – had been brought up in France and continued to believe he was the legitimate heir to the British throne.

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Part III THE FAMINE OF 1816 AND 1817 ‘Distilleries—Scarcity of Provisions in Ireland’ (House of Commons, 1817) and ‘Distilleries’, (House of Lords, 1817). The wars against France and Napoleon (1792 to 1802 and 1803 to 1815 respectively) had boosted the Irish economy, with increased employment due to the sustained demand for food and combatants. In contrast, the years after 1815 were marked by widespread social dislocation and political reconfigurations as thousands of soldiers and sailors were demobilized and Europe transitioned from war to peace. Moreover, the long years of war had created a refugee crisis. Weather played a major part in the shortages that followed, the summer of 1816 being abnormally cold throughout Europe, leading to the sobriquet ‘the year without the summer’. Consequently, there were shortages and famine throughout the Continent. For governments, the key question was ‘less concerned with how to react than with whether to react at all’.1 What was the responsibility of governments when faced with mass hunger? By 1817 though, most governments or municipal authorities had introduced emergency relief measures, although some had done so, ‘less out of humanitarian concerns than out of a fear of reawakening the revolutionary tendencies that had ignited the Napoleonic period in the first place’.2 In Ireland, bad harvests in 1815 and 1816, with the potato, wheat and oats harvests all failing, created near-famine conditions in many parts of the country. The unseasonably cold and wet weather also made the cutting of turf difficult. Disease added to the suffering with a typhus epidemic sweeping through the country from 1816 to 1818, and claiming as many as 65,000 lives.3 Ironically, attendance at the wakes and funerals of fever victims had resulted in disease spreading so rapidly.4 At the time of the shortages, Robert Peel was the Chief Secretary for Ireland, a position that he held from 1812 to 1818.5 His first-hand familiarity with Ireland and her poverty made him unusual amongst British politicians. His main intervention in this crisis was the introduction of the National Fever Committee on 30 September 1817, consisting of three doctors. At the same time, Peel made it clear that the role of the government was to be restricted: The interference of the government must necessarily be limited to those cases wherein it shall appear from written documents that fever is still

T he famine of 1 8 1 6 and 1 8 1 7

prevalent to an unusual extent, and that hospitals have been opened and accommodation provided for the relief of the sick by means of the subscriptions of the wealthier part of the country.6 To compensate for the food shortages, there were various calls for the government to intervene to control the supply of food. As the parliamentary debates below indicate, one demand was that distillation—legal and illegal—should be stopped. Spirits in Ireland were made entirely from grain, leading to some suggestions that sugar should be used in its place. There was a precedent for this demand as during the subsistence crisis of 1756 to 1757, a temporary embargo had been imposed on distilling by the Irish parliament.7 However, during the famine of 1816 to 1818, calls for the prohibition of distilling were ignored. The British government did introduce the ‘Poor Employment Act of 1817’ in order: to authorize the issue of Exchequer Bills and the Advance of Money out of the Consolidated Fund, to a limited Amount, for the carrying on of Public Works and Fisheries in the United Kingdom and Employment of the Poor in Great Britain.8 The Act provided for Loan Commissioners to loan up to £1½ million in Britain, while in Ireland, £250,000 was put at the disposal of the Lord Lieutenant.9 The rate of interest for all loans was five per cent. In Ireland, seven Commissioners were appointed to oversee the operation.10 This Act created an important precedent in terms of using public works as a way of alleviating distress. In Ireland, the creation of the Board of Works in 1831 provided a more permanent home for this type of intervention. The 1817 legislation was unusual in that it applied to the United Kingdom as a whole, rather than Ireland being treated as a separate entity. From the perspective of Lord Liverpool’s government, high unemployment and social unrest in England were a more pressing problem, with the suspension of Habeas Corpus being enacted earlier in the same parliamentary session.11 On this occasion, the suspension did not extend to Ireland. The famine of 1816 to 1818 (quickly followed by a further crisis in 1821 to 1822) made a lasting impression on the Irish author William Carleton.12 His book, ‘The Black Prophet: A Tale of Irish Famine’, first serialized in 1846, was based on what he had witnessed, he describing it as a tale of ‘Irish suffering and struggle’. When ‘The Black Prophet’ appeared in book form in 1847, it was dedicated to the newly installed Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, Carleton appealing to him to be a ‘friend to my country’.13 The petitions below refer to Belfast which, in 1817, was emerging as a leading industrial location. In 1846, Belfast was again one of the Irish towns that petitioned for distillation to be stopped, again unsuccessfully.14

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Notes 1 Patrick Webb, ‘Emergency Relief during Europe’s famine of 1817: anticipated Crisisresponse mechanisms of today’ in The Journal of Nutrition, vol. 132, no. 7 (July, 2002), 1–6, p. 1. 2 Ibid., p. 4. 3 Hugh Fenning, ‘Typhus Epidemic in Ireland, 1817–1819: Priests, Ministers, Doctors’, in Collectanea Hibernica, No. 41 (1999), pp. 117–152, p.117. 4 Timothy P. O’Neill, ‘Fever and Public Health in Pre-Famine Ireland’, in The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. 103 (1973), pp. 1–34, p.1. 5 Robert Peel (1788–1850) represented a new type of British politician—the son of a wealthy Lancashire mill-owner who led the Tory/Conservative Party, traditionally the bastion of the landed classes. His political career was meteoric—the same year that he was elected to parliament (1809), he was appointed Under-Secretary for war and the colonies. Three years later, he was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. Regardless of his Protestant values, he helped to steer Catholic Emancipation through parliament in 1829. Peel served as Prime Minister from 1834 to 1835 and from 1841 to 1846, his final year in office coinciding with the onset of the Great Famine. 6 Quoted in O’Neill, ‘Fever and Public Health’, p.11. 7 Cormac Ó Gráda, ‘Famine in Ireland, 1300–1900’, UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series, WP2015/13 (May 2015), p. 20. Available at: http:// hdl.handle.net/10197/6604, accessed 12 June 2017. 8 57 Geo. III, c. 34. It received Royal Assent on 16 June 1817. 9 M. W. Flinn, ‘The Poor Employment Act of 1817’ in The Economic History Review New Series, vol. 14, No. 1 (1961), pp. 82–92, p. 88. 10 2 57 Geo. III, c. 124. It received Royal Assent in July 1817. 11 57 Geo. III, c. 3. It was first introduced in February 1817 and renewed later in the year (57 Geo. III, c. 55). 12 William Carleton (1794–1869) had grown up on a farm in Co. Tyrone. From his parents, he learnt about the Irish language, Irish folklore and culture. 13 Dedication ‘To Lord John Russell, Prime Minister of Great Britain and Ireland . . . the Author’, William Carleton, The Black Prophet: A Tale of Irish Famine (London: Simms and M’I̓ ntyre, 1847). 14 Christine Kinealy, The Great Irish Famine. Impact, Ideology and Rebellion (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 97–100.

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4 ‘DISTILLERIES—SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS IN IRELAND’ IN HANSARD, HOUSE OF COMMONS DEBATES, 10 MARCH 1817, VOL. 35 CC. 917–20 General Mitchell1 rose to present a Petition from the town and neighbourhood of Belfast, praying for an immediate Stoppage of Distillation from Grain. The petition stated, that there was a danger of an absolute want of food for the population of Ireland, a danger much increased by the great quantity of grain consumed in distillation. It was signed by every respectable gentleman and freeholder or merchant in the town of Belfast. From what he had heard the other night, he was afraid there was not much hope that a stoppage of the distilleries would take place, if he should move that the petition be taken into consideration. He should wish to know, however, whether the ministers were disposed to take any steps towards the stoppage of the consumption of corn in that manner. It had been urged, that if there was a scarcity of corn in Ireland, importation might take place; but it was to be considered, that other countries had also suffered, and that the chance of relief by drawing supplies from them was very small. The potatoe [sic]crop it was known had failed as well as that of grain. The hon. member then read a list of prices in different parts of Ireland, to prove the scarcity of oats. The price of oatmeal varied from 26s. to 36s. the hundred weight. When a question of such importance as the supply of food to the population was under consideration, the manner in which the revenue would be affected by the measures taken, was of secondary weight. He thought, however, that the revenue would not be injured by the prohibition of distillation from grain, as the sugar now bonded in this country, would be brought forward to pay the duty from the apprehension of a higher tax which might be imposed on it. Mr. Windham Quin said,2 he was convinced there was much grain in Ireland unfit to be applied to any purpose but distillation or the manufacture of starch. It was to be considered, that if by the stoppage of the legal distilleries, illicit stills were set at work, the consumption would not then be, as it was now, limited to inferior corn. Mr. Maurice Fitzgerald said,3 he was surprised at what he had just heard, because on a former evening when he had brought this question before the House, the gallant officer had pronounced a decided opinion against the stoppage of the 69

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distilleries even in Ireland. It was to be remarked that the petitioners, consisting not only of the gallant officer’s constituents, but of the whole inhabitants of Belfast, prayed for the stoppage of the distilleries as a measure necessary to save them from famine. If this assertion of the petitioners was true, it was certainly the duty of parliament to interfere. As to the prices which the gallant officer had quoted, if he meant to adduce them as an argument to induce the House to stop distillation, he thought he was erroneous, for he had omitted to state the prices in the distressed district. For his own part, he thought the ministers had been much to blame in suffering, when they knew in February the state of Ireland with regard to provisions, the distillation from grain to continue. Mr. Marryat said,4 he had at first been of opinion, that it would not be expedient to stop distillation from grain, but that opinion had been shaken by what he had heard the other night, and still more so by the petition which had that night been presented. The petitioners referred to the high prices as proofs of the scarcity of corn; they stated, that three millions of pound weight of corn would be consumed weekly in the distilleries, if they were not stopped—though the whole of the grain in Ireland was necessary for the preservation of the lives of the people. He thought the petitioners would not have made such assertions, if the facts had not been within their knowledge, and the statement derived weight from the acknowledged character of the men, who, they were told, were well affected to the government, and thus not disposed to throw odium on the ministers, or raise a clamour without grounds. He should offer a few observations, therefore, as to the suspension of the distillation from grain. Much had been said by those who objected to this measure, as to the encouragement which would thus be given to illicit distillation. But they were told, on the other hand, that illicit distillation had already received a check from the high price of grain. When, some years ago, a committee of the House examined the subject, they were informed, that though when corn was plentiful, illicit distilleries were encouraged by high and low, yet in time of scarcity the people themselves went about pulling them down, because they consumed the means of subsistence. It had been said also, on good authority, that that description of corn was used by the distillers which was unfit for human food. This was to be taken with much allowance; it was to be recollected, that the Scotch had been exporting their inferior grain, while they had been buying up in Lynn, and the other ports of Norfolk and Suffolk, the very best barley which could be procured, for the purposes of distillation. Experiments had been made in London as to the practicability of employing damaged corn in the distilleries, and much discoloured barley had been so used. But this was grain merely discoloured on the outer husk, and still fit for human food, for as to that in which fermentation had taken place, it was just as unfit for distillation as for nourishment. The delicacy of interference on this subject had been talked of; but it was to be recollected that they had passed the corn bill, in order to protect the landholder from low prices; they might, therefore, surely protect the people from too high prices, by the stoppage, of distillation. That prices were now very high could not be denied. The quartern loaf was here from 17½d. to 18d. and in Ireland prices were still 70

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higher. At this late period of the season it was said, but little could be saved by the measure suggested. Those who argued thus did not take into consideration, that the distillers would apprehend that if distillation from corn were not immediately stopped, it soon might be, and they would therefore distill from the cheapest material while it was lawful, even a greater quantity than would serve the remainder of the year. The prospect of the supply from the next harvest was not good; as the corn had remained last autumn two months longer on the ground than in ordinary years, the farmers had had so much less time to prepare their ground. It was said that prices would have risen more if there had been any scarcity of corn. The present method of threshing enabled the farmer to bring it to market so rapidly that this conclusion was not warranted. Above all things, it was to be considered that if the stoppage of distilleries should turn out to be inadvisable after that measure had taken place, the evil was easily reparable: but if, on the other hand, famine was the consequence of not resorting to that precaution, a serious responsibility would rest on the government. Mr. Knox contended,5 that the distilleries often used corn of the best quality. There was no danger at present from illicit stills, which were viewed by the people with jealousy, and were thus more effectually stopped than they could be by armies of excisemen. He most seriously urged the necessity of the suspension of distillation from grain. Tumult had already taken place, on account of the scarcity, and the stoppage of the distilleries was necessary to preserve Ireland not only from misery and famine, but from insurrection. Sir N. Colthurst6 thought it would be highly impolitic to prevent distillation, as the distillers made use of corn which it was impossible to convert to any other purpose. The petition was read, and ordered to lie on the table.

Notes 1 General John Michel (1765–1844) was a British Army Officer who served as MP for Belfast from 1812 to 1818. 2 Windham Quin, 2nd Earl of Dunraven (1782–1850) was an Irish landowner who served as MP for Limerick from 1806 to 1820. 3 Maurice FitzGerald, the 18th Knight of Kerry (1774–1849) was an Irish Whig politician who served as MP in the Irish Parliament from 1795 to 1801, and in the Westminster Parliament from 1801 to 1831. He had supported the Act of Union, believing that it would benefit Ireland, but he was disillusioned by the failure to grant Catholic Emancipation. 4 Joseph Marryat (1757–1824) was an English businessman and MP for Horsham and, after 1808, Sandwich from 1812 to 1824. 5 Thomas Knox (1786–1858) served as MP for Tyrone from 1812 to 1818, and for Dungannon from 1818 to 1838. 6 Sir Nicholas Colthurst (1789–1829) was an Anglo-Irish politician who represented Cork City from 1812 to 1829.

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5 ‘DISTILLERIES’, HANSARD, HOUSE OF LORDS DEBATES, 14 MARCH 1817, VOL. 35, CC. 1079–80 The Earl of Darnley1 presented a Petition from Belfast, complaining of the dearness and scarcity of grain, and praying the distilleries might be stopped. His lordship said he did not mean now to go into the subject, but he reserved to himself the right of bringing forward a motion respecting it at a future period, if he should deem it advisable. He must, however, repeat what he had before stated, that ministers had incurred a heavy responsibility in not stopping the distilleries early in the season. In having called the attention of the House to this most important subject, he could not but regret that he had not had the assistance of any of the peers who more immediately represented Ireland, who could have more satisfactorily detailed the general situation of that part of the United Kingdom. The Earl of Liverpool2 protested against the doctrine of responsibility attaching to the executive government, for not interfering with regard to the subsistence of the people. If it was thought right that the distilleries should be stopped when grain reached a certain price, let it be so enacted by law, but nothing could be more unwise than to leave it to the discretion of the executive government, because with the most honest intentions the executive government was very liable upon such a subject to be misled. They would necessarily have various accounts from different quarters, in one part a good harvest, and in another a bad one; and nothing could be more mischievous than to leave it to the executive government to strike a balance between conflicting and opposite interests. He thought that in only one instance within his recollection, had the distilleries been rightly stopped, and that was in 1802, when one bad harvest followed another. He was of opinion that the wisest course of policy was, to leave the subsistence of the people entirely free, but as under the circumstances of the country a free trade in grain could not exist, the next best policy was to enact specific regulations, so that all parties interested might at once know what was to follow if certain contingencies took place. But the most unwise and mischievous policy was to leave it to the discretion of the executive government to interfere with the subsistence of the people whenever they should deem it expedient, as such a system must necessarily be productive of more injury than good. With regard to Ireland, he was aware that much distress existed, but it was partial and local, and this formed a decided objection to a

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general measure, which would, under such circumstances, inevitably be mischievous in its effects. The Earl of Darnley, while he agreed in the general principles stated by the noble earl, still thought that the information ought to be produced upon which ministers had come to the determination of not stopping the distilleries in Ireland, under the circumstances of distress which existed in that country, certainly to a considerable extent. Ordered to lie on the table.

Notes 1 John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley (1767–1831) was both an Anglo-Irish peer (with roots in Meath) and a first-class cricketer. He made a number of appeals on behalf of the poor in Ireland, including in 1828 calling for a ‘Select Committee to Inquire into the Distressed State of the People of that Country’ (delivered in the House of Lords on 1 May 1828). 2 Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770–1828) was an English politician who served as Prime Minister from 1812 to 1827. Faced with post-war unrest in Britain, he suspended Habeas Corpus in 1817. In 1822, his government suspended Habeas Corpus in Ireland.

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Part IV THE FAMINE OF 1822 TO 1823: BRITISH AND IRISH PHILANTHROPY (1822 AND 1823) The failure of the potato crop in 1821 led to severe, if localized, potato shortages in 1822. The distress was most extreme along the western seaboard, notably in County Clare, but the poor in counties Roscommon, Tipperary and Leitrim, were also without resources. In addition, the unusually wet weather had destroyed the kelp industry, kelp-making being a major source of employment in parts of the west, particularly the islands off County Galway.1 Further bad weather at the end of 1822 resulted in a fuel shortage in 1823, which prolonged the suffering of the poor. If the poor were to survive, therefore, external assistance was necessary. As in other periods of shortage, the indifference of absentee landlords threw the burden on resident proprietors, the government and private philanthropy. The famine of 1822 was one of the first in Ireland to attract substantial external relief. According to Cormac Ó Gráda, ‘The Irish Famine of 1740–41—possibly more murderous in relative terms than that of the 1840s—seems to have elicited little support from across the Irish Sea’.2 In 1822 and 1823, however, possibly in recognition that Ireland was part of a United Kingdom, the elite in England galvanized in aid of the Irish poor. Leading the way was a committee specially formed in London in early May 1822, which met in the Tavern in Bishopsgate.3 This committee would re-form for the same purpose on a number of other occasions in the following decades. In response to the distress, charitable committees were formed throughout Ireland, the largest ones being located in Dublin and Belfast. In Dublin, the Lord Mayor convened a Mansion House Committee in May 1822. In consisted of the ‘nobility, gentry, clergy, bankers and merchants of the city’, and its secretaries were Hugh O’Connor and P. Singer.4 In addition to raising donations, they also appealed to relief committees in England for financial support and cooperation. The committee took a systematic approach to the distress, sending a questionnaire comprising of eleven questions to the affected districts. In 1823, they published a full account of their proceedings.5 In Belfast, the Committee for the Suffering Poor in the South and West of Ireland distributed money in eight counties. By

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June 1822, the sum subscribed in the town had reached £1,776-8-9.6 Individual donations came from other groups in Ireland, including members of the British Army stationed there. The largest amount of aid was raised by the London Tavern Committee, it collecting £311,081-5-7 in total, which was dispersed amongst numerous committees in Ireland. Approximately £210,000 was spent in providing relief in the form of cash, food or clothing, while the remainder was used largely for works of improvement and administrative charges (which included sending agents to Ireland). The British and Irish Ladies’ Society was a major beneficiary receiving a grant of £11,300, while the society for employing women in Straw Plait Manufacture received £2,000. The Mansion House Committee in Dublin received £5,000.7 A feature of the charitable intervention was the central role played by women in both Ireland and England, especially, but not exclusively, in the distribution of clothing and bedding.8 Moreover, their involvement continued throughout 1823, when many considered the famine to be over. Female participation would be a feature of all subsequent subsistence crises in the nineteenth century. The extracts below highlight the diversity of women’s participation. They also demonstrate how charitable intervention from England was frequently linked with the intended moral reform of the Irish character. The first extract is from a debate in Parliament about the need for government intervention.

Notes 1 Stephen A. Royle, ‘Irish famine relief in the early nineteenth century: the 1822 famine on the Aran Islands’, in Irish Economic and Social History, vol. 11 (1984), pp. 44–59, p. 51. 2 Cormac Ó Gráda, Famine: A Short History (Princeton University Press, 2009) p. 218. 3 The City of London Tavern was a notable meeting place for political and charitable purposes, where food and drink was also available. Following destruction by fire, a new building was opening in 1768. It was demolished in 1876. 4 Possibly Hugh O’Connor (1771–1839) a Dublin banker who lived in Mountjoy Square; possibly Paulus Aemilius Singer of Temple Street, Dublin, a noted philanthropist. 5 Report of the proceedings of the committee of management for the relief of the distressed districts in Ireland, appointed at a general meeting held at the Mansion House, Dublin (Dublin, 1823). Much of their original correspondence is held in the National Archives in Dublin, in the papers of the Chief Secretary’s Office. 6 The Belfast Relief Committee mostly sent aid to the west, see, Belfast News-Letter, 11 June 1822; Ibid., ‘Relief and Gratitude’, 23 August 1822. 7 ‘Public Documents’ in The Annual Register, Or, A View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year 1824 (London: J. Dodsley, 1825), pp. 56, 57. 8 For an overview of women’s involvement in the provision of clothing, see Daphne Wolf, ‘Nearly Naked. Clothing and the Great Hunger in Ireland’ in Christine Kinealy, Jason King and Ciarán Reilly, Women and the Great Hunger (Quinnipiac UP and Cork UP, 2015), pp. 83–94.

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6 ‘SCARCITY OF PROVISIONS IN IRELAND’, HANSARD, HOUSE OF COMMONS DEBATES, 29 APRIL 1822, VOL. 7 CC. 146–50 Sir E. O’Brien said,1 that before the House proceeded to the important business of the day, he wished to point out to the gentlemen around him, the very dreadful and calamitous situation to which a great portion of his countrymen were reduced. There were at that moment thousands of persons in Ireland, who, in consequence of the failure of the late potatoe [sic] crop, were reduced to a single meal a day, and that meal generally consisted of oatmeal and water. It was well known that, generally speaking, the whole population of the South of Ireland lived, during a great portion of the year, upon potatoes; but, during the last year, the incessant rains which prevailed, had totally decayed and destroyed that vegetable in the ground. At the late assizes in his county,2 the distressed state of the people was taken into consideration, and a representation of that distress was made to the lord lieutenant.3 He had no doubt of the benevolent intentions of the noble lord who now filled the office of lord lieutenant, but it was impossible to extend relief to that poor and suffering country, without the interference and aid of parliament. It was a lamentable fact, that at that moment the counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Mayo, and Roscommon, in fact, the whole provinces of Munster and Connaught, were in a state of actual starvation. If the counties of Lancaster, or Warwick, or Stafford, were suffering as Ireland now was, what, he would ask, would be the feelings of that House? What were the people of that unfortunate country to do? How were they, deprived as they were of money, of any resource, to relieve themselves from the difficulties under which they laboured? He well remembered the situation in which Ireland was placed in 1817. Great as the distresses of the country were at that period, there was still a circulation of money, and a high price of corn, which afforded many openings of relief. But, what was the situation of the country now? There was scarcely a town in the south of Ireland, in which hundreds of strong, able-bodied men, were not to be seen walking about without any means of getting employment. The question for the consideration of the House was—what had produced this state of things? One-third of the respectable people of the county of Clare had been reduced to absolute distress; they had neither money nor means to relieve themselves. He was aware that there was plenty of corn in the market; but, what did that do towards relief, when the distressed parties had no money to buy? It was true that the gentry of the county were, in many instances, ready to 77

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cooperate with the magistrates in affording relief; but how was it possible for a few individuals to afford permanent relief to 150,000 men? In making this statement, he did not appear before the House as a mendicant on the part of his country. All he asked was, that government would make advances to relieve the present distresses of unfortunate Ireland. For these advances the county rates could be pledged, and the money might be laid out in repairing roads, or in such other manner as might be best calculated to afford relief. It was well known to many of his friends, that thousands were at that moment dying from famine in Ireland. He was most anxious to make this statement at the earliest period, with a view to draw the attention of government to it; for unless relief was promptly afforded, the unfortunate population must suffer the last stage of misery. A short time ago, potatoes, the principal food of the peasantry, of Ireland, were sold at from one penny to three halfpence per stone; during this year they were sold at 6½d. per stone. And, while this general article of Irish consumption was so raised, oatmeal had also risen from 13l. to 15l. per ton. The hon. baronet, after pointing out with great feeling the other distresses under which the people of Ireland laboured, adverted to the fact of the poor people in Ireland being actually obliged to rob for their subsistence. He had himself been informed by the head police officer in his county, that if they were to commit all the persons who took provisions for their support, no gaol in the country could hold them; nay, farther, that the parties so arrested, if they could get their families around them, would think that they had made a happy exchange in getting into prison. The hon. baronet concluded by expressing a hope that parliament would take into its serious consideration the suffering state of Ireland. Mr. Becher4 corroborated the hon. Baronet’s statement, and expressed his fear that, in a very short time, even the scanty subsistence now on hand would be altogether expended. Mr. Goulburn5 expressed his surprise that the hon. baronet should have taken that premature opportunity of calling upon the House to enter into the consideration of the state of the peasantry in Ireland. He was the more surprised at this course, as the hon. baronet had been in daily communication with him upon the subject of this distress, and must have known that, if he had hitherto refrained from stating the views of the Irish government, it was not from any want of sympathy for the sufferers, nor from the slightest inclination to withhold whatever relief the government of Ireland could practically afford; but from a firm conviction, that the agitation of the subject would augment rather than alleviate the evils which the hon. baronet had so feelingly deplored. Supposing the distress to be as general in the south of Ireland as the hon. baronet had depicted it to be, and the condition of the resident gentry so reduced as to render them unable to mitigate the condition of their peasantry, to whom, the hon. baronet asked, but to the government, could the people look up for relief? The Irish government were, however, first bound to consider to what extent they had the means of administering relief; and the House might form some estimate of the probable amount which would be 78

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required generally from the government, to meet the demands likely to be made upon them, if they once took upon themselves the responsibility of subsisting the people, from this single fact, that the amount of relief claimed from the hon. Baronet’s county alone was for 4.00,000l. The government could not, he thought, be considered much to blame, if they paused at the outset, and forbore from hastily admitting a precedent, which would encourage a liability for a repetition of those demands from various quarters of the country. The case he believed, was really this – that, in some parts there was a great deficiency in a particular crop, which constituted the chief subsistence of the peasantry of Ireland. But, though the potatoe crops had, in many places suffered, yet in others there was an abundant supply of corn; and at the very time when the scarcity had enhanced the price of potatoes in the most distressed market, the price of oatmeal continued lower than it generally was throughout the empire. The rise in the latter article was not for some time more than 2s. in the cwt., although he admitted the advance had increased to 12s. or 13s. during a part of the last week. In answer to the hon. Baronet’s inquiry, why the government had not sent down a commission to inquire into the extent of the distress, he had only to inform the House, what the hon. Baronet previously knew, that Mr. Warburton, who came up to Dublin to communicate the opinions of the gentlemen of his county, was immediately charged by the lord lieutenant with a commission, to return and ascertain first, in a more detailed form, the degree of pressure which was apprehended; next, to what extent the gentlemen of the county could contribute to the relief of their peasantry; and that then it would remain for government to take into their consideration the measures of co-operation which they could administer. His letters from Dublin that day announced the return of Mr. Warburton, and that the lord lieutenant was then in a situation to decide how far government could afford any relief. Sir E. O’Brien disclaimed imputing the slightest neglect to the Irish government, but repeated that he thought parliament alone capable of meeting the evil. He had no intention of throwing his country men upon Great Britain as paupers; but only asked an advance upon the county rates to enable them to provide for themselves by their own industry.

Notes 1 Sir Edward O’Brien (1773–1837) was an Irish parliamentarian, both in the Dublin and Westminster parliaments. He was father of William Smith O’Brien, leader of the 1848 Rising. 2 O’Brien lived in County Clare. 3 Richard Colley Wesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley (1760–1842) was an Anglo-Irish politician who was appointed Lord Lieutenant in 1821. He was a brother of the Duke of Wellington. 4 William Wrixon Becher (1780–1850) was MP for Mallow in Cork, where he owned property. 5 Henry Goulburn (1784–1856) was an English Conservative politician who served as Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1821 to 1827.

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7 THE FAMINE OF 1822. BRITISH AND IRISH PHILANTHROPY FROM VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS (1822 AND 1823) Belfast News-Letter, 28 May 1822. The Bank of Ireland has given 500l. and Sir Capel Molyneux 100l.1 to the relief fund. A French nobleman, Lally Tollendahl, (who, we believe, is of Irish extraction)2 has sent 25l. from Paris. We feel gratified in communicating that the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, of the 25th regiment (the King’s Own Borderers),3 now lying in the Belfast garrison, have subscribed forty pounds sterling, through Messrs. Lane & Co.4 for the relief of the distressed poor in the South and West of Ireland; which sum Captain Biddulph5 has remitted to Dublin for the above purpose. In Galway, 900l. has been collected, of which in turn 20 guineas were from the 56th regiment.—The 19th foot, quartered at Mullingar, has subscribed one day’s pay. The 79th foot, quarted at Templemore, has subscribed one day’s pay.

Belfast News-Letter, 28 February 1823. The Ladies of the Newtownlimavady Clothing Society have given out,6 last year, 88 pair of blankets, 215 gowns, 106 petticoats, 102 shirts, 66 shifts, 10 pairs of shoes, 10 cloaks, 54 aprons. From the above statement, the utility of such an institution may be duly appreciated. Not only are the comfort of blankets and clothing imparted to the poor at this inclement season of the year, but habits of regularity and integrity are enforced on the claimants, by the mode of weekly payments, which convey to them a good moral lesson, and reflect much credit on the Ladies who manage the Institution.

Freeman’s Journal, 3 December 1823. CORK AUXILIARY LADIES’ SOCIETY. Cork, Nov. 29— This highly interesting still benevolent Institution held their first meeting on Friday. It was most numerously attended, and consisted not only of all the principal 80

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Ladies of Cork and its vicinity, but also those from distant parts of the country. Mrs. Beamish7 was unanimously called to the Chair, when that Lady addressed the meeting in nearly these words:— “Ladies—the object of calling the present Meeting together, is for the purpose of laying before you, previous to printing, the Report for the Subscribers and the Public, the statement of the receipts and expenses of the Society, and to solicit renewed efforts on the part of the Ladies in collecting subscriptions. Also, to appoint Patronesses, Correspondents, Treasurers, and Secretaries, for the new year, and to fill every office in the Institution with persons qualified to engage in this charitable work, which, even in its infancy, has made such wonderful exertions to improve the peasantry, and if particularly persevered in for a few years longer, may, we confidently hope, eventually change the condition of the population of the country.”

Freeman’s Journal, 10 December 1823. IRISH STRAW PLAIT.8 Roscommon—Boyle, Dec. 6.—In a former number of our Paper we informed our Readers that a Straw Plait and Bonnet Manufactory was commenced in Carrick-on-Shannon, under the superintendence of the County Leitrim Auxiliary British and Irish Ladies’ Society, and we now find that their exertions have met with more encouragement than their most sanguine expectations would have warranted them to calculate on. Mr. Hyett9 brought some of the Plait from Carrick to London; it was examined there by many persons of judgment amongst others an Italian, who appeared, to be highly delighted with the produce. The Irish Committee in London have been pleased to transmit £50 to Captain Duckworth,10 for the purpose of promoting the Straw Plait Manufacture of Carrick, and we believe orders to the amount of about 150 Bonnets have been reached from London, etc—

Extracts from The First Report of the British and Irish Ladies’ Society, for improving the Condition and promoting the Industry and Welfare of the Female Peasantry of Ireland, reprinted in the Connaught Journal,11 27 November 1823. ROSCOMMON In Roscommon, a County Association has been formed, with the Baronial and District Associations in the Baronies of Boyle and Roscommon. The exertions of an able and intelligent Correspondent have put into activity nine parishes, out of thirteen which the barony of Boyle contains; many of them are very extensive, and without much assistance from the resident gentry. The population is also very great, and the women anxious to assist themselves by honest industry. It is the 81

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opinion of those on the spot, that promoting their temporary comforts, will greatly tend to improve the state of their minds, and to foster morality, and submissions to the laws of their country. An inquiry was set on foot at Killuken, relative to the spinning of cotton, in consequence of a present of 2006lb. weight of the raw material, having been made to the Committee by Messrs. James Cropper and Sons, of Liverpool,12 and 300lb. being sent there to be spun by the women, the Committee had the satisfaction of learning that this grant gave great pleasure, for that many of the women had been in the habit of purchasing a pound of machinery cotton, and having it wafted on the end of a linen web, to make a gown, then colouring it with heath,13 and making in this way a strong and comfortable garment. TIPPERARY The first letters received by the Committee from the county of Tipperary, presented a distressing picture of its misery; combined as in the county of Cork, with great want of the means of employment, and with willingness to work; all the women able to spin, both flax and wool, but scarcely one out of ten is in possession of a spinning wheel, and many of them incapacitated for work by want of necessary clothing. GALWAY Three district committees have been formed in Galway. One at Galway, one at Ballinasloe, and one at Loughrea. The following communication will shew that with good management much benefit may accrue from the most trifling sums of money: “The grant of £2 made by your committee for the purpose of purchasing flax-seed was most fortunate; had I had the least idea that so small a sum would have done anything, I should have commenced long ago, but I was so ignorant on the subject that I thought it would require a great sum of money to attempt anything of the kind. The happiness of so materially benefiting our poor was reserved for your Society. I sent round the county to tell the people to prepare their ground, and sent for a hogshead of flax-seed,14 which I expect to-morrow, to be distributed the day after at five-pence a pottle,15 that is something more than half the price the retailers sell it for, and any who cannot afford to pay so much, are bound to return the value in spun yarn in the autumn.” LEITRIM A central association has been established at Carrick-on-Shannon, for the county Leitrim, and district Committees at Carrick, James Town, and Drumsna.

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KERRY It has hitherto been found impossible to form a central association in the county Kerry. The district of Tralee consists of nineteen parishes, each of these, it is intended, should send a member to the District Committee, each parochial association having a Committee to carry on the detail of the plan. Many of the materials for industry are abundant in this county, but they all leave it in their raw state; flax grows to perfection in its rich and productive soil; the wool of Kerry is proverbial for the fineness of its texture, but it cannot be spun for want of wheels, nor woven for want of looms, “I really think,” says the writer of this account, “that in the present state of the public mind, a very little assistance would enable us to make a beginning, and the sweets of plenty and comfort arising from honest industry, once felt, everything good and happy will follow.” MAYO “It is frequently said, that it is impossible to do anything for a people, so lazy, bigoted and ungrateful as the Irish, but we have seen, that a little sympathy and assistance has invariably roused them from the apathy and listlessness so inseparable from extreme poverty.” . . . “There is scarcely any compliment the poor Irish are so grateful for, as a visit to their cabins from persons of the higher ranks of life. Even the deluded unenlightened disturbers of Erin’s green isle, would give a hospitable reception to any ladies entering their houses. “Won’t you take an air of the fire?” and – “pray be seated, your honour”- is the salutation with which they would be greeted.” The chief object of the British and Irish Society has been, and still is, to draw the attention of the superior classes to the situation of the peasantry; and as far as its influence has extended, the committee have the gratification of seeing that object accomplished, and they trust it will eventually lead to a progressive improvement in civilization and comfort. Perseverance will be necessary to enable the ladies in Ireland to carry on the arduous work in which they are engaged. To effectuate at once a general correctness of conduct and a due elevation of mind and manners throughout the native of Ireland is not to be hoped for. Yet great indeed, and difficult as the task may be, of reforming the habits and correcting the moral feelings of the great mass of a whole people, the committee cannot but think that their endeavours, through the active and persevering exertions of the Irish ladies, are calculated to attempt many things with peculiar advantage. By the influence of the ladies over the female peasantry in their respective districts, they hope that not only ideas of comfort and cleanliness, hitherto not known, may be introduced and industry excited by the prospect of due remuneration; but that likewise the benefits of a higher nature may be conferred, by the improvement of moral principle and the repression of mean, degrading, and vicious habits; and

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though the reformation may be gradual, and the immediate change not strikingly apparent, yet every real advancement in the moral feeling, on the part of the future mothers of the families of Ireland, is calculated to have the most extensive and durable effects on the habits of the rising generation. It is from them that their children must derive those early principles and feelings which well or ill-directed, lay, in ordinary cases, the foundation of the conduct of future life; impressions, which, however capable of being improved by subsequent instruction or depraved by bad example, seldom fail to impart a general tone and tinge to the whole term of moral existence, and are peculiarly apt to recur with augmented force towards the close. The number of associations already formed, and the dispositions evinced by the Irish ladies to carrying the plans of the society into effect, as displayed in the facts already stated, have afforded the greatest encouragement to the committee, to hope for extensive benefits from the prosecutions of their designs. It is, however, obvious, that the extent to which they can be carried, must in a considerable degree depend on the pecuniary means with which the society may be furnished. No people were ever made to receive instruction with more quickness and intelligence than the native Irish—none with dispositions to acknowledge kindness with warmer feelings of gratitude and attachment. To open to such a people all the blessings of civilization, and to make in their improvement such an addition of strength and happiness to the empire at large, is surely an object which calls forth every sentiment of religion, patriotism, and humanity. To hold up this object to public contemplation, and anxiously to work with others toward its attainment, is the amount (and it is hoped not unimportant) of that which it is the power of this society to contribute towards its accomplishment. LIMERICK An Association, comprising five Districts, has been formed for the City of Limerick, and a Central Association established there for the County, in which there are seven District Associations. The ladies who conduct them appear to be most zealous and judicious in their exertions; and the Committee have had the satisfaction of hearing, that one feeling seems to influence them all—the desire of benefiting their fellow-creatures; and that, by giving employment, advice, and assistance, in every way they can devise, they are endeavouring to raise the female peasantry from habits of idleness and vice, to those of industry, economy and virtue. In one of these Associations, which was early formed, and which included two large and populous parishes, and idea was suggested by a benevolent and kind co-operator, that a village shop might be established, in which the manufacture made from the yarn, spun by the women, might be received, and the women again employed in making it into articles of female attire, to be afterwards sold to them at the shop,

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at one-third less than the original cost, for some months, in the hope that industry might supersede the habit of begging, which she represented as too prevalent. “I am still,” says a correspondent, “working on the 10l. the London Tavern Committee sent me last autumn, but the flax is so much advanced in price, and worse in quality, than I am nearly a bankrupt; but the cotton will set me up again, particularly if a few pairs of cards accompany it, as nothing of that description can be procured here.” The following is an abstract of a letter to the Secretary: “I beg leave to assure you, that if the ladies in this part of the country have been late in directing their attention to the wants of the poor, they seem very anxious now to make amends for this lost time. They are straining every nerve to relieve them, and it must be said on their behalf that they have more to contend with than any English lady, who has not lived in Ireland, can imagine. Should the reformation of the peasantry be ever effected it must be by very slow degrees. If the ladies persevere in the work they have begun, much may be expected from the next generation; the docility and gentleness of the children shew what a superior people the parents might have been, if they had got a tolerable education.   “We have already set the children about several kinds of work, by which we hope they will in a short time be able to assist their parents, or at least pay for their own schooling.” In a letter of a later day, the same correspondent writes“We really have, through your friendly assistance, begun to do some good in these two large and populous parishes; I think I begin to see it. The poor creatures now perceive the advantage of buying our clothes (to which at first they made great objections) and begin to understand the possibility and use of putting by a penny now and then, even though they feel the want of it at the moment.   “This is doing more than you, who do not know the people, can imagine; my school is overflowing, and the ladies are diligent in their attendance at others.” From another part of the country“I will not pain you by recapitulating the various scenes of wretchedness I have witnessed, but I was particularly shocked to find persons I had always considered as above the proper sort, in the most extreme poverty, living on potatoes and salt, the children almost naked, and lying on straw. These persons had never asked for relief, nor should I have discovered their situation if I had not gone to their houses.” A benevolent individual has begun instructing a few girls in the use of the northern wheel, which is not at all understood in the south of Ireland, the perfect use of

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which will increase the price of their labour, and consequently make an improvement in their condition, at a comparatively small expense. DONEGAL The struggle which the North of Ireland has made to raise its own condition, deserves every encouragement. Donegal is a country in which a very slow, though gradual, improvement in the state of the peasantry has been going on for the last 20 years. “I cannot say,” observes a correspondent, “that our Association has called for the exertions of anyone who has not been active before; on the contrary, all who are now engaged in it were long accustomed to make every effort in their power, in order to relieve the distress they witnessed. What I now see among them is a degree of animation and cheerfulness in carrying our plans into execution, which arises from a lately awakened hope that our endeavours may be of some real and permanent benefit to the country; nothing, indeed, can be more gratifying than the spirit of unanimity and good will with which the business has hitherto been conducted. “That there is a desire for improvement among the people cannot be doubted— that their ideas of comfort and decency are different from what they were 20 years ago, no one who has studied their habits can fail to perceive; but those who see them now only for the first time can hardly imagine where the improvement is to be discerned. “Long perseverance is requisite to overcome the difficulties the Irish cottage presents to every increase of comfort and order; and a season of scarcity is a great drawback to every improvement. “In spite of the progress we have noticed, the distress in many parts of Donegal is very great, and the want of means of industry renders many unable to purchase the necessities of life. “One poor woman, on receiving a little warm clothing, expressed the feelings of many, in saying, ‘I shall have some heart to struggle now, but I could not get on before, for the cold was so bad, and my clothes were so light, I had no strength, I could not spin.’ “Seven Associations have been formed in this county, the people are crowding for employment, and working hard to earn clothes for themselves and the children: and sewing schools are establishing very generally throughout the country, to enable the poor girls to make up their own garments.” Later letters, after stating that much of the illness and misery of the people arises from their sleeping on damp earthen floors, proceed to give us the following pleasing account of the sensible attempt made by the ladies of one association, in the north of Donegal, to obviate the evil. “We have a prospect of obtaining a stock of bedsteads on very reasonable terms. We addressed the gentlemen who had any extensive plantations in the parish (in number only three) requesting they would give us some of the thinning of their woods, which they most readily granted; we 86

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are to employ carpenters to make a sort of rough bedstead, for which their wages only will be charged, probably not three shillings. In this way we hope to remove one cause of the suffering and nothing can exceed the pleasure it seems to give to the poor creatures who are to benefit by it.”

Extracts from the Ladies’ Correspondence on the Clothing sent to Ireland (from: Report of the Committee for the Relief of the Distressed Districts in Ireland: appointed at a general meeting held at the City of London Tavern, on the 7th of May, 1822, with an appendix). From the County of Cork: In this and the neigbouring parishes, the greatest degree of distress known in the county of Cork, has I think been felt. During the last summer numbers of poor women came from time to time to the Glebe, to beg the sacks in which the biscuits came, to make petticoats; an old woman living near the Glebe got one, dyed it a dark colour, and constantly wore it going to church, till the clothing arrived when she got a more comfortable garment. The general clothing has arrived and been distributed; very many indeed were the applicants who were “sent away empty”, yet I have no hesitation in saying that by far the greatest part of the urgent distress for clothing, according to the idea of an Irish woman, has been relieved, and though some have been unavoidably disappointed, many are truly grateful; one venerable old man, who had seen better days, received a coat, and on the next morning walked two miles through severe snow to thank the Ladies’ Committee for it, after which he reverently took off his hat and kneeling down implored the blessing of God on the benevolent English Ladies who had sent it. From Dunmanway, County Cork, 14 September, 1822. The people of this neighbourhood, though they have suffered less from want of food than in other parts of Ireland, are yet reduced by a variety of circumstances to an extreme and alarming state of indigence. There are many families, the females of which cannot go abroad for want of clothing; and when this is the case with the Irish peasant, their want must be extreme. The peasantry now have food, that is potatoes, but the pressure of an extreme poverty not only continues but increases. Under these circumstances, and at this season of the year, the supply of clothing furnished by the considerate benevolence of the Ladies of England is a timely and fortunate relief. From Crookhaven, County of Cork, 16 September, 1822. I assure you, Ladies, I am at a loss to give you and your charitable Committee, an idea of the naked and truly pitiable state of at least one thousand of our poor 87

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country women, some of them near and others over one hundred years of age, and not as many old rags as would shelter an infant. I do not believe that there are in any other part of Ireland, so many poor naked females as there are in this part of Cork. From the Ladies’ Committee, Inniscarra, County of Cork, 7 October, 1822. The Ladies’ Committee of this parish beg to acknowledge the receipt of £10 transmitted to them by desire of the Ladies’ Committee in London, which they will expend in the purchase of wool, to be given out to such of the poor as are able to spin, and are most in want of such assistance. They are confident that such a system would be productive of the best effect, and is infinitely preferable to any gratuitous distribution of clothing, because by such assistance the greater part of the female members of the parish would be enabled by their own industry to provide articles for their clothing, and that of their children and families. From Castletownsend, County of Cork, 12 October, 1822. The number of females in absolute want of clothing, and of which the Committee have taken a list, amounts to fifteen hundred and thirty-seven, many of whom are confined to their wretched hovels for want of the smallest covering, and also several families in fever. From Weston, County of Cork, 18 October 1822. Having heard of your kind intentions, I feel I should not be doing my duty either to you or the poor of this parish, did I not bring to your notice their still existing wants in the article of clothes. I know several in want of wearing apparel, and some without the necessary covering of bed clothes, having been obliged to sell everything they possessed to procure food before they received the assistance from your country, so humanely extended upon the knowledge of their wretched situation. A case has come within my immediate notice of a poor women who has been, and still continues in the extremity of sickness, not having a blanket to cover her. From the Union of Tracton, County of Cork, 29 October, 1822. The difficulty of procuring subsistence last summer, obliged many to dispose of every saleable article they possessed, not only their wearing apparel, but also their bed-clothes which must be considered a great privation in any part of the country, but especially here where fuel is so scarce that the poor find it impossible to procure sufficient to supply their wants. 88

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From the County of Cork, 23 January, 1823 In replying through you to the queries of the London Committee, I take the same opportunity of requesting you to forward my most unfeigned thanks to our munificent English friends for the comfortable and timely supply of clothing, which came here during the last snowy week and was distributed among many of their desolate shivering, but very grateful fellow creatures. . . . From Tentrim, County of Galway. The clothing arrived in perfect order; you mentioned to have a small price affixed to every article, but you will excuse me I hope for not complying in this instance, for the poverty of this country is such, that those who wanted linen etc. a tattered petticoat being their only covering, I am convinced could not offer me 5d. or 10d. to purchase both these articles; therefore the consequence would be, that those who were in abject distress could procure no relief, and those who wanted least would get the clothing. On these grounds alone I have used my influence to give them gratuitously; it would have been a grateful sight to your benevolent Committee to witness the extacy [sic] of the poor creatures when dressed in their first comfortable and civilized apparel. I divided the articles singly to widows and mothers, in order to make the relief more extensive. From Renvyle, County of Galway, 13 January, 1823. Since I had the pleasure of sending you the account of £50 given to me by the Archbishop of Tuam,16 and distributed in clothing to the poor people of this neighbourhood, I have received an additional £50, which has been partly made up and given out to the poor people of the Killeries; and £10-15s. from the Ladies’ Committee I  laid out in flannel, to be sold at a reduced price to those poor women whom I knew to have earned the money by their personal industry, whether by needle-work or spinning. The flannel has been eagerly bought at eight-pence per yard. The spinning wheels sent to me I likewise lend or sell at a low price, but never give. From His Grace, the Archbishop of Tuam, dated 4 February, 1823. The whole of the clothing sent here by your Ladies’ Committee has been divided among the Ladies in your list. It is with much satisfaction I receive all of your communications from you and your benevolent Committee; my heart desire is to co-operate with you in the arduous and blessed work you have undertaken. I wish I may appear to you a faithful agent. 89

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From Shantalla, near Galway, 6 February, 1823. The Ladies of the Galway Dorcas Society,17 present their sincere and most grateful thanks to the benevolent Ladies of the London Committee, for the large and excellent supply of useful clothing, which has been forwarded to them by His Grace the Archbishop of Tuam. From the County of Galway, 3 March, 1823. My regret that indisposition should so long have hindered me from offering you my sincere thanks for the clothing consigned by your benevolent Committee to me, for the benefit of the poor of this district, can only be equaled by my inability to express those thanks in terms adequate to the feelings which dictate them. The Ladies of my Committee and myself expected but a very small portion of clothing, from the modesty with which you were always pleased to speak of your very munificent donation, but that which we received very much exceeded our expectations, and enabled us to be your agents in relieving one hundred families, whose prayers for your welfare are as sincere as they are unceasing. I cannot conclude without saying, for myself and the Ladies of my Committee, that is our sincere hope and fervent wish, that the bonds of gratitude and affection which have, during the last year, so closely united us to our fellow subjects of England, may ever continue as strong and as vigorous as they are at present.

Notes 1 Sir Capel Molyneux (1717–1797) of Castle Dillon, Co. Armagh, was a politician who sat in the Irish House of Commons, representing Clogher and then the University of Dublin. 2 Trophime-Gérard, Marquis de Lally-Tollendal (1751–1830) was a French politician. A conservative, he initially opposed the French Revolution. He devoted his later life to philanthropic work. His father was Thomas Arthur, Comte de Lally (1702–66), an Irish Jacobite exile, who commanded regiments on behalf of France, which were known as Regiment of Lally of the Irish Brigade. He was beheaded for his failure to secure India for France. 3 The King’s Own Scottish Borderers was an infantry regiment within the British Army. 4 An accounting company based in Cork City. 5 The Biddulphs were an English military and banking family. 6 A market town in Co. Derry. 7 Anne Jane Margaret Delacour was the daughter of Robert Delacour. She married William Beamish (1760–1828) in 1789. They lived in Beaumont House, Ballintemple, Co. Cork. She was also President of the Church Missionary Society for Africa, and later served as President of the Cork Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, 8 Straw plaiting was a method of manufacturing textiles by braiding straw, notably for straw hats. It provided employment particularly for women and children. 9 Messrs Hyett, Warmington and Brearley were employed as agents for the London Tavern Committee. 10 Captain John Duckworth (b. 1787) was active on behalf of the British and Irish Ladies’ Society. His wife was a member of the Carrick-on Shannon Ladies’ Society. His

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approach to giving relief was evangelical. His family home was in Mount Erris, near Boyle. 11 The Connaught Journal was published in Galway from 1793–1840. It was a weekly paper that appeared on Thursdays. 12 James Cropper of Liverpool (1797–1876) was a successful merchant, but he was also a prominent abolitionist and philanthropist. 13 The heath plant is indigenous to Ireland. It was formerly used to make yellow dye in the textile industry. There are a number of varieties including St Dabeoc’s Heath (Fraoch na haon choise) and the Cross-Leaved Heath (Fraoch naoscaí), the latter of which was most commonly used as a dye. 14 A large cask with a capacity equal to either 63 or 64 gallons. 15 A container holding the equivalent of half of a gallon. 16 Power Le Poer Trench (1770–1839), was a Dublin-born Anglican clergyman who became Archbishop of Tuam in 1819. Known for his compassion to the poor, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, he was also closely associated with the ‘Second Reformation’ in Connaught, an evangelical movement in the 1820s to convert Catholics. 17 A society formed for providing clothing to the poor. It often comprised of women and was usually attached to a Protestant church.

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Part V FAMINE IN THE 1830s

8 ‘FAMINE IN A FERTILE LAND’; REPORTS IN THE NEWSPAPERS (1831)

Food shortages occurred periodically in Ireland throughout the 1830s, particularly along the western seaboard. They coincided with debates taking place in Westminster about poverty and how it should be alleviated, which led to major changes in the English and Welsh Poor Law (1834) and to the introduction of an Irish Poor Law (1838). Overall, the new legislation indicated a harshening of attitudes towards the poor, and a stringency in the way in which relief was provided.1 The decade opened with a poor harvest. In 1830, the potato crop failed in many parts of Ireland, with the resultant distress in 1831 being most severe in the west, notably counties Galway, Mayo and Donegal. As in any period of shortages, external charity intervened to save the lives of the poor. London and Dublin took the lead with the formation of the Western Committee for the relief of the Irish Poor, the Irish Distress Committee (both in London) and the Sackville Street Committee in Ireland. The committees co-operated with each other, the two London committees benefiting from the expertise and knowledge of the Irish group.2 Subsidiary committees were established in the most distressed parts of the country. Rev. John MacHale, author of the appeal published below, was a member of the Galway Committee established by the London-based Irish Distress Fund.3 The Secretary was Sir Francis Lynch Blosse,4 who penned a number of heart-felt appeals that were reprinted in the newspapers on behalf of ‘our wretched people’.5 While MacHale, a fervent nationalist, did not doubt the generosity of the English people, he believed that the money being sent to Ireland had originated in the country anyway. MacHale had been part of a delegation from County Mayo that had travelled to London to meet with the British Prime Minister, Earl Grey, one of their requests being for a permanent solution to the recurring famines in Ireland. They suggested that this could be achieved if the government introduced positive legislation to help the Irish economy develop.6 Traditionally, disease accompanied famine. In 1832, a previously unknown infectious disease appeared in Ireland. The disease, referred to as Asiatic Cholera because of its origins in India, had swept across Europe, reaching England in late 1831, and from there it travelled to Ireland. Cholera appeared in Dublin and Belfast in March of the following year and quickly spread to every part of Ireland. 95

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Although the rich were not immune, it proved most deadly to those who were poor or lived in close proximity to others. It also disproportionately killed doctors, apothecaries and clergymen, whose duties put them particularly at risk. In the space of two years, it claimed an estimated 50,000 Irish lives.7 In 1849, cholera returned to Ireland, adding to the already high death rate in the country.8 There were intermittent crop failures throughout the rest of the decade. A poor potato harvest in 1834 meant that in 1835 there was again localized famine, most notably in County Mayo.9 During each of these crises, the barony of Erris in the northwest of the county was especially affected, one contemporary source explaining, ‘The land towards the coast is exposed to violent storms, which frequently destroy the potatoe [sic] crops, and involve the poorer peasantry in all the miseries of famine’.10 Many of the landlords were absentee, forcing the local poor to rely on a limited number of government relief works and private charity. In 1835, philanthropic committees similar to those formed four years earlier were established. The Mayo committee received most of its funding from the London Committee, but, by August of that year, the funds of the London Committee were exhausted.11 Again, John MacHale was involved in famine relief, as a member of the Mayo Central Committee. In the previous year, despite the vehement opposition of the British government, MacHale had been appointed the Archbishop of Tuam—a position that he continued to hold during the Great Famine.12 MacHale wanted the deliberations of the Mayo Committee to be open to the public and to the press, ‘in order to afford, full scope to inquiry and observation, and to dissipate any doubts that might exist in England, as to the nature and extent of the distress now prevailing in certain parts of Mayo’.13 The letters below were written by people active in raising awareness and relief, namely, Father James Hughes of Newport and Rev. John MacHale. In the letter below, Hughes is appealing to a local landowner, Richard O’Donel [sic]. O’Donel and the Marquis of Sligo were two of the most regular donors to the local relief committees.14 Hughes himself was praised in the Irish press for being indefatigable in his efforts on behalf of the poor.15 MacHale, increasingly a critic of British policies in Ireland, wrote a number of open letters to Earl Grey, which were published in the Irish press.16 The first one was written on 29 April 1830, and the one printed below, six weeks later.17

The Telegraph or Connaught Ranger, 1 June 1831 ‘Distress in the West’ (from the Sun) . . . “To Sir R. A. O’Donel [sic],18 16, Wimpole-Street.

Newport, May 20.

Dear Sir—It was only on yesterday evening I had the honour to receive yours of the 14th instant, bringing to me and the starving poor of this widely extended district, the joyful tidings of seventy tons of meal being appointed by the London Committee for their relief. As to the numbers in distress here, you must be already 96

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well acquainted with—they are from 19 to 20,000. In this district half of the usual tillage of potatoes cannot by any possibility be made this season from lack of seed. Up to this day I would not say that as yet more than fourteen persons died of actual starvation; but as so many have fallen the hapless victims of hunger in the immediate vicinity of Newport, I can have no doubt but the number who have fallen similarly throughout the entire district must be considerably more. Already the constitutions of multitudes are so completely exhausted, and reduced to such a pitch of debility, that no relief, however prompt, can avert their immediate and inevitable dissolution. In a very few weeks they will be dying—not in the arithmetical ratio of 2, 4, 6, but the geometrical ratio of 3, 9, 27, every day. In districts of this parish the people had for some time no other sustenance but the rotting potato-slits they used to pick out of the earth. I must tell you, that I and my curate have had for the last three weeks the greatest possible difficulty in restraining people from going to the mountains to take with them in open day their neighbours’ cattle, to slaughter them for their starving families. Before a month, the houses of such as will be suspected to have food will be broken into and plundered—the cattle of the country will soon be looked on by the people as common property—the gaols will be filled with persons guilty of these robberies—they will be tried, and I suppose, acquitted. But at all events, morality in this country will receive this year so vital a stab by this system of plunder, confinement, and acquittal, that it will become afterwards next to impossibility to reside much longer in it; for after this year the commission of the greatest crimes will become, I am almost certain, perfectly familiar to the poor here. Many persons here and in this country are of the opinion, that the government and the ministry have adopted, in this season of distress, the withholding of any relief as a sure method to thin the population of this country. I am not of that opinion, but it is a most effectual way to accomplish that end. We are this day without money, without potatoes, without meal, or any other means of support, for the starving poor here—we are in daily expectation of the 150 tons of potatoes ordered for us by the London Committee. I beg most respectfully to mention to your Committee that no aid which they can derive from private subscription will meet the distress here—every hour of the day my house is thronged with poor, crying and weeping from hunger. The Rev. Mr. Prendergast and the Rev. Mr. Hughes have died of typhus fever, which they had taken in their houses from the poor calling for relief. Mr. Hughes was P.P. of Crossmolina, and Mr. Prendergast was P.P. in Connemara—I have the honor to be, dear Sir, your very humble servant, James Hughes, P.P. Newport.”19 To Sir Richard A. O’Donel [sic], Bart.

Telegraph or Connaught Ranger, 12 July 1831 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL GREY.20

Ballina, July 9, 1831.

MY LORD—In the late interview which we had the honour of having with your Lordship, it was suggested that however pressing was the present famine, the 97

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object of our mission would be frustrated unless some legislative measure were adopted to guard against its recurrence in seasons of general plenty. Never did I feel the necessity of adopting such a suggestion so much as since my return to this unhappy land. I had some anticipation of the scenes I should witness, and strove to arm myself with sufficient resolution to encounter them. But the reality far surpasses my most gloomy mis-bodings. It is some days since I arrived here, and lest I should be imposed upon by exaggerated reports, I was resolved as far as opportunity could allow me to bring the state of the poor within my own personal observations. I went into their wretched cabins and found instances of many families, who, during several alternate days, had not tasted a morsel of food. The testimony of their neighbours was ready to confirm their distressing tale: a more unequivocal evidence could be read in their pallid and emaciated countenances. I will not, however, dwell upon such evidence of hunger and famine. It has been already laid before the public by the attestations of strangers, whom sympathy brought to visit and compassionate our distress. Among those witnesses, I refer your Lordship to a letter published in the Evening Post of the 23rd June, which describes the feeble frames and faltering limbs of the wretched victims of starvation, in terms which were evidently caught from the contemplation of the sad reality. But why refer to any evidence when the blood of those who lately exposed themselves to the musketry of soldiers, rather than die by the slow tortures of hunger, proclaims aloud the dreadful effects of starvation.21 It has been rumoured that the agent of the government here, laboured to convey an impression that the distress was neither so deep nor extensive as it was stated. I could not credit such a report. I knew that any agent must have had a heart as well as eyes; and, therefore, he could not deny the workings of the awful visitation unless he had extinguished the light of the one and the feelings of the other. I perceived, however, at the last meeting of the Mayo Committee, that those rumours were unfounded. He came forward to supply the deficiency between the funds in their hands and the calculated amount of the necessary supplies of the week. It might appear to some that he was rigorous in insisting that certain provisions sent by the Sackville Street Committee,22 should be merged in the common stock of provisions for the famishing people. In that instance, I must applaud his conduct. It was uncomfortable to the pledge given to us, that the government would aid the public exertions, and, provided that pledge is fully redeemed, we shall be satisfied. During the three next weeks, when famine shall be rapidly rising to its climax, the demands upon the government must be on a far more extended scale. All the past benevolence of the public would be abortive, unless the people are supplied with provisions during this distressing interval. It is like a gulph23 between the present and the coming year, in which thousands must perish unless conducted through by the assistance of government. Your Lordship may judge of my inability to devote the least attention to any ulterior measures, when I assure you, that it was with difficulty I could snatch from the pressure of distress and the clamours of mendicants, a brief interval to pen 98

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this melancholy document. Yes, the state of society is now completely unhinged. Domestic industry is neglected. The public roads are covered with thousands toiling from morning until night, for the wretched pittance of six or seven pence worth of meal for an entire family. While the men are thus working, the women and children are constantly lining the public ways, and thronging round the depots of the local committees, preventing each other’s accommodation by the pressure of hunger—harassing the feelings of the distributors by their complaints, and invading the public ear as they return in the evening by blessings or imprecations, according as they had the good or bad fortune to be relieved or neglected. It was only yesterday evening I met a group of those unfortunate individuals, many of whom, after watching a whole day, returned home bitterly disappointed. There was one in particular, whose moans as well as fainting appearance, attracted my attention: a feeble woman with a child at her breast, who came to get a meal for a family of seven little children. She left them in the morning without breaking her own of their fast; and she was now tottering home, a distance of three miles, with her little bag empty, and wildly asking those around her how she could meet the cries of her famishing children. She literally reminded me of the words of the Prophet, “The little ones look for bread, and there was none to break it.” And had I not afforded her the means of relief, I doubt, from her appearance, whether she would not have perished on the way. Some interested persons may exclaim, there are in the accounts from Mayo, instances of exaggeration. That there are cases of exaggeration, nay, of fraud, I shall not hesitate to avow. But they are the unavoidable result of the evil. The cases of exaggeration, however, are but few, and the frauds are petty. If, then, some hard hearted and dishonest individuals may be able, by false statements, to filch a little of the charity provisions, is that a reason why hundreds of thousands should be suffered to perish? The precautions taken by the Central Committee of Mayo are such as that I should defy the most practiced jobber in the land to do much in that way. The allocations to the distressed districts are all made in provisions. The members contract with the merchants after receiving proposals, and then orders for their respective shares are given on the merchants to the local committees. Whatever, therefore, might be the disposition, there are sufficient precautions against the execution of any serious frauds. An undeserving object may sometimes intercept a few quarts of meal. Some of the local committees may occasionally exercise their small patronage in promoting some poor gentleman to the stewardship of the public works, and allow him 6d or a shilling a day extra, in order to prevent the dignity of his estate from being tainted by a community of office with less genteel mendicants. But such things are only the nibblings of a mouse compared to the more lordly spoliation of which the report (true or false I know not), of ’22 almost frightened the English people from a second exertion of benevolence.24 To that generous people I must express our obligations, and I shall do many of them the justice to say that it is owing to their ignorance of our state they do not 99

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exert themselves as much to prevent famine by a system of sound legislation, as they do by their purse to mitigate its horrors. I should fear to contemplate once more the recurrence of a similar scene. I should fear it for the sake of the people, the government, and, above all, the interests of morality and religion. The invasion of a hostile power is not more dreadful in its consequences than that of famine, especially amidst plenty. It is a species of revolution, of which the effects are long felt. It comes with a scorching effect on the moral virtues of the people, and the traces of the searing bolt appears long and deeply furrowed in their character. The inhabitants of entire districts literally loosened from the soil, and flocking like vultures wherever the hope of food may lead—the numbers of aged and infirm objects starving in their homes, deprived of the usual solace of charity on account of the committees, and defrauded by their feebleness and their delicacy of that resource, while more sturdy and shameless beggars sometimes intercept the public bounty—complaints of partiality against those who sacrifice their health, nay, life itself in the daily distributions, and murmurs of ingratitude from the worthless few, mingled with the more general expression of thankfulness and benediction—landlords who were deaf and blind and callous to the wants of their tenantry, while they alone were called on to relieve them, becoming suddenly and miraculously sensitive to their destitution, while they hope to remove it by the charity of others—a grinding system of rackrents foolishly kept up, in the hope that again as well as on this occasion, the public and the government will interpose to protect the wretched small tenantry from starvation—insidious hypocrites, pandering to the prejudices of a decayed bigotry, and deriving an unchristian traffic on the distresses of one country, and the credulity of another—an imprudent hope of relief in similar cases, and a consequent relaxation of industry—the lofty feeling that could not brook eleemosynary aid is so now impaired, if not utterly broken down, as to depress a proud and high-minded peasantry into a mass of mendicants. An improvident hope of relief in similar cases, and consequent relaxation of industry; a sullen and indignant hate towards their petty oppressors, for having stript [sic] them first of their substance and next of their shame, and a spirit of political cabal, unknown to their more simple-minded as well as better-conditioned predecessors. Those are but a few of the necessary consequences of famine in a fertile land—a foe which, if suffered again to ravage Ireland, will utterly demoralize the people, and destroy those virtues of which the wreck that yet remains could still, in the hands of an able statesman, form the foundation of one of the noblest social edifices that could be exhibited in any country. I have the honour to be your Lordship’s obedient servant, +JOHN MACHALE.25

Telegraph or Connaught Ranger, 1 June 1831 We have much satisfaction in announcing that a bazaar26 will be held in the Hanover rooms,27 on Saturday, the 11th, and Monday, the 13th of June, under the 100

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immediate patronage of our most gracious Queen, the Duchesses of Kent and Gloucester, the Lady Mayoress, and many distinguished personages, the proceeds to be applied to the relief of the miserable and starving peasantry of Mayo and Galway, whose condition, from the progress of famine and disease, at this moment, it is heart-rending to contemplate. Globe A meeting is holding this day in London, at the new building, called Exeter Hall,28 of the Nobility and Gentry of the western part of the Metropolis, for the purpose of raising funds, and devising means of affording relief to the famishing peasantry in the West of Ireland. Lord Lorton was to preside. Great and benevolent interest has been created in favour of the object, and we sanguinely anticipate the result will be, as it always has been, when the sympathy of England has been properly awakened, a most liberal contribution. Sun. The subscriptions in Guernsey for the distressed and starving Irish amount to near 500l., part of which has been remitted. In 1822 upwards of 700l. were collected there for a similar purpose. Such deeds do the island much credit.

Telegraph or Connaught Ranger, 22 June 1831 THE FAMINE IN THE WEST OF IRELAND. The Relief Committee met to-day, at their rooms, 37, Corn-Hill. The Earl of Caledon, in the Chair. It was attended by all the members of the Mayo deputation. Amongst various minor contributions to the relief fund, a sum of 450l. was handed in by Mr. John Long, as the first instalment of Chelsea parish. On the motion of Mr. John Smith,29 5,000l. were allocated for the immediate relief of Mayo and Galway, and after much deliberation that sum was sub-divided as follows— 1,500l. in money to be remitted this night to the Mayo Central Committee, and 1,000l. to the Galway Central Committee, and 1,500l. worth of meal to be forwarded as soon as possible to the port of Bailina, [sic] consigned to the Central Committee, and after such portions of it as the committee may deem proper is there landed, the vessel is to move round with the remainder by Belmullet, Newport and Westport, landing at those places such portions of the remainder as the committee may direct; 1,000l worth of Meal to be forwarded to the port of Galway, to the Galway Central Committee. All the members of the Mayo deputation, except Lord Sligo,30 who was obliged to go away early to attend the levée, contended that the extent of distress in Mayo was at least double that of Galway, and that therefore the money should be distributed in the proportion of two to one in favour of Mayo. But they were opposed by one gentleman who refused to produce any statements of the extent of suffering in Galway. The gentry and clergy of Galway ought to have furnished detailed accounts after the example of Mayo. The committee expect this will be done even at this advanced period, to regulate them in their future disbursements. It is quite unfair that so large a proportion of the contributions of a charitable public who are only anxious to extend relief equally should be drawn away through the influence 101

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of an individual on vague statements. A great part of Galway is unfortunately very much distressed, and ought to get its fair proportion, but as soon as the returns are made out I trust the number of sufferers will be found to be little more than a third of the appalling number seen to in Mayo, 146,000. Charity requires that the Galway gentry and clergy should make those returns immediately in order to direct the government and the public in their future contributions. MAYO RELIEF COMMITTEE—MANSION HOUSE. The following important communication has been received by the Secretaries to the above Committee. We recommend its perusal to our readers, and we sincerely hope they will imitate so laudable an example:—

“Kelvin Grove, June 13, 1831.

Gentlemen—I have the honour of acknowledging your letter of the 11th instant, on the subject of the Mayo relief fund, and feel much obliged by your exertions with the G.C. Company. I am directed by the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle,31 and the other gentlemen here who have interested themselves in this important business to inform you that every exertion that we can make, in the course of this and the next week, shall be made to assist your efforts. We have got in already a considerable contribution in good sound potatoes; and expect by the latter end of the week to be able to forward you a boat load of forty tons. I have the further pleasure to say, that there having been a large meeting of the landed gentry of this county in town to-day on other business, I took the opportunity of waiting on Sir Thomas Butler with a request that he might call their attention to the subject.32 He did so, and did it with effect. They subscribed on the spot the sum of £150 odd, which will be remitted to you through the Rev. Mr. Vernon,33 the rector of this town, together with some more which Sir T. Butler assured me he had every reason to expect in addition. This, you will perceive, is totally independent of our contributions of potatoes. I did not like to let a post pass without giving you the earliest intimation on these heads, in order to shew that we deeply feel, in common with our Dublin friends, the absolute necessity of endeavouring, as far as in us lies, to avert one of the heaviest visitations with which the country has been afflicted for many years. I have to remain, in haste, most respectfully, yours, THOMAS HAUGHTON.”34 We learn with pleasure that there is to be a collection at the Catholic Chapel at Dumbarton, on Sunday next, to assist the benevolent intention of relieving the distressed in Ireland. A similar collection was made in the Catholic Chapel here upon Sunday last.—Glasgow Paper. 102

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Whilst on this subject, we may observe, that notwithstanding all we have heard and read on the subject of negro slavery, the fact is, that the slave population in the West Indies is infinitely better off than the population of the absentee estates in the sister country. The former if allowed to fall off or suffer from want cannot be replaced without money; therefore, it is the interest of the proprietors to watch over the wants and necessities of the slave; of the latter it has not unfrequently been said by their charitable absentee landlords, that ‘the population has increased so rapidly a war would be a lucky event, as it might contribute to thin it!’ What would we say in this country of a laboring man having to support a wife, and perhaps several children (for the Irish cabins are generally well stocked with these) on 6d. a day? But such is the fact in that part where the distress now prevails. Nay, more, pay for the miserable hut and a small patch of a potato-garden. How is that done? It cannot be out of the 6d. a day. No; but by the pig which Paddy feeds— and, to fatten it, it not unfrequently happens that many a young Pat and thriving Shelah must be put on short allowance, to put the pig in order for the next rent day; whilst the weeping mother sees the food that should belong to her children go to provide for the rent that is to be paid into the coffers of a person whom she, or perhaps the father of her family, has never seen: but of evils the least is chosen, and it is thought better to limit the meal even of potatoes than to be turned out of doors, which would assuredly be the case if the agent (whom in this country we call a factor) were not prepared to make an early remittance to the landlord, then most likely basking under an Italian sky, at all events, spending his money in any country but that which produced it.—The only effectual way to reach these gentry, is to establish a poor’s rate, by which means the poor would be fed before the absentees could draw anything out of the country. This will be done in the very first session of a Reformed Parliament.35 – Glasgow Free Press.36

Notes 1 Christine Kinealy, ‘The operation of the Poor Law during the Famine’ in John Crowley, Michael Murphy and William Smyth (eds), The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine 1845–52 (Cork University Press, 2012). 2 See, Proceedings of the Western Committee for the relief of the Irish Poor (London: Alexander Macintosh, 1831). A copy of this pamphlet was given free to subscribers. 3 Irish Distress Fund, p. 12. 4 Sir Francis Blosse (1801–40) was the ninth baronet. The family seat was Athavallie House in Castlebar, County Mayo. 5 ‘Distress in Mayo’, the Telegraph or Connaught Ranger (hereafter, Connaught Telegraph) 8 June 1831. The newspaper, also initially known as the Mayo Telegraph, was published in Castlebar in Co. Mayo. It was a weekly paper and, in 1831, cost 7d. The paper ran from 1828–1870. In 1845, the newspaper was one of the first to call for food exports to be halted, 1 October and 19 November 1845. 6 Bernard O’Reilly, John MacHale, archbishop of Tuam: his life, times, and correspondence (New York: F. Pustet, 1890), pp.148–149. 7 Hugh Fenning, ‘The Cholera Epidemic in Ireland, 1832–3: Priests, Ministers, Doctors’ in Archivium Hibernicum, vol. 57 (Catholic Historical Society of Ireland, 2003), pp. 77–125.

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8 For example, ‘Belfast Cholera Report’, Belfast News-Letter, 13 February 1849; Ibid., ‘Deaths’, 20 July 1849. 9 Throughout the summer of 1835, newspapers were carrying reports of the distress, for example, ‘Distress in Mayo’, Freeman’s Journal, 22 July 1835. 10 Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), at http://www.libraryireland.com/topog/K/Kilmore-Erris-Erris-Mayo.php, accessed 12 December 2016. 11 ‘Distress in Erris’, Freeman’s Journal, 5 August 1835. 12 Enda Delaney, The Curse of Reason. The Great Irish Famine (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2012), p. 20. 13 ‘Mayo Central Committee’, Freeman’s Journal, 12 June 1835. 14 ‘Newport Relief Committee’, Connaught Telegraph, 13 April 1831. 15 Ibid., ‘Distress in Mayo’, 8 June 1831. 16 Ibid., ‘To the Right Honorable Earl Grey’, From John MacHale, Ballina, 20 May 1831. 17 Bernard O’ Reilly, Archbishop MacHale, his life, times, and correspondence (New York: Fr Puset, 1890), p. 33. 18 Sir Richard Annesley O’Donnel (or O’Donel or O’Donnell) (1808–1878), the fourth Baronet, of Newport House in Co, Mayo. In 1836, the family owned 30,000 acres in the barony of Erris, but by 1850, the O’Donels were in severe financial difficulties. See: http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=33, accessed 18 October 2016. 19 Father James Hughes (d. 1850) was the priest in St Joseph’s parish in Newport. He was an avid supporter of Daniel O’Connell and Repeal. He also served as parish priest in Newport during the Great Famine. 20 Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) was Whig Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834. In addition to overseeing government relief in 1831, Grey was a Steward of the ‘Royal Irish Ball Committee’, which gave £3,000 to counties Galway and Mayo in July of that year. He gave his name to Earl Grey tea. 21 Throughout 1831, there was widespread rioting and agitation in Co. Clare. 22 The Sackville Street Relief Committee got its name from its meeting place in 16 Upper Sackville Street in Dublin. It mainly looked after funds raised within Ireland, but also cooperated with the larger committees formed in London. In September 1846, the committee re-formed, amidst some accusations of proselytism. See, Christine Kinealy, Charity and the Great Hunger. The Kindness of Strangers (London, Bloomsbury, 2013) pp. 261–65. 23 Archaic spelling of gulf. 24 A reference to the food shortages in 1822. 25 John MacHale (c.1791–1881) was born in Co. Mayo at a time of revolutionary upheaval in Europe. Within Ireland, it coincided with Catholics regaining some of the civil rights taken away by the Penal Laws. In 1824, he was ordained a priest at Maynooth College, he coming to public prominence for his attacks on attempts at proselytizing by the Protestant churches, and his support for Catholic Emancipation. In 1834, he was appointed Archbishop of Tuam, despite the attempts by the British government to thwart this. His unceasing championship of his fellow Catholics and of the poor earned him the sobriquet, ‘the lion of the west’. 26 Bazaars had become a fashionable way for upper class women to raise money on behalf of their chosen charities. This one was patronized by the Queen, Adelaide of SaxeMeiningen, who was accompanied by some of the leading (and most philanthropic) landowners in Mayo and Galway, including the Marquesses of Sligo and Clanricarde, and Sir O’Donel. See, ‘Bazaar for the Relief of the Distressed Irish’ in Connaught Telegraph, 22 June 1831. 27 The Hanover Square Rooms, on the corner of Hanover Square in London, had opened in 1774. They were a prestigious venue for concerts, balls, lectures and philanthropic fairs and bazaars.

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28 Situated on the Strand in London, the imposing Exeter Hall was erected between 1829 and 1831. Dedicated to piety and virtue, it became associated with the Protestant evangelical movement. The auditorium also provided a location for political meetings, notably ones promoting anti-slavery. 29 John Smith Esq. MP (1767–1842) was a Tory politician and a banker. He was involved in a number of charities, including being chairman of the London Tavern Association during the famines of 1822 and 1831. 30 Howe Peter Browne, the 2nd Marquis of Sligo (1788–1845) owned the Westport Estate. He and his wife were active in famine relief during intermittent periods of distress in Co. Mayo. See, ‘Lady Sligo Exhibition’, Ireland’s Great Hunger Institute, Quinnipiac University, 2014–2015. 31 James Warren Doyle (1786–1834) was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, from 1819 until his death. He was an ally of Daniel O’Connell during the campaign for Catholic Emancipation. Doyle was also a vehement opponent of the payment of tithes to the Established Church, writing polemics under the pen-name, ‘JKL’. He was largely responsible for the building of Carlow Cathedral. 32 Sir Thomas Butler (1783–1861) of Cloughgrenan in Carlow was the eighth baronet. He was appointed Sherriff of County Carlow in 1818. 33 Rev. George Venables Vernon was the Church of Ireland Rector of Carlow from 1822 to 1836, when he resigned. His wife, Jane Vernon (1788–1827), was also known for her charitable work and she was commemorated with a memorial tablet (by the Irish sculptor, Thomas Kirk) in St Mary’s Church in Carlow. 34 Thomas Haughton (1788–1851) of Grove House, Athy Road, near to Carlow, was a merchant. He was father of Samuel (b. 1822), a noted engineer. Both Haughton and the Rev. Vernon gave evidence before the Poor Inquiry on State of Poorer Classes in Ireland (1833–36). See, Appendix A, First Report of Commissioners, House of Commons, 8 July 1835. 35 Written a year before the passing of the Representation of People Act (Reform Act of 1832), which reformed the electoral system throughout the United Kingdom. In Ireland, the number of MPs was increased from 100 to 105. 36 The Free Press commenced publication in Lanarkshire in 1823. The editor was William Bennet (real name, Benock) allegedly a blacksmith from Dumfries. See, James Anthony Froude et al, Fraser’s Magazine, vol. 18 (1838), pp. 80–81.

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Part VI THE CRISES OF THE 1860s The catastrophe of the Great Famine was largely overcome in the 1850s by the improving economic circumstances, partly as a result of the Crimean War (1853– 56), which led to an increase in agricultural prices. It meant that many tenant farmers were in a position to repay the arrears of rent which had accumulated since the late 1840s. At the same time, the direction of agriculture was changing as grazing became the more dominant activity instead of tillage. The later stages of the Famine had resulted in large scale clearances of the smaller tenant farmers by landowners, leading to between 250,000 and 500,000 people being evicted and the farms consolidated, which had facilitating grazing activities. However, a two-tiered Ireland was now in existence: in the east the population declined, large scale emigration took place, people married later and dependence on the potato as the main food source declined. The year 1862 coincided with international turmoil, occasioned by the American Civil War, making the United States a less desirable destination for Irish emigrants. Its impact in England, mainly in the industrialized north west, led to a period of shortage and unemployment. During the various parliamentary debates, comparisons were frequently made between the Irish poor and the poor in the industrial parts of Lancashire in the north west of England, many of whom were unemployed or under-employed during the concurrent economic depression known as ‘the Cotton Famine’, precipitated by a blockade of southern ports in the United States. The famine of 1861 to 1863 was the first major subsistence crisis in Ireland since the late 1840s. While there were some similarities with the Great Famine in terms of the trigger factors – a poor potato crop, inclement weather, a smaller than usual corn harvest—a significant additional factor was the failure of the turf crop, leaving the poor without their usual supply of fuel and therefore vulnerable to illness and disease. One account, written two decades later, estimated that the value of the principle crops in Ireland—wheat, oats and potatoes—had dropped by over £12,000 in the three years 1860 to 1862, that is, from £40,000 to £27,000. During the same period, however, the consumption of spirits in the country had only fallen from 2,463,000 to 2,300,000 gallons.1 The food shortages were intensified by the

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insufficient supply of turf. These shortages gave rise to the term, ‘fuel famine’. As the documents show, the cold damp winters in Ireland, and the widespread pawning of food and bedding, had left the people vulnerable, with no ability to heat their homes. Moreover, the crisis was accompanied by a rise in evictions and in emigration. An early example of this occurred with the eviction of sixty-eight families in Partry in Co. Mayo in November 1860, followed by further evictions on the estate of John George Adair in Derryveagh in County Donegal.2 The resultant scenes of homelessness were redolent of the Great Famine. The political background to the subsistence crisis was the rise of Fenianism, on both sides of the Atlantic. An event that brought the movement together in a dramatic spectacle, was the burial of Terence McManus in November 1861. McManus, a participant in the 1848 Rising had died in San Francisco, probably from alcoholism.3 Regardless of being a minor player both in 1848 and subsequently, his death became an occasion for making a grand political gesture, and so his body was brought, theatrically and slowly, back to Ireland, via New York and the resplendent St  Patrick’s Cathedral. The final burial in Glasnevin Cemetery brought thousands on to the streets of Dublin. McManus’s prolonged funeral marked the revival of radical Irish nationalism and provided a tangible link between Young Ireland and the latest generation of nationalists, and the background to both was famine.4 Although what took place in Ireland between 1860 and 1863 is more generally referred to by historians as an ‘agricultural crisis’, the documents below demonstrate that famine did exist in parts of the country. Moreover, it was a reminder that the dramatic fall in population that had accompanied the Great Famine had not solved the problem of poverty and starvation in Irish society. The three documents that follow view the crisis from the perspective of sympathetic eye-witness, various debates by members of parliament in London regarding the extent of the distress, and the response of a Dublin-based philanthropic committee.

Henry Coulter, The West of Ireland: Its Existing Condition and Prospects (1861 and 1862). As had been the case during the Great Famine, news of the shortages and hunger attracted a number of commentators and journalists to travel to the west of Ireland to witness the suffering first-hand. One of these was Henry Coulter, reporter for the conservative, Dublin-based Saunders’ Newsletter.5 As a young journalist, he had honed his writing skills working for the Freeman’s Journal. Newryborn Coulter spent four months reporting from counties Galway, Clare, Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo, which were the most distressed areas. He suggested that the situation in the poorer parts of the west of Ireland 108

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was desperate, and had been exacerbated by the scarcity of fuel due to the harsh weather conditions, but he did not believe that it would result in starvation. Coulter was particularly critical of Irish money-lenders who preyed on the vulnerability of the poor to charge exhorbitant prices and credit rates. Coulter’s reports had initially appeared as a series of letters. These were republished in book form in 1862, ‘without any material alteration’, accompanied by a number of attractive, colour illustrations. In a note to readers, he stated that, ‘The great object of the writer has been to ascertain the truth, and to represent the state of the country as the several circumstances came under his personal observation’.6

Notes 1 Sydney Buxton MP, Finance and Politics: An Historical Study. 1783–1885, vol. 1 (London: J. Murray, 1888), p. 283. 2 Gerard Moran, The Mayo Evictions of 1860: Patrick Lavelle and the ‘War’ in Partry (Dublin: Nonesuch, 1986). 3 See Christine Kinealy, Repeal and Revolution 1848 in Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2000), passim. 4 Louis Bisceglia, ‘The Fenian Funeral of Terence Bellew McManus’, in Éire-Ireland, Vol. 14, no. 3, Fall, 1979, pp. 45–57. 5 Henry Coulter (1829–1911), the special correspondent of the Saunder’s Newsletter, over a four month period in 1861–1862 visited the west of Ireland reporting on the poor harvests and the impending famine. 6 Coulter, ‘Notice to Readers’, April 1862.

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9 HENRY COULTER, THE WEST OF IRELAND: ITS EXISTING CONDITION AND PROSPECTS (DUBLIN: HODGES & SMITH AND LONDON: HURST & BLACKETT, 1862), pp. 21–37 Scariff, November 22 The union of Scariff, which includes parts of the baronies of Upper and Lower Tulla in the county of Clare, and the barony of Leitrim in the county of Galway, was one of those that contained an unenviable notoriety in the famine years.1 In ranked next to Skibbereen in the extent and intensity of the distress which then prevailed, and which reduced the entire population to pauperism; for at one time there were no fewer than 21,000 persons receiving outdoor relief, besides 4,000 who were inmates of the workhouse. The unparalleled nature of that calamity had the effect of diminishing the population by death and emigration, and, taking the whole of the union, it is not too much to say that the number of its inhabitants has decreased one-third since the year 1845. For instance, the parish of Iniscalthra, which is partly situated in both counties, contained in 1841, 449 families, numbering 2,198 persons; in 1851, 301 families, and 1,533 persons; in 1854, 234 families, and 1,264 persons; and in 1857, 226 families, numbering 1,181 individuals – thus showing a diminution in twelve years of 1,365 persons, arising chiefly from emigration; for I understand that in this district of the country there were no evictions. The last census shows a further decrease, but the results have not been made public.2 Distress has not yet manifested itself to any sensible degree; but it is to be feared that many of the small farmers will not have any potatoes left by the end of January, and that they will find much difficulty in making a subsistence for the next six months, for few persons of this class, whose holdings range from five to fifteen acres, have put by anything as a resource upon which they can draw in a bad season such as we have just had. During the previous four or five years they were able to pay their rents punctually, and could have saved a little, had they acted with proper economy and prudence; but, relying on a continuance of favourable harvests, very many spent all, and even ran in debt to the shopkeepers, whose claims are now pressing heavily upon them. A shrewd and intelligent old man, who cultivates about ten acres, when speaking to me relative to the 111

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condition of his own class, observed: “They riz [sic] above themselves entirely, and that’s why they are so pinched now”. I did not at first catch his meaning, and when I asked him to explain what he meant, he replied:” Nothing would do them but they should buy fine clothes for their wives and daughters, and now they find it hard to pay for them”. I believe this to be literally true, and that it applies to a large class both in Clare and Galway, for I have it on reliable authority that there are instances of young girls, the daughters of small farmers, who some years ago made their appearance at fairs and markets in bare feet and clothed in tattered garments, now flaunting about in handsome gowns, with hoops of the most fashionable amplitude, and turban hats and feathers of the newest style. Ridiculous as such illustrations of female vanity in persons of a rank so humble undoubtedly are, they afford no slight proof of the prosperous condition of the farming classes during the last few years, and are gratifying as indications of an improved taste and better notions on the subject of personal neatness and cleanliness than formerly prevailed, for it is better that the woman should be overdressed, than slovenly and unclean. I am glad to be able to state that I have seen very few beggars since I have come to the West, and that the labouring people are, generally speaking, respectably and comfortably clad. The battered hat and coat of shreds and patches, which used formerly to characterize the poor Irishman, seem to have disappeared. However, as I have said, many of the small farmers have become indebted to the shopkeepers for articles of dress and other things, and now find much difficulty in meeting liabilities, which is proved by the great increase in the number of processes entered and the decrees issued at the quarter sessions throughout the country. The exhortations of the usurers, who are to be found in almost every country town, also press very severely on the unfortunate people whose necessities force them to have recourse to those harpies, for the mass of the people are absolutely ignorant of the commercial value of money, and though they feel the burden, and sometimes sink under it, they do not really know how atrociously they have been “fleeced”. Fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, and one hundred per cent, are frequently charged by these money-lenders. Here are two illustrations of the system:—A farmer applies for the loan of £5; he receives only £4 15s., and has to repay the sum nominally borrowed at the rate of £1 1s. per month for five months. In other cases a shilling in the pound is deducted in the first instance on lending the money, and interest is charged afterwards at the rate of six pence per pound per month until the loan is repaid. I leave it to your readers to calculate for themselves the rate of interest which is charged in these cases; but there are several instances in which the interest levied exceeds 100 per cent. The money is advanced generally without risk to the lender, for he always takes care to have two or three names on the I O U, and is able to recover the amount at any time he pleases. If the debtor appears to be in embarrassed circumstances before the half-year’s rent becomes payable, the usurer runs at once to the quarter sessions, takes out a decree, and thus anticipates the landlord in demanding payment of his rent. A large number of the decrees which have been 112

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issued at the last quarter sessions in the counties of Galway and Clare are of this description. I shall now proceed to state the result of my observations, and of the information which I have gleaned from different sources, respecting the condition of the district between Woodford and the county of Clare, lying along the borders of Lough Derg, and bounded on the north by the mountains of Derrygoolin and Bohatch, and which comprises an area of about twenty-two square miles. The soil is for the most part a still clay, overlaying clay slate, except in a few places where the limestone crops out; it is consequently cold and tenacious, and does not free the percolation of the rain. In the year 1849, the population of this district was represented by 665 families, numbering 5,713 persons; in the present year the number of families is 567, and the inhabitants 3,036. Comparing the breadth of land under tillage in 1849 with that of the present year, we find that there has been no sensible decrease commensurate with the diminution of the population. In the months of May and June the crops presented a most favourable appearance, but the farmers were disappointed in their expectations by the very severe weather of July and August. The rain fell in torrents, so that the waters of the lake rose to the height of the average winter floods, and were not so high during any preceding summer since 1821. The consequence was, that all the low lands were perfectly saturated; in many instances the meadow lands were completely flooded, and that crop which should have been cut down and saved in August, was, of necessity, left standing until the middle and end of September. The hay, which, had it been preserved in time, would have been excellent, has yielded a most modest return; for although a good deal of it has been cut, there is scarcely any of good quality. There was not much wheat grown in this district, but what has been sown turned out badly, as the rain, which came on when the ear was filling, caused the grain to be of inferior quality. There is no such thing as a first-class article in the market, and the average produce is said to be about one-half the yield of a good year. The oat crop is much better, but it is also short in quantity and inferior in quality. The potato crop suffered more than any other, for, generally speaking, potatoes were not planted early, and consequently when the blight appeared in August, the tubers were soft, and therefore susceptible of injury. In mountainous and boggy districts, and when planted in March, the produce is good, and the loss from disease not more than one-fifth; but, as early planting was not generally adopted, the loss to the farmers has been immense. The yield of sound potatoes has been fully one-half under the average return of tolerably good years; and I regret to say that potatoes which, when pitted, about three weeks since, appeared to be in good condition, have been found, on the opening of the pit, to have suffered a further diminution to the extent of one-fifth. Turf, which is so necessary to the comfort of the Irish cabin, will be extremely scarce with the poor—namely, the small farmer holding five to six acres, and the labouring man. The bogs are plentiful about here, but in some instances the people are not allowed to cut the turf until it suits the whim of the proprietors to apportion the banks—in fact, until their own has been cut and saved. Thus the season 113

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is often far advanced before they can cut their fuel, and then, if rainy weather sets in, they cannot save it. The Marquis of Clanricarde, who owns a great portion of the bogs, places no restriction on his tenants; therefore, some of them have been able to save their turf, and those who have done so are now supplying Nenagh and Killaloe.3 Indeed, there are not many proprietors who place any restriction on their tenants in respect to the cutting of turf. Mr. Philip Reade, of Wood Park, in the neighbourhood of the little village of Mount Shannon, with his accustomed liberality, allows all parties, wholly irrespective of whose tenants they are, to take away the underwood in his extensive plantations, and I need hardly say what a boon he had conferred on the poor nearby.4 Mr. Reade and Mrs. Tandy,5 who are the owners of the parish of Inishcalthra, also give a large amount of employment throughout the year, at good wages,; and if their example were more generally followed by the resident gentry, there would be but little fear of destitution amongst the labouring population during the coming winter and spring. As I have mentioned the name of Mr. Reade, it may not be out of place to quote a passage from a work published in 1842 by Mr. Stokes, C.E.,6 in which he refers in terms of well-merited eulogy to the improvements effected by the energy and enterprise of that gentleman: “The parish of Iniscalthra is situated partly in the barony of Tulla, county Clare, and chiefly in the barony of Leitrim, county Galway. It is four miles from Scariff, and in 1842 contained 2,198 inhabitants. It takes its name from the celebrated island in Lough Derg, by which it is bounded, and comprises 9,000 statute acres, including bogs, waste, etc., much of which has been reclaimed and improved since 1820, through the exertions of Philip Reade, Esq., of Wood Park.7 By his means bridges have been built and roads made, intersecting and opening the district in every direction, and enabling the industrious farmers to carry the produce of their lands to the neighbouring markets. The signal improvement of this part of the country has come so much under my notice, that I may with reason remark the change, and point it out to the landlords as an example well worthy of imitation. While making a survey of the parish in 1820 – then the joint estate of Mr. Reade and Mr. Tandy – it was a wild and, generally speaking, an uncultivated tract, but having lately visited that country, I was astonished to find, on examination, that in the space of twenty years such extensive improvements could be effected. What formerly was heathy barren mountain, interspersed with sandstone rock, has become highly cultivated, yielding fine crops of wheat, oats, potatoes, etc. Even the red bogs, which absorb the mountain floods like a sponge, are yielding to its efforts and fast assuming the appearance of vegetation. Snug cottages have also been built, giving every appearance of comfort to the numerous tenantry of this truly spirited landlord”.

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During the time of the famine, Mr. Reade gave an immensity of employment in carrying out drainage operations under the Land Improvement Act, and in otherwise improving his property, and by these means he has rendered his estate, which for natural beauty of situation has few equals, one of the most picturesque and prosperous in the whole country. From the facts which I have hitherto been able to communicate, and by further personal observation, I am led to the conclusion that, so far as the northern and eastern portions of this county are concerned, there exist no sufficient grounds for the fears that have been expressed of a famine. Distress there must necessarily be, owing to the failure of the potatoes and the cereal crops; and all the small farmers will have to pass through an ordeal of a severe and trying nature, under which some of them may sink. The labouring population, too, will be sorely pressed by the loss of their stable food and the extreme scarcity of fuel, unless they obtain abundant employment, of which at present I see no immediate prospect. But there need be no starvation, if those whose resources have absolutely failed them, will take shelter within the walls of the poorhouse; for the property of the county can easily bear any additional burden which may be thrown on it by an increase of the recipients of the poor law relief. The great decrease of the population, which has suffered a diminution in this county since 1841 of 120,000 persons, in round numbers, and since 1851 of over 46,000, would alone be a sufficient reason not to apprehend an undue pressure on the rates. The small farmers, who by universal consent will be the severest sufferers by the bad harvest, will cling with desperate tenacity to their little holdings, and so long as they can manage to keep themselves and their families alive by partaking sparingly of the coarsest food, they will not throw themselves on the union for support. It is difficult to ascertain the exact condition of this class in the county of Clare. In some districts they are comparatively few in number, the land being divided into large grazing farms. Whilst in other localities they are very numerous. Some have a little money saved, which will enable them to pay their rent and buy a sufficiency of oatmeal or Indian meal, at the present low prices of both these articles, to last them until next August; whilst others will find it difficult to meet the demands of their landlords, and must dispose of their scanty stock to enable them to purchase food. The latter class will, in many cases, be utterly unable to make up the November gale, even if they can pay the May gale, which, on most of the properties in this district, becomes payable in the present month.8 This is the time for landlords to act with judicious liberality and kindness, as these gentlemen know, or ought to know, the true position of their tenantry, and they will find forbearance and generosity towards those who really require it, the wisest, and in the end the most profitable policy they can pursue. From what I know of the landlords of this county, the great majority of them will not be found wanting in the discharge of their duty during the present emergency. The decrease of the population is, indeed, greatly to be deplored, though, perhaps, one of the

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causes which have led to the prosperity of the farming classes during the last six or seven years. A great many of the miserable two, three, and four-acre farms have disappeared, and have been united into holdings of sufficient size to call forth the exercise of greater skill and capital on the part of the occupant. The minute subdivision of land is, however, still carried out here to such an extent as to interfere materially with the full development of the agricultural resources of the country; but, notwithstanding this, it is easy to perceive that the land is better cultivated now than formerly, and that the condition of the people generally speaking has been much ameliorated. The little town from which I write, affords a striking illustration of the prosperous state of the country for some years past. The population of Scariff has suffered a great diminution since the famine years; but the town, which in 1846 had only one little shop of the meanest description, now contains several thriving and wealthy shopkeepers, who have set up establishments and made their fortunes within a period of ten or twelve years. One of these enterprising traders possesses a very large concern, a sort of general miscellaneous “store”, containing all kinds and descriptions of goods, not omitting crinoline, hoops, and other articles of fashionable female attire for the farmers’ wives and daughters. The proprietor of this shop is worth several thousand pounds, all realized within a few years in a poor-looking town—a conclusive proof that the farmers of the surrounding districts had plenty of money to spend. Scariff, too, has its local “banker”, who drives a flourishing business, but whose operations would be very much circumscribed if the usury laws were still in existence. At the same time I should remark that Scariff contains a great many poor persons of the labouring class, who, if they do not obtain employment, will find it hard to live in their cold and miserable habitations during the winter. I have never seen more wretched-looking hovels than those which are clustered together at the outskirts of the town. The rotting thatch, the fermenting manure-heap before the door, the holes in the mud-walls intended for windows, without glass, but stuffed with rags or straw, excluding both light and air – these, and other features of a repulsive character, constitute a picture of wretchedness and poverty which it is not pleasant to contemplate. Occasionally a couple of families live in one of these huts, where they fully realize the condition of the Irish labourer as described in the Devon Commission Report, being “badly fed, badly clothed, and badly housed”.9 In 1846 a row of such like squalid abodes extended for more than half a mile on either side of the road from Scariff to Mount Shannon; but death, emigration, and the workhouse have taken away their inhabitants, and they have almost entirely disappeared. It is from the people who live in these cabins that the applications for admission to the workhouse will come. An increase in the number of paupers is anticipated in January and February, but up to the present period there have not been many calls for relief, and the number now in the house is nearly the same as the corresponding period last year. On the 9th of November last, the number of paupers in the Scariff workhouse was 186, as compared with 185 on the 10th of 116

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November 1860. There are 25 persons classed as able-bodied men, the greater number of these being boys over fifteen years of age; but, in reality, there is not in the house one strong, healthy man, capable of doing a good day’s work. There was at the above date (the 9th instant) nine cases of fever in hospital, which had come in from the country during the previous fortnight. On the 25th of March and the 29th of September 1861, the respective numbers of the inmates were 205 and 154, nearly all infirm, aged, or sick persons, or young children. The rate struck for the year amounts to 4s. 10½d. on the Scariff electoral division, to 4s. 5d. on Clonusker, to 2s. 2d. on Inishcalthra, and to 1s. 2d. on the Carrawbane electoral division, which is the lowest. The contracts for the half year entered into on the 29th of September, are as follows: - Brown bread, 6d. the 4lb. loaf; good white bread, 7d. the 4ld loaf; meat, 5¾d. per pound; Indian meal, £8 10s. per ton; oatmeal, £14 16s. per ton. Last year, on the 25th of March, the contract prices were: Brown bread, 5¾d. and white bread, 7½d. the 4lb. loaf; meat 6d. per lb.; Indian meal, £10 15s. 6d., and oatmeal, £14 10s. per ton. The average cost of maintenance of all the paupers in the house was 2s 7½d. per head per week, and about 3d. per head per week for clothing them; and in hospital, 3s. 10¾d. per head per week. In former years, the inmates of the Scariff workhouse and its auxiliaries amounted to 4,000; and no less than 21,000 persons in the union were at one time employed on public works and receiving public relief. The area of the union is 82,289 statute acres, and the poor law valuation £25,952 17s. I have traversed the parishes of Feakle, Kilnoe, Tomgraney, and others in the barony of Upper Tulla, forming portions of the Scariff union. The same observations are applicable to all these districts, the potatoes and corn crops having suffered everywhere in nearly equal proportions. The parish of Feakle is probably the poorest in the union. It is an extensive mountainous district, with, for the most part, a cold unproductive soil. The following may be taken as a tolerably close estimate of the results of the harvest in this locality. The potato crop is almost a total failure; of those raised some are rotting in the pits, whilst the remainder does not form a wholesome nutritious food. The return was, however, a bad one, one-third being the average loss, and in some places much more. The quality of the grain is most inferior. There was not much wheat grown, and the yield is at most only one-half of a good average crop. The extent of land under barley this year was very limited, and the produce greatly deficient. As a general rule, the farmers have but few cattle, and those are of an inferior description, and in poor condition. The loss of pigs in the spring and summer by distemper was a serious addition to the other misfortunes of this season, which has been almost unprecedentedly severe. The rents vary from 15s. to 30s. per acre, according to the quality of the soil, and so far as I can judge, the land is not generally let at too low a figure. A clergyman who resides in this parish and is intimately acquainted with the condition of the people, gave me the following description of the present state of 117

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Feakle. I give his statement as nearly as possible in his own words, because I think it candid and truthful, and applicable to many other parts of the country: “There are comparatively but few persons of the labouring class in this parish—that is, of people living so to speak, from hand to mouth, and depending upon their daily hire for their daily food. These persons do not hold any land except a rood or two in which they grow potatoes,10 and they will be badly off during the coming winter, because there is no employment going on at present, and no one to give employment. There are several comfortable farmers holding from twenty to thirty acres and upwards; they are independent, and will not find their resources seriously impaired by the failure of the crops. The remainder of the population consists of small farmers, holding five or six acres, many of whom have saved a little capital, and will be able to get through the winter and pay the May rent, which becomes payable this November; but it will distress them sorely to pay the November gale next April, and some will not be able to meet it. The want of fuel will be their greatest privation. Speaking generally, they have scarcely any turf saved; but they will gather underwood, brambles, furze, and heath, to supply its place for the winter consumption. Somehow they will contrive to struggle through; and living constantly, as so many of them do, on the verge of poverty, hardships and sufferings which would appal others have but little terrors for them. There are some aged, infirm, and diseased persons, whose relatives cannot support them during the winter, and who must therefore seek relief in the workhouse, and from that cause there will be an increase, but not a large one, of paupers. There are no resident gentry in this parish. The small farmers till their lands themselves, and employ as few labourers as possible, and do not exert themselves much to improve their holdings. They are generally tenants at will, and are afraid to improve because of the insecurity of their tenure. There will be no starvation in this neighbourhood, and it the people could get employment, there would be no severe suffering from want of food. The parishes of Kilnoe, Moynoe, and Tomgraney, also in the barony of Tulla, present in the main similar features to those of Feakle. The land is somewhat better, but the loss of potatoes is equally great, and the other crops are equally deficient in quantity and quality. Here is the return, per Irish acre, of the produce of a small farm in the townland of Caherhurley, in the parish of Kilnoe: Wheat, 4 barrels of 20 stones; oats, 9 barrels of 14 stones; barley, 8 barrels of 16 stones; turnips, 5 tons, potatoes, 200 stones. In an average food year, the produce would be from two to twelve barrels of wheat, twelve barrels of oats, and 1,500 stones of potatoes, per Irish acre. The deficiency of the potato crop on this particular holding is therefore something enormous.

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I have to repeat the observation which I have already made with respect to the more favourable return of the potato crop when planted on moorland or bog. This is the concurrent testimony of all with whom I have conversed on the subject; and I have verified it so far as I have been able to. For instance, on the way from Scariff to Feakle there are several bogs on which the potato has been grown, situated on the left hand side and nearly on a level with the roadway; and rises to a considerable elevation, and the soil is of a tolerably good description. In the potato fields in the bog I saw from three to four large-sized “pits” of potatoes, whilst on the other side of the road, in fields of the same size, there were generally only one or two. The union of Tulla comprises parts of the baronies of Bunratty Lower and Bunratty Upper, and of Upper and Lower Tulla. Its area contains 85,809 statute acres, and the total annual valuation of rateable property is £32,559 10s. I shall not enter minutely into the condition of the people in this union, because it would be merely a repetition of what I have already stated in reference to other parts of the county. The number of paupers in Tulla workhouse on Saturday, the 16th November, was 254; of whom 97 were in hospital, and 26 classed as able-bodied men, though none of these can be so described in the ordinary acceptance of the word. At the corresponding period of last year, viz., in the week ending 17th of November, 1860 the number of inmates was 190, of whom 100 were in hospital. This shows an increase in the present year of 64. The number in the house on the 29th of September 1861, was 191, and at the close of each succeeding week, the numbers were 203, 213, 219, 222, 242, and on Saturday the 16th instant, 254. An increase to over 300 is anticipated during the winter and spring. The average cost of supplying the paupers at present is 2s. 6d per head per week, as compared with 2s. 8d., the corresponding period of last year. The last rate for the half-year struck for this union was 2s. 6d. in the pound in the electoral division of Tulla, 1s. 4d. on the divisions of Ballyblood and New Grove, and the lowest, 8d., on the division of Dangan.

The Famine of 1860–63. Three debates in the House of Commons (1860s) The documents below are examples of the debates that took place in the House of Commons in early 1862 regarding the extent and severity of the crisis. Repeatedly, the role and responsibility of the Government to provide assistance (primarily in the form of employment opportunities) were challenged by MPs who resided in the areas most affected. At this stage, the Great Famine was still a living memory. A literary reminder had also been provided in 1860 with the publication of Anthony Trollope’s novel Castle Richmond, which was set in ‘the famine year’ of 1846–47.1 As in previous and subsequent periods of shortage, weather played a part in exacerbating the distress. The prolonged rain falls put a halt to outdoor work and prevented the collection of peat. During the course of the parliamentary debates, the

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Chief Secretary of Ireland, Sir Robert Peel (son of Sir Robert Peel who had been British Prime Minister during the first year of the Great Famine) quoted actual statistics of rainfall: fifty-seven inches had fallen in County Galway, with twentyfour inches in the traditionally drier months of July, August and September. The cold, damp winters, combined with the widespread pawning of food and bedding, had left the people vulnerable, with no ability to heat their homes. Moreover, the ungenial weather had made the collection of peat difficult, giving rise to the term, ‘fuel famine’. Throughout the debates in parliament, the inappropriateness of the Poor Law to meet the Irish distress was frequently alluded to by the Irish members. Both the original 1838 legislation and the 1847 Amendment Act had been rooted in a strict adherence to the deterrent principle, which aimed to ensure that life within a workhouse was less agreeable than life outside. Overall, both pieces of legislation ensured that the poor in Ireland were treated more harshly than those elsewhere in the United Kingdom.11 The separation of the family unit once inside the workhouse was especially unpopular. The fact that the demand for Poor Law relief had not risen substantially in 1862 was attributed to the harshness of the system, in particular, the high dependence on indoor relief, and the continued application of the Quarter Acre Clause, which prevented people who occupied more than onequarter of an acre of land from receiving relief. In regard to the former, in 1861, in England and Wales, eighty-six per cent of all Poor Law relief was outdoor relief, compared with only six per cent in Ireland.12 Clearly, the principle of the primacy of indoor relief which had under-pinned both the English and the Irish Poor Law legislation in the 1830s, had been all but abandoned in the former. The shortages did, however, lead to a change in Poor Law legislation with the introduction of the 1862 Poor Law Amendment Act.13 The 1862 legislation amended the Quarter Acre Clause, it no longer applying to those receiving indoor relief. It also provided for the workhouse infirmaries to be made available to the poor in general, rather than just workhouse inmates.14 However, the presence of the conservative Alfred Power as Chief Poor Law Commissioner in Ireland from 1849 to 1872, assisted by the equally conservative, Edward Senior, provided a bulwark to a more progressive treatment of the poor, even children and orphans. By 1900, the majority of children in receipt of relief were receiving it within the workhouses.15 As the debates show, there was little consensus within parliament as to the extent of shortages in Ireland, with a number of politicians denying that there was any extraordinary distress.

Notes 1 Co. Clare was one of the areas most affected by the Great Famine. See Ciarán Ó Murchadha, Sable Wings over the Land: Ennis, County Clare and its Wider Community during the Great Famine (Ennis, 1998); idem, Figures in a Famine Landscape (London & New York, 2016); Matthew Lynch, The Mass Evictions in Kilrush Poor Law Union during the Great Famine (Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare; 2013).

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2 Reference to the 1861 census. 3 Ulick John de Burgh, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde (1802–1874) was a Whig politician and Irish landowner. Clanricarde had an estate of 49,000 acres in Co. Galway. 4 Philip Reade’s estate covered 4,880 acres and he was based in Scariff. 5 Mary Tandy’s property consisted of 404 acres. 6 William Stokes (b. 1793 -) was an Irish Land surveyor and engineer who wrote Pictorial Survey and Tourist's Guide to Lough Derg, and the Lower Shannon, with Statistical and Topographical Account of the country through which it passes, in 1842. 7 Philip Reade (1793–1883) was also a barrister and local Magistrate. 8 The gale day was the day tenants paid their rents. It was usually 1 May and 1 November. 9 Her Majesty’s Commission of Inquiry into the State of the Law and Practice in respect to the Occupation of Land in Ireland, otherwise known as The Devon Commission, after its chairman, Lord Devon, took evidence from 1,000 witnesses between 1843 and 1845. 10 A rood is equal to a quarter of an acre or 10,890 square feet. 11 Christine Kinealy, A Disunited Kingdom. England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, 1800– 1949 (Cambridge University Press, 1999). 12 Peter Gray, ‘Irish social thought and the relief of poverty, 1847–1880’ in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, vol. 20 (2010), 141–156, p. 148. 13 An Act to amend the Laws in force for the Relief of the destitute Poor in Ireland, and to continue the Powers of the Commissioners [7th August 1862.] (S. 1 rep. 39 & 40 Vict. c. 50. s. 3). 14 Ibid. 15 Virginia Crossman, ‘Cribbed, Contained and Confined: Children under the Irish Poor Law, 1850–1920’, Eire-Ireland, 44 (2009), pp. 37–61.

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10 THE FAMINE FROM PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, HANSARD, HOUSE OF COMMONS DEBATES (1862) ‘QUESTION AND EXPLANATION’, Hansard, House of Common Debates, 14 February 1862, vol. 165, cc. 267–70. MR. MAGUIRE:1  said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, whether he had made inquiry in respect to the alleged attempts on the part of certain persons in Skull and Skibbereen to stir up a spirit of discontent amongst the people against the landlords; and if he could say on what occasion the attempts were made, and by whom and in what manner? SIR ROBERT PEEL:2  Sir, the hon. Gentleman has not given notice of the exact terms of the Question that he intended to ask, but I have no objection to answer it as far as I am able. No doubt, the hon. Gentleman has asked the question with a view of endeavouring to throw doubts on the accuracy of a statement which I made the other night. In the zeal which he manifests for the interests of the landlords and tenants of Ireland he wishes to know the authority from which I derived the information which formed the substance of my reply to his own criticisms. It would take some time to read the letters in my possession; but if the House would permit me, I could answer the question fully. I am quite sure the House, and particularly Irish Gentlemen in the House, have accepted the statements I made as emanating, on my part, from the most loyal desire to state what really was the condition and the wants of the poorer classes in Ireland. It will be quite evident that I can have no wish and no desire whatever to conceal or exaggerate the real condition of those classes. Indeed, I should be really ashamed to be a party to any appearance even of such concealment; and, if even now, after anxiously considering the matter, I thought or had reason to believe that in any way I had been misled or was mistaken, I would, at once, frankly acknowledge it, and do my best to correct the erroneous impression which I had been the instrument of creating. But I am bound to say that the statement which I made the other night, and which the hon. Gentleman impugns, is literally correct. I do not wish to enter into a discussion of the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland, but I can assure him, and I believe I speak what every Irish Member in the House at this moment will endorse, that it is an unsatisfactory thing that we should have a repetition of the

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hon. Gentleman dragging before the public and the House of Commons the purely imaginary sufferings of the majority of the people of Ireland. MR. MAGUIRE: 

I rise to order. I beg leave to state that I never alluded to sufferings either imaginary or real. I asked a certain question in reference to a certain district, and I now request an answer.

MR. SPEAKER:  That

is not rising to order.

SIR ROBERT PEEL:  If

I answer the question, I am bound to express an opinion as to the subject to which particular reference is made. The hon. Gentleman evidently assumes by the notice he has given that what I stated in reference to the relative positions of the landlords and tenants in Ireland was not true. He referred to the district of Kanturk. I have received a letter this morning from Kanturk, which, if the House will permit me, I will read, because it is a complete refutation of the—I may almost say—calumnies on the state and condition of the country.

MR. MAGUIRE:  Sir, I again rise to order. I beg to ask whether, inasmuch as new matter has been introduced by the right hon. Gentleman, I shall be entitled to reply? MR. SPEAKER 

The whole course of this proceeding is verging on irregularity. The notice of the hon. Member as it stands on the paper would have been irregular, for it is founded on a reference to a past debate. I pointed out that to the hon. Member, who at once altered the form of his Question to meet the rules of the House. I must now inform the right hon. Gentleman that in his reply it will be his duty to avoid all reference to what has taken place in this House on a past occasion, and suggest that he should be as concise in his answer as justice to the subject-matter will permit.

SIR ROBERT PEEL:  I will make it as concise as possible. The hon. Gentleman asked me for a specific reply as to the districts of Skull and Skibbereen. I would observe that I not only referred to these two districts, but also to the Roman Catholic diocese of Tuam. If the House will permit me. I will read a letter I have received from Kanturk this morning. The writer says—“Sir,—I think it only right your hands should be strengthened”—This is from an ex officio guardian of the Kanturk Union. [Mr. SCULLY:  Name.] I decline to name the writer. The House, I suppose, will take my word that the letter is authentic. Sir,—I think it only right your hands should be strengthened with reliable information while dealing with professional agitators who are trying to make political capital out of the present partial distress in certain parts of Ireland. The accuracy of Mr. Maguire’s statements as to Kanturk Union will be estimated by the following facts: The workhouse accommodation—

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THE CRISES OF THE 1860s MR. SPEAKER:  To read a document commenting on debates in this House, and referring to a Member by name, is irregular. SIR ROBERT PEEL:  continuing

to read—The workhouse accommodation there is fixed by sealed order for 1,111 persons. On the 1st of February there were only 579 paupers therein, of whom 199 were in hospital, and 98 children under five years of age. Yesterday the numbers were reduced to 553. These numbers are really not extravagantly high, as the union is very large, contains 104,000 acres, is poor, remote, for a great part mountain, with a small resident proprietary, and contains several villages in addition to the chief town of Kanturk. In 1850 and 1851 there were about 5,000 in the workhouse and its several auxiliaries, and 24,000 receiving out-door relief. The hon. Gentleman has asked me whether I have received any information with reference to the unions of Skull and Skibbereen, and parts of the diocese of Tuam. If the House will permit me, I would also read a letter I have received with reference to what has taken place in that far district of Ireland, and which, I feel sure, will confirm what I stated was the real state of things there. I said there was an attempt unfortunately to set the tenants against their landlords. In confirmation of what I then stated, I must ask the permission of the House to read this one letter. I think it will convince the House that I was thoroughly justified in the statement I made the other evening. There was a meeting held at Castletown, Berehaven, with regard to the suffering there. A gentleman got up and stated that the greatest distress prevailed in that part of Ireland, worse than in 1847. Another gentleman got up at a very excited meeting and made use of these extraordinary expressions. He said:—“You have heard that property has its claims and duties as well as its rights, but the landlords of Ireland have ever been the curse of Ireland. They have taken particular care of their rights, while they have shamefully neglected their duties, retiring at night to rest to dream how they may harass and oppress the unfortunate people whose lives are in their keeping, and add a shilling or two to each pound of their rent-roll.” Is not that a proof of an attempt to set the tenants against their landlords? I shall not now enter more fully into the matter, as the hon. Gentleman has to-night given notice that he will bring forward the whole question, but I do venture to say that when that debate comes on, the statements I have made will be corroborated by hon. Gentlemen in this House who are conversant with the real state of the case. For myself, I shall certainly not hesitate to express my opinion upon that subject, in spite of the attacks and the insults which for the last three months have been heaped upon me by interested and dissatisfied agitators.

DISTRESS IN IRELAND, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 21 February 1862, vol. 165, cc. 548–92. MR. MAGUIRE:  rose to call the attention of the House to the existence of serious distress in Ireland. He had been for nine years a Member of that House, and never on any occasion had he greater need of its indulgence and forbearance than he had

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that evening. He relied on the spirit of fair play which always animated Members of that House to secure him a patient hearing while he endeavoured to defend himself, and to show that certain statements made in Ireland, and repeated in that House on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, were not founded upon accurate information. He seemed as if he were standing there upon his trial. His veracity had been impeached, and his statements declared to be grossly exaggerated or without foundation. He stood there to prove that all he had said was true, and that what had been urged on the other side was not justified by the facts. It was humiliating and painful for any Member to stand up to expose the miseries of his country, and nothing but an imperative sense of duty would compel him to assume that attitude. He yielded to no one in respect for the private character of the present Viceroy of Ireland;3 but that nobleman had an unfortunate habit of taking a onesided view of public affairs, because he had not moral courage sufficient to look upon their stern and disagreeable side. He viewed the condition of Ireland through a species of Claude Lorraine glass,4 which allowed him to see nothing harsh or repelling, but represented everything as grateful to his fancy as to his feelings. In the month of April, 1861, the Lord Lieutenant took advantage of the meeting of a most important society to make a statement intended to rejoice not only the people of Ireland, but to afford the English people and the English press something pleasing to descant upon. Lord Carlisle stated that, no matter what might be the change in the agriculture of Ireland, a steady increase had taken place in the quantity of livestock in the country. At that very time he had in his possession—though he might possibly not have looked at them—returns from Mr. Donnelly, the Registrar General,5 which showed a steady, and, he would add, a painful falling off in the quantity of livestock in Ireland. In 1847 the number of acres under cereal crops was 3,313,563; in 1860 there were only 2,639,384. The produce in 1847 amounted to 16,248,934 quarters; in 1860 to 10,905,662. The decrease in 1860 consequently amounted to 674,179 acres, or 5,348,273 quarters, representing a money value of £10,000,000. In 1861 a further decrease had taken place, amounting upon all kinds of crops, as compared with the previous year, to 81,373 acres. With regard to live stock, of which the Lord Lieutenant spoke as steadily increasing in quantity, the fact was that in 1860, as compared with 1859, there was a decrease to the extent of 8,137 horses, 216,363 cattle, and 54,958 sheep, making a total loss in money value, as compared with the previous year, of £1,473,212. [AN HON. MEMBER: What about pigs?] If the hon. Member were solicitous as to the swine of Ireland, he should be satisfied. The increase upon pigs in that year was under 3,000; but even in that particular the results of the returns for the year 1861 were very startling. In that year, as compared with 1860, there was a falling-off in horses of 5,993; of cattle, 138,316; and pigs, 173,096, making a total pecuniary loss of £1,161,345. The total decrease of live stock upon the two years, during which it was alleged by the Lord Lieutenant that the quantity was steadily increasing, represented a money loss of £2,634,557. The estimated decrease in green crops for the two years 1859 and 1860 was equivalent to 4,214,610 tons. Under these circumstances, he felt justified in asking whether the Vice Regal statements must not 125

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have had their origin either in forgetfulness or fallacious information. He would also ask the hon. Gentlemen were not the statements which he had made, as to the falling-off in the capital of the country, more correct than those made by the representatives of the Irish Government? The House must not judge of Ireland as it did of England and Scotland. Fortunately for England and Scotland, they had thriving manufactures and extended commerce; while, except in three or four counties, Ireland had nothing like what would be called manufacturing industry. Her commerce was comparatively restricted, and Ireland depended almost entirely on the prosperity of her agriculture. If agriculture flourished, all classes of people in the country flourished; if it was depressed, all classes were depressed. If God blessed the land with good crops and an abundant harvest, the farmers were able to pay their rents and to employ labour, the landlord received his rent, and the shopkeepers and trades of the cities and towns, as well as the artisan, were benefited by the circulation of the money which all classes were enabled to circulate through the community; but if the harvest failed, labourers were badly paid, landlords could not spend the same amount in cities and towns, and depression and poverty made themselves felt all over the nation. It took one or two years before a purely agricultural country recovered from a single bad harvest. But, unfortunately, Ireland was now suffering from a double blow of this kind; the harvest of 1860 was deficient, and he was prepared to prove that the harvest of 1861 was a lamentable failure. An agricultural country was, in its normal state, an exporting country, but he deliberately asserted that, without the corn which had either been imported into Ireland already, or which might be expected within the next two months, one of the most fearful famines would be raging there at this moment which ever desolated a nation or destroyed a people. Last year Ireland exported £2,365,000 worth of corn, and she imported very nearly £6,188,000. Adding to the balance thus remaining £1,160,000 lost by the decrease in cattle, there would be a dead loss to Ireland in that one year of nearly £5,000,000. Therefore to tell him that there was prosperity in Ireland was to say that which was inconsistent with the facts or with possibility. He was about to refer to documents which had not emanated from agitators ‘interested’ or disinterested, and which would show the House that he was not exaggerating the case. One of these was a circular from Messrs. Sturge, of Birmingham, the eminent corn merchants.6 They said—The way in which the people of Ireland have found the means to pay for the large quantities of foreign wheat and Indian corn imported since the famine has long been a mystery to us. It is now becoming evident that this has been done, in part at least, out of capital, as the last Government returns show a great reduction both in the number of cattle kept and the acreage under cultivation; for a time, the expenditure of English capital—The writer was wrong there. The entire bulk of the capital employed in the last dozen years had been Irish capital. Three-fourths of the property in the Encumbered Estates Court was purchased with Irish capital, and Irish capital was employed not only in the purchase but in the cultivation of land.7 For a time the expenditure of English capital in the purchase and improvement of estates prevented the drain of money being felt; but now we see its results in 126

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decreasing stock and diminished cultivation, which, if continued, must reduce a considerable portion of the country to a mere sheep-walk. Would Irish gentlemen regard that as a condition of things of which they would have reason to be proud? Messrs. Sturge add—The imports of Indian corn exceed those of any past year except that of the famine in 1847. One gentleman who has recently visited all the ports in Ireland estimates the stock at over 1,000,000 qrs.; others, 900,000. The latter quantity materially exceeds the annual average consumption of the last seven years; still, for the reasons before expressed, respecting wheat we do not look forward to any material decline at present. The total imports of all kinds of corn, meal, and flour, were 1,684,633 qrs. more in 1861 than in 1860, and 4,575,377 qrs. in excess of any other previous year. He did not think any gentleman interested in Ireland could congratulate the country upon the facts here stated, and any gentleman who came from a prosperous portion of the country should rather bless God that the mercy of Providence had been vouchsafed to his portion of the country; but he should not close his eyes to the fact that other districts of the Island had been blighted by the failure of the crops. He wished now to appeal to another authority— not an “interested and dissatisfied agitator”—Mr. Haughton, chairman of the Great Southern and Western Railway,8 who, in a speech delivered on Saturday, Feb. 15, said—Let them now recollect the disadvantages with which they had to contend during the past year. When they met together last August all had fondly anticipated that they would have a bountiful harvest; but bad as had been the harvest of 1860, they had to deal with a worse one in 1861. From his own experience in the corn trade he felt himself justified in stating that there had never been an instance of two successive harvests so bad as those of 1860–1. There had been single harvests worse than either of them—for instance, that of 1817—but they never had two harvests in succession so bad. The consequence was, that this country was now relying for bread almost entirely upon foreign wheat. He should now quote some returns from two or three of the corn markets in Ireland, which, he thought, ought to bring conviction to the mind of any gentleman who believed that the description of the last year’s crops had been exaggerated. He found that at the Wexford market, while 56,000 barrels of grain were brought in from the harvest of 1860 up to February, 1861, only 36,000 were brought in for the corresponding period ending in February, 1862, showing a decrease of nearly 20,000 barrels in that one market. In the Cork corn market, there had been a falling-off of 7,433 barrels of wheat, 11,058 barrels of barley, 43,754 barrels of oats; making a gross falling-off to the amount of 62,255 barrels for the last year. The falling-off in the Limerick market was 19,655 barrels of wheat and barley. Those figures showed that in the three markets of Wexford, Cork, and Limerick the supply for the present, as compared with last year, was deficient by 100,000 barrels. He was not afraid to state the name of his authorities. He did not quote any ex officio guardian who was afraid to have his accuracy tested by his identity. The gentleman who had furnished him with the Cork returns was Mr. Cantillon,9 who enclosed them in a letter containing some observations that still further bore out the assertions which, on a former occasion, he had addressed to the House. Mr. Cantillon was a 127

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gentleman of the highest character and position, and one passage from his letter would put the state of the crops and the condition of the tillage farmers in a painful light. He wrote as follows:—These figures will clearly show the shortness of the crops in this locality. It may, however, be argued against you, that six months afford no test that the farmers do not hold larger stocks in their farm yards this time this year than they did at the same time last year. But the reverse is the fact, for owing to the wet harvest, and the impossibility of saving the grain crops, they were unfit to stack up, and those who might have been able to hold their grain were compelled to send it into market, else it would rot. So it may be fairly inferred that the bulk of last harvest’s grain is delivered, and out of the hands of the farmer; while on the 1st of February, 1861, the farming class held a very fair share of the produce of the previous harvest. Added to short produce per acre, the unfortunate tillage farmer had to accept miserable prices, for the quality was so bad that large quantities of wheat were sold from 15s. to 20s. per barrel, barley from 7s. to 10s and oats 5s. to 7s. And the entire produce of one acre did not frequently yield more than from 30s. to 40s. for the unfortunate producers. Of course, those who were lucky enough to have good dry grain—and I regret to say they were very few— obtained much higher prices than those mentioned above; but they too suffered, because the yield per acre was short. He could assure the House that he had no wish to set any one class of his countrymen against another. In the present condition of Ireland an attempt to do any such thing would be particularly culpable. If he ever had such a desire, the painful position of his country would sober his judgment and restrain his tongue. In a large number of cases the landlords were doing everything in their power to mitigate the sufferings of their tenants. But in many instances there was a race between landlords, bankers, meal-sellers, and shopkeepers as to who should have the first grab at the money; and, though many landlords were doing all in their power to mitigate the sufferings of the people, many were endeavouring to obtain their rents by legal process. Magistrates in Ireland had jurisdiction over debts under 40s., and therefore much business was taken from the quarter sessions. Yet at the Bantry and Skibbereen quarter sessions for the West Riding of Cork, in January, 1862, there were 927 civil bill processes entered, compared with 529 in January of the preceding year, showing an increase of 398. In Skibbereen the numbers were—in October, 1860, 202; October, 1861, 407; increase, 205. In the East Riding of the county of Cork, in six months of three years, the numbers were—in 1859, 2,080; in 1860, 3,326; in 1861, 5,225. In the county of Kerry the numbers were—in 1859, 2,271: in 1860, 3,164; and in 1861, 7,367. For the last sessions alone, the stamp-master ordered £1,000 worth of stamps, which represented 6,000 processes. From a return moved for by the noble Lord the Member for Galway,10 it was shown that the condition of the people in 1860 was not flourishing, but that severe distress was then felt both by the labouring classes and small farmers. The return gave the average rate of weekly earnings for the six months previous to the 1st of January, 1861. The returns were made by the county inspectors, who were not agitators after they got their places, at any rate, whatever they were before. Armagh—Labourers were badly off in the spring 128

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of 1860 for want of employment, owing to the wetness of the season. Carlow— The labour market was unsteady during harvest owing to the wet. Cork (county and city)—In the East Riding, in remote localities, the labour market was dull, and during winter farm work was done with yearly servants. Fermanagh—For at least half a year there was scarcely any employment for the agricultural labourer, who was in general a married man with a family, and was therefore in destitution; the markets were high. King’s County—The demand for labour was limited; women and boys being altogether without employment. Leitrim—The labour market was overstocked. Longford—Market rates were high; labouring classes suffered much from the want of food and fuel during winter. Meath—“When the harvest terminated employment became very limited; were it not for the employment afforded by the making of the Dublin and Meath Railway, the labouring classes would have suffered greater privations than they had hitherto done. That return showed the wisdom of the policy of remunerative employment for the Irish people recommended by a noble Lord (Lord George Bentinck)11 whose death the Conservative party had great reason to deplore. Tipperary—Wages were unusually low, owing to the wetness of the summer. The labour market was fully supplied, if not overstocked. Labourers were much distressed from the want of employment, owing to the wetness of the season; but a more permanent effect on the labour market was produced by laying tillage land out for pasturage purposes. He had quoted sufficient to show that the state of things in 1860 was a bad and lamentable preparation for the more lamentable condition of things in 1861. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Robert Peel) would probably urge, what any English Member would say, that the number of people in the workhouses was a fair test of the condition of the country. He asserted, on the contrary, that it was not, and he would explain the reason why it was not a fair or accurate test. It was like a delicate barometer, and if rightly understood would faithfully indicate the gradual increase of poverty; but the total number in the workhouses was no fair or accurate representation of the numbers who were suffering from destitution. In Ireland there was no out-door relief. [A VOICE: Yes.] He would tell the House what they had. One in thirty received out-door relief. In England six-sevenths of the relief given was out-door relief; in Scotland nineteen-twentieths. In England 4½ per cent of the people were relieved, in Scotland 4 per cent, and in Ireland under 1 per cent. One might suppose from this that Ireland, instead of suffering from distress and poverty, was bursting with wealth. But the fact was, that the Irish landlords, who were frequently Poor Law guardians, remembered the state of things in 1847, when property was swamped by the relief given. When poor relief was given in England, the guardians did not break up a man’s family ties—take him from his home, destroy his social status, and brand him and his offspring as paupers; but in Ireland a poor person was obliged to forsake his home, and if he went into the poor-house he sank into a state of degradation which the poorest abhorred. As to the feeling of abhorrence entertained by the Irish poor of the workhouse, there could be no doubt. It was proved by evidence to which the Secretary for Ireland could not be insensible. Mr. Power and Mr. Senior were not,12 he believed, to be regarded as 129

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agitators, dissatisfied or otherwise; and yet what did they say? They, writing of the famine period, said that the unwillingness of some poor people to enter the workhouse was so great, that “they have sacrificed their own lives or the lives of their children by postponing acceptance too long, or by refusing such relief altogether.” In fact, at that time many of the poor would sooner die in a ditch than enter the workhouse. But there was, in fact, a steady increase in the number of inmates in the Irish workhouses, which ought to excite the apprehensions and vigilance of a paternal Government. Compared with 1860, the increase was 20½ per cent, and compared with the preceding year it was 50 per cent. In corroboration of the unwillingness of the people to go into the workhouse, he found in the Clifden correspondence of a Dublin landlord journal (Saunder’s) a statement that when the workhouse was offered to the destitute poor of the Island of Innisboffin, it was in every instance refused—the answer was, “I will die at home before I go to the workhouse.” The observations of the Rev. Mr. O’Regan, of Kanturk, were worthy of attention:13 he said, that the poor people do not go to the workhouse was not the result of the absence of distress, but was owing to some inexplicable horror and detestation of being driven into the workhouse that such was the infatuation of the people in Ireland, in their horror of the workhouse, that they preferred to starve slowly outside the workhouse than enter it. He would now read letters which ought to satisfy any one not wilfully blind, that lamentable distress existed in many parts of Ireland, especially in the counties of the West and South. [The hon. Gentleman then read at great length extracts from letters and speeches in support of his arguments, the nature of which are indicated by the following brief references.] Dr. McEvilly, the excellent Catholic Bishop of Galway14 (and it should be noted that every one of the Catholic Bishops who had written on the subject, bore testimony to the energy and liberality of the landlords), speaking of Galway and its immediate neighbourhood, said that the Relief Committee, composed of men of every religious denomination, had worked cordially together for alleviating the miseries of the poor without any distinction of class and creed; that they had afforded relief, both in food and fuel, to nearly 1,300 families or 6,000 persons; and that had it not been for this timely ministration of relief, hundreds of those for whom accommodation could not be provided, even if it were desirable, within the walls of the workhouse, would have perished, or fallen victims to disease and sickness, from the want of food and fuel, during the usually inclement and severe winter through which we have passed. The Bishop states that the greatest distress exists in the districts of Oughterard and Oranmore; and he then says—But we are vauntingly asked, in disproof of the existence of distress, are not the workhouses half empty, and are there not plenty of bread-stuffs and provisions to be had at comparatively low prices? Those who allege this in disproof of even extreme distress, must know very little of the condition and feelings of the Irish poor. A more fallacious test of distress was never applied than the extent of workhouse relief. To my own certain knowledge, hundreds of our poor people would prefer starving. They would regard death in its most painful form, death by starvation, as a lesser evil than the sustainment of life within the walls of a workhouse. He 130

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would only quote one letter from the County Mayo. The Catholic Archdeacon of Achonry, the Very Rev. Dr. Coghlan,15 writing on the 17th of February, of the parish of Kilmovee, says—I got the most worthy men to go to every tenant-farmer’s house in my parish, and they made me a return of the quantity of food possessed by every one of them, to the truth and accuracy of which return they will make the most solemn declaration. The population of Kilmovee Parish, county Mayo, is 6,534—of which 272 967 2,613 1,554 1,138 6,634

have provisions for 4 months. have provisions for 3 months. have provisions for 2 months. have provisions for 1 month. have no provisions. Ditto

He (Mr. Maguire) was now going to allude to Sligo, and, perhaps, en passant, he might have an opportunity of removing what had been a cause of great mental excitement and agony to the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Baronet had visited the town of Sligo, and in his rapid transit, happening to glance at the walls, he thought he saw a flaming placard, with the awful name of Paul Cullen attached to it.16 But really such a placard existed only in the right hon. Baronet’s imagination, for it happened that a priest and a parson were just at the time cudgelling their brains, the one to prove that purgatory did not exist, and the other that it did; and the placard merely announced that in the Sligo Champion the crushing reply of the parish priest was to be given in the next number of the Champion, to the admiration of the local public. The right hon. Baronet thought it was a letter from Paul Cullen, denouncing him. On the authority of the proprietor of the Sligo Champion, whose letter he had there, he was happy to say that the right hon. Gentleman suffered from an optical delusion. He (Mr. Maguire) was the more pleased at that, because, when the right hon. Baronet rushed down to deny, and standing upon a platform where a Protestant bishop had been hooted for his liberality, and where a relative of the right hon. Baronet (Mr. Dawson),17 because he was a Conservative of liberal opinions, had been subjected to the grossest outrage and indignity—upon that platform, and before a kindred audience, the Secretary for Ireland, unburdened the woes of his breast, and told a sympathizing audience, for he had the chivalry and manliness there to assail an absent Catholic Prelate, that he shed tears when he saw the name of Paul Cullen; but lest they might sympathize too largely with him, he set down the commercial value of Paul Cullen’s abuse at “two rows of pins”. He (Mr. Maguire) was glad to relieve the anguished mind of the Secretary, and therefore he afforded him that explanation, not because he cared about the man, but he did about the Minister to whom the destinies of Ireland were intrusted. The right hon. Gentleman rushed into Sligo and rushed out of it. 131

THE CRISES OF THE 1860s SIR ROBERT PEEL: 

I was in Sligo three days.

MR. MAGUIRE:Very good; he was delighted to hear it. But why, on the second or third day, did not the right hon. Baronet look at the placard, and correct his first impressions? The right hon. Gentleman certainly had honoured Sligo, and Sligo ought to raise a monument—not to his memory, for he hoped he would live long in the land—but to commemorate his visit. But what had been the character of his tour, or progress through the country? The right hon. Gentleman himself described it, and lest there should be any mistake on a matter so interesting, he would quote his own words, embalmed in the pages of the Sligo Champion. The right hon. Baronet, speaking to a section of the Sligo corporation, who had outstripped their brethren, and who had the honour of a special interview with the Secretary for Ireland, said, as to the state of the country—I have no doubt now, after having traversed a very extensive range of country within the last three days, about three hundred miles, on an outside car, with my friend Sir Henry Brownrigg,18 who I am sure is in a condition to know much better than any man in the country, &c. &c. How many horses he killed—how many cars he used up—the nerves of how many Irish jarvies he utterly disordered—the future historian of Ireland alone could tell. But upon the statements of the right hon. Gentleman himself not much reliance could be placed, according to his own showing, however truthful he might be with reference to matters of which he actually had cognizance. He defied any one to make a rush over three hundred miles in three days and to be able to form an accurate judgment as to the state of the district he traversed. He (Mr. Maguire) admitted that this was a grand feat, an unexampled feat—in locomotion; but this kind of Peter Wilkin’s tour,19 this flying through a country, did not qualify the hon. Baronet to speak with authority as to the state of the country and the condition of the people. The right hon. Baronet was not a proper authority on the state of distress in Ireland; neither was the amiable nobleman who was Viceroy of Ireland, for while the latter stated that the country was making a gradual and steady progress, the contrary was shown by Mr. Donnelly’s returns. Such testimony as that of Lord Carlisle reminded him of what was said by an unhappy Royal lady, who, when told that the people were starving, asked “Cannot they eat cakes?” But it was her incredulity on that and other points that brought the graceful head of Marie Antoinette to the block, and left the stain of her innocent blood upon the conscience of France. The right hon. Gentleman said that Sligo was in a good condition. He (Mr. Maguire) would refer the right hon. Gentleman to the statement made by the Most Rev. Dr. Gillooly 20 to the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary on the 14th of January to show the destitute condition in which that district must shortly be placed. Dr. Gillooly, while making a tour in his diocese, wrote from Roscommon that the returns which he had received were by no means exaggerated; that—“There are at this moment in actual distress, and in receipt of relief from our parochial committees—

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In Athlone, In Roscommon, In Boyle, In Sligo, Note.—At 5 each—8,250 persons.”

about 250 about 200 about 200 about 900

families. do. do. do.

To the poor of our towns, and still more to the poor of our country districts, the workhouse is an object of horror and disgust—more hateful and formidable than death itself. We have given up advising them to go there; it is useless. Those who would urge them to do so they would regard as unfeeling and cruel. With the workhouse they associate sickness, death, disgrace, and the permanent disruption of family ties. To go there once is to make themselves paupers and outcasts for ever; not to go there is their only chance of preserving a home and family. Sir Gore Booth,21 a Member of the House, and Colonel White, a Deputy Lieutenant,22 bore testimony to the same effect; and Mr. Henry, a Protestant landlord, adds—“In the district near me not less than eight or ten deaths have taken place within the last fortnight or three weeks from want.” He thought, then, he had made out his case as regards Sligo. In Carlow, in Wexford, in the King’s County, relief committees were in active operation. The distress there was attributable to the unparalleled deficiency in the agricultural crops, and the consequent inability of the farmers to employ labour, however much they might feel inclined. He would pass now to Munster. He had received a letter from Mr. Coonihan,23 the proprietor of the Munster News, in which he gave a lamentable account of the destruction of the crop. In some of the best districts of Limerick the produce of the wheat-fields had been sold for 40s. or 50s. an acre, which in favourable years had brought £12 or £14; consequently the day labourers had no employment, because the occupiers could not afford to pay wages. Numbers had lost all—food, fodder, and fuel: a triple failure. There were districts without a potato, others without peat-fuel for a single fire, in none had there been a successful crop—even the green crops had in many instances been ruined by the incessant rains. Mr. Coonihan also refers to the enormous increase of processes by civil bill and the decrees obtained and executed. The Mayor of Clonmel,24 no mean authority, wrote that the prolonged rains had completely put a stop to out-door employment, and in consequence not merely the labourer but the artisan and their families underwent privations that Englishmen could scarcely comprehend; the cottier tenants suffered severely—the potato was their all, and that had been a dead failure: turnips had been plentiful, and it was a great mercy, for they had constituted a great part of the poor of Clonmel. The Catholic Bishop of Clonmel wrote—But, if the lot of the labouring classes is at all times a hard enough one—if what may be called their normal, every-day condition is a struggle for the necessaries of life—their condition at the present time is one of unusually deep distress, such as has not fallen upon them since the famine years, and imperatively demands of those having the ability to come

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promptly to their relief, that God’s poor may not perish in the land. From the unpropitious nature of the seasons, the potato crop is in good part utterly lost, and what little remains is greatly injured; the cereal produce, too, of the land is both short in quantity and inferior in quality—so that, owing to this combination of adverse circumstances, even now, before we have passed out of the second month of the year, the people are crying out for food, and, to add to their distress, they are suffering from want of fuel, many having nothing to burn but the wretched brambles gathered from the roadside. That an unusual amount of distress prevails in town and country is abundantly evident from the extraordinary efforts of voluntary charity called forth by the necessities of the time. In a spirit of liberality which cannot be too highly praised, gentlemen have in different parts of the country thrown open their lawns and cut down their trees for fuel for the people. Why this unusual liberality, if not to meet the more than common privations arising from the want of a necessary of life? He now came to Cork. Dr. Keane, the Catholic Bishop of Cloyne,25 gave a most important statement as to the condition of his diocese, which consisted of the richest and best-cultivated portion of the county. He says that the proofs of distress are numerous and undeniable, that the loss of the crops last autumn, taking-wheat, barley, oats, hay, and potatoes together, was in some places fully one-third, in others one-half, and in some more than half: that the incessant rain prevented the people from saving their usual supply of fuel—The result of personal observation, and of anxious inquiry, is a firm conviction on my mind, that if this year the poor were as numerous as in ’47 and ’48, and if the cornmerchants were as little prepared at once to meet the pressing demands in the food market, the famine would lie as bad now as at that disastrous period. There will, however, be no famine. Death and emigration have taken away over two millions of the poor; and the supply of breadstuffs imported from other countries is general and abundant. But, there will and there must be great distress. The reasons are obvious. In the condition of tradesmen and labourers who happen to have constant, employment, there will be no change. With fair wages, and food not overdear, they will have little to complain of. The large farmers, who had previously made some reserve, can also meet the difficulty with comparative ease. The classes on whom the pressure must bear most heavily, are the small farmers, the shopkeepers, the tradesmen and labourers, who are depending on occasional employment. These farmers, in many instances, have at the present moment neither food, nor money, nor credit. Shopkeepers of all classes, and in a special manner those in the drapery line, are doing comparatively little. And the tradespeople and labourers now idle have very little prospect of employment. Of the existing distress, the numbers in the workhouses afford no correct test. Unless for those who are thoroughly acquainted with the habits and feeling of the Irish poor, it is difficult to form an adequate idea of their unwillingness to accept Poor Law relief. The severest pangs of hunger, nay death itself, will be encountered by many of them, sooner than they would seek the chilling discomforts of workhouse accommodation. Mr. Uniacke Mackay, of Ballyroberts Castle, Fermoy,26 bears testimony to the deficient harvest of last year in his locality; and the Rev. Mr. O’Regan, writing from 134

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Kanturk, says that there is appalling destitution amongst the mechanics and labourers; that, the small farmers are flitting, and leaving their farms with the rents unpaid; that many are utterly unable to procure seed potatoes or seed oats, and that he has lately seen 600 acres, once fairly cultivated by a number of small farmers, on which they have not now a four-footed beast. Dr. O’Hea, the Catholic Bishop of Ross,27 writes, that in Skibbereen, Rath, Sherkin, and Cape Clear Islands, Aughadown, Castlehaven, Kilmacabea, and Kilmeen, the people are in the greatest state of destitution; and how they would be able to feed themselves and their families until next harvest was a mystery to all: in the town of Skibbereen, with a population of 3,700, one-half were on the relief list. The Rev. Mr. Fisher, the Protestant Rector of Kilmoe,28 sent him a copy of a letter which he had addressed to The Times. Among several distressing facts as to the condition of things, he said that in his parish (which was twelve miles long) there was only a fourth of the usual crop of potatoes, while the corn crop was almost a total failure. Among his Protestant parishioners Mr. Fisher stated that over thirty families were in such distress that they could not go to church in the daytime, but went there only in the obscurity of twilight, to the evening service. “With pain,” he says, “I see them stealing into some distant corner of the church at evening service in the dark evenings, that their rags may not be seen by the congregation.” The relief committee of Bandon, at a meeting presided over by the Hon. Colonel Bernard, a Member of that House,29 reported that 1,500 persons in that small town were suffering great privation, and that the poor were pawning their clothing to escape the workhouse. The right hon. Baronet would doubtless be disgusted to hear that certain gentlemen of position in Mallow had been doing what he condemned so strongly— sending round the begging-box. Why the right hon. Baronet should object to such a proceeding he could not tell, for he had himself set the people of Ireland a remarkable example of sending round that box. He had heard of a Turkish “hat” at which even pashas trembled and rajahs turned pale; but when the begging-hat, stamped with the name of the right hon Baronet the Chief Secretary was sent round in Ireland it excited the gratitude at least of those with whom gratitude was a lively sense of favours to come. [Laughter.] They responded at once to the outstretched palms of the begging Baronet. And for what was that begging-box sent round? Not to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or to shelter the shelterless, but to support a fourth Queen’s College.30 The Governmental screw was put on every man with a shilling in his pocket: but the appeal of the right hon. Baronet was flung in his face by the Catholic gentry. The right hon. Baronet had sneered at the begging-box; but let him never do so again, remembering that he had had recourse to it himself, and resorted to means that could not have had the approval of any sensible man on the Treasury bench. For where hostility was only dormant, he had evoked it, and where opposition was vague and timid, he, by his appeals, gave it strength and boldness. The right hon. Gentleman also sneered at agitators; but he himself was the most successful agitator who had ever appeared in Ireland. With an expenditure of less time and less brains he had done more mischief than any of his predecessors: not that he had less brains, but that he had less time to expend 135

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them. In six weeks the peace of the community was blown to atoms. Ireland was at peace; the right hon. Baronet appeared, and in six weeks the peace of the country was blown to pieces. It was as if the noble Lord at the head of the Government had, in a fit of practical jocularity, thrown a bomb-shell into the middle of a peaceful community. He firmly believed that the right hon. Baronet had by his successful agitation done more to raise class against class and creed against creed than any agitator during the last ten years. [“No, no.”] Hon. Gentlemen might say “no,” but for the Chief Secretary to go into the midst of an Orange assembly,31 and attack a Catholic prelate, was not the way to promote peace and harmony in a country like Ireland, in which religious distinctions were, to say the least, strongly defined. To return to Mallow, which had sent round the abhorred begging-box, the Committee, presided over by a cousin of the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. Longfield),32 after stating that “the fearful number of one thousand beings” were in a state bordering on destitution, added – Those who know the aversion the labouring classes in Ireland have to entering the workhouse, will not be astonished to hear, that in order to avoid this alternative, and sustain life, they have parted and pledged every available article of furniture and clothing, reserving to themselves (in some cases visited by members of the Committee), literally nothing save a few rags to cover them. Of the city of Cork, he could quote a letter from the President of the Vincent Society,33 a gentleman well-known, and of the highest character and position, describing the state of want to which the depression of the times had reduced the working population and those who live by various branches of industry. The Catholic Bishop of Cork (the Right Rev. Dr. Delany)34 adds most important testimony as to the state of things—I have been from the commencement an anxious observer of the progress of distress, and have arrived at the conclusion, formed, I believe, by almost everyone here, that there will be extremely severe suffering endured by numbers of our poor people. All the small farmers are in the most deplorable position. No crops to pay their rents, nor money enough to purchase food or fuel for their afflicted families. The enormous deficit in last year’s harvest will be destructive to the mechanics and poorer tradesmen, whose existence hangs on their employment, which depends on the produce of the soil, the foundation of almost all the trade and commerce of this country. Notwithstanding the imputation of want of self-reliance, ordinarily, but as in other cases unjustly, laid to the charge of the Irish people, the poor of this country generally will not enter the workhouse while the faintest ray of hope remains to them of sustaining life outside the walls of these institutions. The famine year demonstrated this. Tens of thousands perished within the precincts of the asylums prepared for them at enormous cost, simply because nothing could induce them to seek aid within their walls. When others did at last resort to this their only chance, they were so wasted by sickness and reduced by starvation, that medicine could not restore them, nor nutriment sustain them. He might proceed to quote a large number of other letters and documents in proof of what he had stated, but he would not further occupy the attention of the House. He had felt it to be his duty to bring forward the question as he had done, in vindication of his own truthfulness, and in 136

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proof of the brief statement which he had made on another occasion. He made no appeal ad misericordiam,35 he uttered no whine; he simply stated facts, and gave his authorities for them, and left the Government to act on its responsibility. He might, however, express an opinion that one of the best modes of alleviating distress would be to promote, by loan or otherwise, useful and reproductive works, such as railways, which would employ the idle and benefit the country. Two such lines might be assisted in the west of the county of Cork, a distressed district. The right hon. Baronet and his friends might say that agitators were endeavouring to exaggerate this distress; but the fact was, that he, for his own part, had pursued an entirely opposite course, having refused to allow any statements upon the subject to appear in the journal of which he had the control until despair had settled upon the mind of almost every man in Ireland, lest by so doing he should injure trade and damage individuals. But at length he had felt compelled to speak out, lest it should happen again, as in 1848, that there should not be time enough to act so as to avert a more extended suffering, and a more serious calamity. He would conclude by a single reference to the state of trade in Dublin, which would afford the House an idea of the general condition in Dublin. He had received two letters— one from a draper in Kingstown—the other from Mr. M’Swiney, of Dublin, of the extensive firm of M’Swiney, Delany, & Co.36 In these letters it was stated that in the linen and woollen houses in Dublin 25 per cent less persons were now employed than in 1859, and the salaries were also reduced by 25 per cent. Mr. M’Swiney stated that the number of hands (clerks, &c.) out of employment during the past year was tenfold greater than the preceding year; and that Dublin was crowded with intelligent young men from the country offering themselves even for their keep, and willing to accept the humblest offices. The hon. Member thanked the House for the indulgence which it had shown him, especially as he had been compelled, in order to prove his case, to trouble them with a number of documents. He was most unwilling to have done so, but it was essential that he should rely on a number of authorities from various parts of the country. He was grateful for the patience and kindness with which he had been treated. In order to obtain the opportunity of reply, should such be necessary, he would conclude with moving that the Irish Poor Law Returns to the 15th instant be laid on the table of the House. Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word “That” to the end of the Question, in order to add the words “the Irish Poor Law Returns up to the 15th day of this month, be laid before the House,” – instead thereof. Question proposed, “That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question.” SIR ROBERT PEEL: 

Sir, the hon. Member has entered into a wide field of discussion, and has brought under the notice of the House a question which in years gone by was found well worthy to occupy the time and attention of Parliament, 137

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when it could be shown that there was no reason to apprehend that the statements adduced were tinged by exaggeration or prejudiced by faction. I believe the House of Commons would be just as ready now to listen to any statement calling for the sympathy, the advice, or the assistance of Parliament. But before hon. Gentlemen pass an opinion on the observations of the hon. Member, I respectfully ask a few moments indulgence that I may have an opportunity of replying to them. I do not complain of the course taken by the hon. Gentleman; three times within a fortnight he has brought this subject under the notice of Parliament; but although I have abundant business of the department to transact at this moment, I shall always be ready to listen to him or any other hon. Gentleman who may bring forward in this House subjects bearing on the condition of the people, and especially of the poorer classes in Ireland. But it must have struck you, Sir, as well as many other hon. Gentlemen, that this lament, this cry of alarm, does not come—as it did in 1846, 1847, and 1848—from the landed proprietors in Ireland; it does not come from the tenant farmers; it does not come from the Parliamentary representatives of popular constituencies, or from the people themselves; it does not come, in fact, from those who have an opportunity of knowing what the real state and condition of Ireland is; but it is confined simply and solely to a very few persons in Ireland, of whom the hon. Member for Dungarvan is the representative in this House, whose opportunities of observation and whose knowledge of Ireland—I say it with complete Parliamentary respect—is, as every hon. Gentleman knows, of the most limited and subordinate character. In discussing the subject the hon. Gentleman, I am sorry to say, has gone into that most distasteful arena—personal attack. He has alluded to some things in connection with my visit to the West. He is quite at liberty to criticise that journey; but, at all events, it was undertaken with the best motives. As to my conduct at Londonderry, where I received the freedom of the city, as my father had done before me,37 I see nothing whatever to retract. I will not follow the hon. Gentleman into the region of personal attack; let us be above it. The cause I want to advocate—the cause of the people of Ireland—is based on a better and more solid foundation than can be acquired from the mere interchange of personal recrimination. But this I can tell the hon. Gentleman, that if I chose to avail myself of the opportunity, he has pretty well laid himself open to attack. But I will leave him to the enjoyment of an occupation which seems congenial to his own mind. Now, in turning to consider the condition of Ireland, I must say, in the first place, that it is unfair towards the Irish Government to assert that it has not from the beginning been most sensitive of the actual state of the country. I bring to witness the noble Lord at the head of the Government and the right hon. Baronet the Home Secretary in proof of my assertion, that from the very earliest moment I pointed out that considerable distress existed in Ireland; that there was failure in the potato crop; that the cereals were not such as they had been—in fact, that there were grounds to apprehend very considerable distress; and, to the credit, not of myself, but of the Irish Government, I will add that everything was done to meet any unusual pressure which might unexpectedly arise. The hon. Gentleman has 138

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sneered at my visit to parts of Ireland, but not two days after my return I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, telling him that I thought some things would be required to guard against the possibility of danger from famine. One was a steamer on the west coast of Ireland, for the purpose of relieving islands separated from the mainland by very boisterous seas, such as those in the Union of Belmullet, the islands of Arran, and other places. I also urged that in some remote districts, owing to want of accommodation, poor people afflicted with sudden distress would be unable to reach the workhouses where these were situated at some distance. The Government immediately replied that on the first call of necessity a steamer should be sent to the west coast of Ireland, and that twenty or thirty most admirably constructed carts—spring vans, which were made for the Crimea—would be forwarded to Dublin, for the purpose of being distributed to different parts of the country. They have been forwarded to Dublin, and have been instrumental in doing much good in places where no proper facilities of carriage existed. Subsequently I wrote to the Treasury expressing my belief that seven Poor Law inspectors would not be adequate to perform all the duties cast upon them in case any pressure arose, and asking whether they would sanction the additional expenditure requisite to make the four medical inspectors Poor Law inspectors. The Treasury wrote back to say, that to avoid all difficulty, they would at once grant the additional expenditure which might be necessary in case any pressure arose. Therefore, I must say that from the very earliest period we have sought to guard against the possibility of any undue pressure on the people at large. But more than that—early in September I sent 1,600 circulars to as many different parts of Ireland, urging upon the parties with whom I was in correspondence to send me accurate and particular information, not only as to the state of the harvest, but as to the condition of the poorer classes generally. I think the House, therefore, will agree with me that in that respect the charges brought against the Government by the hon. Member for Dungarvan are most unfounded, and that we are justly entitled to the consideration of this House. I will admit—in fact, I always have admitted—that the season in Ireland was most unfortunate. There is a registry of rain in the county of Galway, and it has been ascertained that the enormous quantity of upwards of fifty-seven inches fell in that part of the west of Ireland; and during the three harvest months of July, August, and September, more than twenty four inches of rain-water fell. It is, therefore, evident that the hay crop must have been seriously damaged. But, in the face of this unhappy state of things, I am glad to say that the sanitary state of the people of Ireland was never better. For, in addition to the inquiries made as to the food of the poorer classes, we have been most anxious to learn their sanitary condition; and I am glad to inform the House that in the four provinces of Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, the reports of the public health are generally satisfactory. One from the province of Leinster, dated the 11th of January, states that the sanitary condition of the poorer classes has been favourably reported of by every medical officer in the district, and the affections incidental to the season are not more 139

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severe than in former years. In another, from Connaught, under date of the 7th of January, the Poor Law Inspector writes, “My district comprises six counties, with a population of 1,450,000;” and he speaks of the sanitary condition as admitting of comparison with corresponding periods of former years. From all that I can learn, there has not been that great suffering from ill-cooked food which was so prominent a cause of fever in the years 1847 and 1848. The hon. Member for Dungarvan admitted that there was a vast amount of apparent capital in the country, but his conclusions on the whole were very unfavourable. Now, I think the market and fair returns offer a tolerable criterion for hon. Gentlemen to test the price of food in Ireland. There was a large fair held at Ballinasloe on the 11th of January, and the Report says, “The pig market was the largest ever seen in Ballinasloe, and the supply considerably in advance of this time twelvemonths.” At the Kilkenny fair, in the same way, “there was a larger show of cattle of all kinds than was to be seen at the January fair in the previous year.” Yesterday I received a letter from Cavan, and I shall refer to it, as the hon. Gentleman alluded to that place. [Mr. MAGUIRE: No, I did not.] I thought the hon. Gentleman alluded to Cavan; but, at all events, the communication is from a resident magistrate, and it states that on the 14th of February excellent potatoes were selling in the market of Arvagh in that county at from 3 3/4d. to 5d. the 14 lb. Another remarkable proof that there cannot have been any great apprehension of famine is afforded by the returns of the contract prices paid for provisions in the different workhouses. It is a remarkable fact that, though higher than in 1859, they are about the same as the contract prices of 1860. In 1860 the contract price of Indian meal was £9 11s. 8d. a ton; it is now £9 11s. 11d. Then we have heard a great deal of a fuel famine. No doubt there is a great scarcity in some of the places where peat is generally used; but I am glad to find that coal is used in Waterford and in other parts of Munster. In Ulster, it is much used in Londonderry, and also in some localities of Antrim, Down, and Tyrone. In Leinster it is used as the principal fuel in Carlow, Dublin, Kilkenny, Louth, Wexford, and Wicklow. In Connaught an immense quantity of coal has been imported by landlords and others. In Sligo much has been imported, and I have ascertained that there are about 115 coal depots in various parts of the west of Ireland. That speaks strongly as to the liberality with which the landlords have come forward. But the hon. Gentleman has read statements from a right rev. Prelate, Dr. Gillooly,38 Dr. O’Hea, and several others, as to the sufferings of the people in different parts of the country. Now, I am sure I would not wish to claim the indulgence of the House in order to go into details at the length the hon. Member has done; but I shall read one or two extracts that will substantially test statements that have been circulated, and which have no foundation in fact. The hon. Gentleman particularly referred to the case of Roscommon. It is true that a deputation waited on the Lord Lieutenant with reference to the state of Roscommon. I was present at the interview between his Excellency and the deputation. Dr. Gillooly certainly made a painful statement as to the condition of Roscommon; but I have received 140

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a letter from a working man in Sligo, who says that so far from the working men there being in a state of destitution, they are in the most comfortable condition that can possibly be, and that the Corporation of that town did not exaggerate in the statement which they made to me. I am told that in Sligo, at the very time that deputation from Roscommon was waiting on the Lord Lieutenant, the best Indian meal was selling at 1s. 2d. per 14 lb.; potatoes at 1s. 8d. the peck of 56 lb.;39 and new milk at 2d. per quart. Therefore, I say that the statements of Dr. Gillooly were scarcely warranted by the facts. Then we have heard of the case of Berehaven, in the county of Cork, which is supposed to be one of the most destitute parts of Ireland. Yesterday morning I received a letter from Castletown, Berehaven, written by the Chairman of the Board of Guardians. It is a complete reply to many of the assertions that have gained circulation about the place. It is, as follows:— “I am the Chairman of the Board of Guardians of Castletown, Berehaven, a district considered to be one of the poorest in Ireland.40 When I, therefore, bear testimony to the general prosperity of my district, I think that the state of it may be taken as a fair criterion of the west of Ireland . . . The present ‘distress agitation’ is easily traceable . . . The landlords in this part of the country have shown great leniency to their tenants in the matter of rent, and have done their duty liberally in cases of real distress; and I think I express the opinion of most Irish landlords when I say that I should indignantly reject any external assistance (even from Government) for any of my tenantry or neighbourhood.” I think that is a triumphant answer to the statement made at a public meeting, that the people were dying by hundreds. [“No, No.”] It was stated that they were without food, and that if the Government did not come to their assistance, the landlords, instead of finding tenants, would not find a sheep to feed on their farms. There is a report from the Poor Law Inspector of the district which states that, though the farming classes have suffered, the number of paupers in the workhouse has not much increased. I have a letter from East Carbery, which is as follows:— Manch House, Enis Kean, County of Cork, Jan.10, 1862. Sir, – It becomes my duty to enclose a memorial to his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, unanimously adopted at a presentment session for the barony of the western division of East Carbery on the 6th inst. by the justices and cess-payers,41 to request a loan from the Government for the West Cork Railway. I have great pleasure to be able to state to you, for the information of his Excellency, that the labouring classes in this barony are fully employed at good wages, and that the famine cry lately attempted to be got up has proved a complete failure. The number in our workhouse is very few, I have the honour to be, Sir, DANIEL CONNER, J.P.,42 Chairman of the magistrates and associated cess-payers for the Eastern Division of East Carbery Sessions. To General Sir Thomas Larcom.43 Now, there was a very remarkable statement made, with regard to the Headford tenantry, by Father Conway to the Tuam Board of Guardians.44 It was that in the Headford district there were hundreds of persons in such want as to require the guardians to supply carts to carry them to the workhouse in Tuam. “What is the 141

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answer made to that statement by Mr. Botterill, agent of Mr. St. George,45 the landlord of the Headford property—I was greatly surprised at the account given by him (the Rev. Mr. Conway) of the state of affairs in this neighbourhood (he writes from Headford, Nov. 27 (1861), of which I, for one, was completely ignorant, and I am glad to say, on reference to the books of the relieving officer, it appears that from the 1st of September to the 26th of November there have been but eight applications made to him for relief in his entire district, which embraces nine electoral divisions, an extent far beyond that of which Mr. Conway speaks, only three of which were from Headford property, and these applications were less by three than those made by the relieving officers during the corresponding period of 1860”. Expecting not to be answered, Mr. Conway goes forward, and makes that statement to raise a cry against the landlords. The hon. Gentleman read a letter from a clergyman named Fisher. The place to which it refers is the last I shall allude to. It is on the very extreme of the Roman Catholic diocese of Tuam. MR. MAGUIRE:  No;

county Cork.

the place I referred to is Kilmore, in the West Riding of the

SIR ROBERT PEEL:  Is

it? Well, the hon. Gentleman read a letter from Mr. Fisher. Now a Gentleman (Mr. D’Arcy) writing to a colonel in the army, gives to the statement made by the hon. Gentleman this triumphant refutation. He says—The fact is, an alarm has been raised by the priests to frighten the people and call in the aid of the Government, and thus local efforts have been checked. That I can perfectly understand. The writer went on to say—Because, although it is true that there has been pressure, and the price of fuel was raised—and I admit that several Roman Catholic priests were indignant at this—yet there has been no pressure with respect to food, and we have got a special coal fund. I have closely watched the state of the people, and I do not think I ever saw so large a market as we had last Saturday. That was at the end of December. Then, as regards Galway, I have the testimony of my hon. Friend the Member for Galway, who, without my requesting his opinion on the subject, wrote to me to the following effect:—I have taken some pains to ascertain how things stand in my part of the world, and, as far as I can ascertain the real state of the case, it seems that there will be a sufficient supply of food. The hon. Gentleman also referred to Donegal. I shall not, however, trouble the House by reading all the communications which I have received with regard to that district. I may at the same time be permitted to state that I have had a letter from Lord George Hill, who lives in the district of Gweedore,46 where great suffering existed, and who says he is satisfied a great improvement has taken place in his locality, and that the people all pay their rent. I do not know whether I need refer to any other district for proving to the House and the country that the statements that great distress exists in Ireland are by no means correct. The fact I believe to be that the condition of that country is sound and satisfactory, and I may be permitted to allude to one or two points which will infallibly prove to the House that the view of the subject which I take is correct. In support of that view, 142

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then, I may observe that in the year 1847, 20,986 cases of outrage in Ireland were reported to the Government, while last year the number was only 3,581. [Mr. MAGUIRE: But then you do not take into account the difference in the population.] The difference in the population is, no doubt, considerable, but I defy the hon. Gentleman, with all his agitation of the other day, to succeed in making the people of Ireland disloyal, or to cause them in any way to act against the Government of Great Britain. In 1833 the Government passed an Irish Coercion Bill,47 and I recollect well its being stated the year before that £12,000 in the shape of rewards had been offered for the capture of criminals in that country, and that only two small rewards out of that amount had ever been asked for. I may add that in that year 196 murders took place, while last year there were only twenty-four, four of which only could be said to be of an agrarian character. I shall now take the number of evictions, which will furnish a fair criterion of the increased prosperity of the country. There were, I find, in 1850 actually 74,000 persons evicted in Ireland, while in 1861 the number was only 3,349. I  have beyond these figures obtained comparative returns with respect to the counties of Lancaster and Cork which will, I think, afford a notable instance of the little reliance which is to be placed on the arguments with respect to the great distress prevalent in the latter county which have been used by the hon. Member for Dungarvan. I  find from those returns that the number of persons in the workhouses in Lancashire—for, although unhappily there has been great distress in that county it has been nobly and generously borne by the people—is 15,900, the workhouse accommodation being for 20,858. I also find that the number receiving outdoor relief is 82,990, the population being 2,453,000; so that the percentage of the inhabitants of Lancashire in receipt of poor relief is four per cent, while in Cork it is only 1.48. But the hon. Gentleman will, perhaps, remind us that Lancashire is a manufacturing county, and that it is not fair to institute a comparison between it and Cork, which is agricultural. Well, then, I will take Norfolk, which I look on as an agricultural county, for the purpose of the comparison, and I find that in that county there are 426,000 inhabitants; that the number of in-door paupers is 4,740, the number of out-door 26,000; while there is workhouse accommodation for 9,557, the total rate per cent receiving poor relief being seven, while in Cork, it is, as I said before, only 1.48. How then can the hon. Gentleman complain of the partial distress in Ireland, when there exists a still greater amount of distress in this country, arising from depression in trade and other causes. I would also remind the hon. Gentleman, that when he speaks of Ireland as suffering from a depression of trade, he ought to recollect that there are in that country, 1,600,000 acres under cultivation more than in 1853, while the population has become less by three-quarters of a million. I have, I may add, this day received assurances from seven or eight lieutenants of counties in Ireland entirely corroborating the statements which I have made. These assurances come from Lords Bantry and Bandon, the Lord Lieutenant of the county of Mayo, who writes to me to say that the distress from want of food has not been severe or general. Lord Ross, the Lord Lieutenant of the King’s County,48 said—I am happy to say that there is no distress in this county, except in 143

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a few of the poorer districts. Fuel is bad, but, fortunately, the winter is mild; food is abundant, and not above the usual price, but there is a want of good fuel. Lord Waterford stated—Unfortunate as had been the result of the late harvest, the amount of destitution in this county at least is not beyond the compass of local resources to relieve. The hon. Gentleman has attacked the Poor Law system in Ireland, and stated that its returns afforded no just criterion of the sufferings of the people. I maintain exactly the contrary, for I am satisfied that there is no better test of the pauperism of Ireland than the applications made for out-door relief in that country. I have a letter from Cavan from one of the most liberal-hearted Irishmen that ever lived, Lord Farnham,49 a man who from time to time has done immense good in his district, and he says—Provisions of every kind are considerably cheaper than they were at the corresponding period of 1846, and there is ample employment for able-bodied men. I am afraid I have trespassed too long on the time of the House in bringing under its notice these details to refute the statements which have been made with respect to imaginary grievances in Ireland. The time, indeed, once was when real grievances harassed and afflicted Ireland, and arrested her progress and retarded the development of her resources. I am, however, happy to think that the conciliatory policy of successive Governments, and the wise forbearance of the House of Commons, have brought about a great change in her condition, and that the Ireland of to-day is no longer the same as she was when another held the position which I have now the honour to occupy. I rejoice to see how vast are the strides which she has made in prosperity since the time when speculative doctrines of government and imaginary schemes of independence prevailed and were used as engines not for her welfare but to inflame the public mind and to stir up fresh sources of popular excitement. That time is at an end, and the people of Ireland now, I believe, have yielded to the good influences of the age in which we live, and to the efforts, for her regeneration, of wise and enlightened statesmen. Of the justice of that opinion no more remarkable proof can be adduced than that which took place the other day when there was danger of a rupture with America, and Ireland was filled with American emissaries who were trying to raise there a spirit of disloyalty. A meeting was then held in the Rotunda.50 I well recollect what took place there, at which a few manikin traitors sought to imitate the cabbage-garden heroes of 1848;51 but, I am glad to say, they met with no response. There was not one to follow. There was not a single man of respectability in the country who answered the appeal. And why is that so? It is because Ireland is changed. The thoughts of the present generation are, I am happy to say, directed into better courses. They are directed to acquiring sound principles of political economy, to the advancement of education, to the suppression of crime, to the reformation of criminals, and to the development of the resources of Ireland. Thus it is that Ireland is improving, and it is my firm conviction that the evidences of prosperity are daily becoming more apparent in that social and political harmony which happily now illustrates the union between Great Britain and Ireland. I thank the House for having allowed me to make these few remarks. If I speak every Friday night on the state of Ireland, I will do so with the greatest 144

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pleasure. But, at the same time, I will still continue, until facts are submitted to me to make me believe the contrary, to assert my deliberate and determined conviction that there is no famine—that there is no unusual distress in the sister isle. MR. DAWSON  said, that he had no desire to prolong the discussion, but no Irishman who was properly jealous of the honour of his country ought by his silence to admit that the destitution alleged by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire) on the first night of the Session and again that night was either so general, or of such a nature as to demand extraordinary intervention from the Legislature. He acknowledged that a great amount of distress had prevailed in consequence of the inclemency of the weather for the last two seasons, the partial failure of several crops, and the difficulty of saving and procuring fuel. He was willing to admit that the distress had not been confined to the western and southwestern parts, and that in the north of Ireland the weavers had suffered from a deprivation of their best market through the failure of the American trade, contemporaneous with a deficiency in the produce of the soil. While admitting a great amount of suffering, of which he had been a personal witness, he ascribed it to temporary and accidental causes, and he protested against any Imperial alms or rates in aid, while, as he believed, there were the means to provide relief within the compass and control of the resources of Ireland itself. It was only in exceptional cases of the direst necessity that it was the duty of the Government to feed a population, and he could not admit that this was one of those cases. In Londonderry, which he had the honour to represent, the actual number of paupers now receiving Union relief did not amount to a sixth of the number for which ordinary accommodation was provided. He had heard with pleasure the statement of his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, and he was glad to find that the statement of his right hon. Friend on a previous occasion, in which he avowed his reliance on the capability of Ireland, had been more than endorsed by the intelligent and reflecting portion of the Irish people. His right hon. Friend had truly stated that these were altered times, compared with the calamitous years 1846, 1847, and 1848, when a bankrupt proprietary had not the means, though he believed they had the inclination, to effect the salvation of the people, and that those who now possessed the rights of property were perfectly able and willing to discharge the corresponding duties which attached to their enjoyment of those rights. No one who remembered the history of those years of calamity could desire to see repeated the well-intentioned but utterly futile schemes to give employment to the people—schemes which resulted only in the demoralization of the people, and in a culmination of embarrassment on those who had the misfortune to possess land. He could assure his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan that the citizens of Londonderry and himself were upon the best possible terms, and that they intended to remain so. His right hon. Friend had been most cordially received in that distinguished city, and would be received with the same warmth of feeling whenever he should visit it again. He hoped his right hon. Friend would continue to act upon his own, and those impressions, which were founded on the reports of persons best able to estimate accurately

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the condition and wants of the Irish people. He felt confidence in his right hon. Friend’s administration of public affairs during an emergency which had already passed its worst stage, and, although he was not a supporter of the Government of which his right hon. Friend was the responsible officer, he admitted that he was proud of the sterling intrepidity of purpose which had characterized his right hon. Friend’s administration, and which, if persevered in, as he believed it would be, must obtain the praise of all who recognised ability and success, distinct and apart from political and party considerations. MR. BAGWELL said,52

he thought the discussion had arisen entirely from the animus of the remarks of the hon. Member for Dungarvan and the eccentric qualities of the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary. He did not see why distress in Ireland should be regarded in a different light to distress in England. There was distress in Ireland, but there was also distress in Manchester; in the one case it was a dearth of corn, in the other a dearth of cotton; but the people of Manchester did not come to that House for relief. There were the same local means of relief in Ireland as in Manchester, and he asserted that the landowners of Ireland were willing to supply the wants of the suffering population, and he was sure that it was the desire of every enlightened Irishman to work out his own deliverance. If the distress entailed so large a tax upon capital as to endanger the prosperity of the country, then, and then only, it would be the duty of Government to advance loans, insisting on repayment when the evil time had passed. That Ireland was an exception to the United Kingdom was the fault of the Government. The repetition of personal discussions, such as they had heard that night between the Irish Secretary and the hon. Member for Dungarvan, would not tend to raise the Irish people or the Irish representatives in the eyes of the country. The sooner such exchanges of courtesies were put an end to the better. He believed that Irish gentlemen were fully aware of their responsibilities, and were quite ready to meet them; but to come to Parliament asking for aid, until it had been shown that they had done all in their power to meet the distress, would be endangering the future prospects of the country.

MR. VINCENT SCULLY said,53

he rose with much reluctance to take part in the discussion, but could not sit silent after the constant references to several localities in the county of Cork. He regretted that the right hon. Baronet should have imported into the debate topics which had no connection with the subject before them. He should not follow him into his “cabbage garden,” or discuss “mannikin traitors” and “American emissaries.” The question they had to consider was, whether there was distress in Ireland, and the extent of it. He did not understand how any person acquainted with that country could doubt the existence of great distress, though no one had asserted it was universal, or that there was danger of death from starvation. The Chief Secretary admitted that he had at one time apprehended severe distress, and had taken credit for active efforts to avert it; those efforts consisting in 1,600

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printed circulars, some Crimean bread-carts sent into distressed districts, and a promise to send a Government steamer to the western coast of Ireland. The hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire) had concluded with a formal Motion for the production of Poor Law returns. He thought it might have been better to have made some substantive Motion—which might yet become necessary—such as a Select Committee to inquire into the extent of existing distress, and the best mode of relief. The only applications which had been made for any Government aid, as regarded the constituency with which he was connected, were, that well-secured loans should be made out of public funds for the construction of two railways towards the west of the county of Cork, which ought to receive encouragement even in prosperous times, and would confer imperial benefit, by contributing towards the national defences of such assailable harbours as Bantry Bay and Crookhaven. It had been further suggested that the “War Office should expedite the erection of intended defence works at Bere Island.” In no other form had he heard of any Irish begging-box having been presented to the present Government. He very much regretted that on this distressing subject any acrimonious tone should have been adopted by the combatants on either side; and he trusted such duels would not be renewed. The Irish representatives had no personal antipathy to the present Chief Secretary. Indeed, in one sense, he was rather a favourite with some of them; his excited style of address being more Irish than that of the Irish Members themselves. The right hon. Baronet had exhibited his inexperience most notably that evening by quoting, as conclusive authorities, Irish landlords and Irish police. He seemed to attach no importance to the deliberate opinions of half a dozen Catholic prelates, engaged in laborious visitations of their respective dioceses, as compared with the testimony of an anonymous working man at Sligo. He had also relied much upon a volunteer letter from the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory).54 In answer to that communication, he would now take the liberty to read another volunteer letter, addressed to the right hon. Baronet by one of the members for the county Cork—I have no wish whatever to raise or renew unprofitable controversies in the House of Commons, and I consider it the fairest as well as most useful course to communicate to you personally my grounds for believing (knowing, I might say) that extreme destitution now exists in some localities in Ireland; though freely admitting there is no absolute famine, and that many districts are still exempt from any unusual distress. The counties with which I am best acquainted are Tipperary, where I have property, and Cork, which I represent. As to those two counties (one-eighth of Ireland), I have already stated, as the result of local observation, that dairy and sheep farmers have had a good year, but that small tillage farmers had a miserable harvest; potatoes and wheat having failed, and oats being a deficient crop. Turf also could not be saved, owing to the wetness of the season. There may be sufficient supplies of foreign food and fuel, but many persons have not the means to purchase. Enclosed are printed appeals from relief committees established in the comparatively wealthy towns of Clonmel and Tipperary; Mallow, county of Cork, also a rich district; Kanturk and Skibbereen. Among the

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subscribers you will observe clergymen of both denominations, and other faithworthy names, including, at Mallow, a distinguished gentleman closely connected with your department. At Sligo, also, you will notice the mayor and town council, with the resident magistrate and sub-inspector of constabulary, about twenty justices of the peace, two M.P.s, and one noble proprietor (Viscount Palmerston),55 who contributes the liberal subscription of £20. You will, perhaps, collect from those appeals, as well as from others which may have reached your hands, that there is some extreme destitution in various localities; but that with few exceptions (such as Bere Island), it is still chiefly confined in each instance to some populous town, into which has been concentrated the accumulated, pauperism of surrounding electoral divisions. Hence, as at Skibbereen, demands are again being made for union rating. I beg likewise to direct your especial attention to statements made at a public meeting in Kanturk by the Very Rev. Mr. O’Regan, P.P., a gentleman whom, from long and intimate intercourse, I know to be incapable of misrepresentation. The Mansion House meeting, in the Irish Metropolis, with its Lord Mayor and Catholic Archbishop, confirm provincial statements. Having taken the liberty to submit these evidences of local distress in Ireland, in a temperate and friendly form, I trust they may assist your other information to judge rightly for the good of the country. He (Mr. Vincent Scully) had thought it his duty to address to the Chief Secretary that well-considered letter, accurately describing—perhaps rather understating—the existing distress. The right hon. Baronet had that evening heard a letter from the Right Rev. Dr. Keane.56 That Prelate, evidently writing under a sense of deep responsibility, and wishing to avoid exaggeration of any sort, after visiting his large diocese, which comprised about two-thirds of the county Cork, stated, that there should be no anxiety to prove too much or too little; there would be no famine, but distress severe and general had come upon the small tillage farmers, the shop-keepers in country towns, and the local tradesmen and labourers. The right hon. Baronet was rather too much addicted to act on his own impressions; and when he had formed that opinion, he not only did not care two rows of pins for all the Catholic bishops of Ireland, but, perhaps, had no greater respect for the opinions of those who sat with him on the Treasury Bench. The local gentry and larger farmers often went to Cork or Dublin for their goods; consequently, when the small tillage farmers were ruined, the local shop-keepers followed; and the labourers and tradesmen were involved in the common calamity. It might be asked, why did not the destitute classes avail themselves of the relief in poorhouses? As to the small farmers, it should be remembered that the Quarter-acre Clause was still in active operation,57 which absolutely excluded them from all poorhouse relief, unless on the condition of reducing themselves and their families to perpetual pauperism. The Very Rev. Dr. O’Regan, P. P. of Kanturk, had stated that he had often advised his poor parishioners to enter the poorhouse, and had remonstrated with them on their feelings of false pride. That reverend gentleman was well known to several Irish Members on both sides of the House, having attended here last Session, when he gave most valuable evidence before the Select Committee as to the proposed Registration of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in Ireland. There could be no 148

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better-informed or more reliable witness, and in a letter dated Kanturk, February 18, 1862, he wrote— “I have been incessantly engaged in efforts to relieve the frightful miseries of some of our poor people. Now that our funds are exhausted, they will, many of them being brought to death’s door, go into the workhouse. Be assured there is great and deep distress at the present moment, and that the small farmers were never since the famine years, nor even then, reduced to a more pitiable extent”. Without meaning to suggest the least imputation, he (Mr. Vincent Scully) would merely make the general observation that classes and individuals instinctively pursued their own interests. It was the interest of many landlords in Ireland to avoid, on the one hand, any appearance of such destitution among small tillage farmers as might afford an excuse for not paying their full rents, and to hold out the other hand for generous contributions to avert increased poor rates. Both in his present statements and in his letter to the Chief Secretary he had cautiously avoided all exaggeration or intemperate expressions. The letters read that evening by the hon. Member for Dungarvan had shown that the existing distress was rather more wide-spread than he had before supposed; but he understood the Right Rev. Dr. Gillooly to be of opinion that it did not as yet extend to more than 10 per cent of the population in his extensive diocese of Elphin. He trusted sincerely that the anticipations of the Secretary for Ireland would prove correct, and that increased pressure would not hereafter be felt. He greatly feared, however, that the distress had not yet reached its worst. Among other testimonies to the improved state of Ireland the right hon. Baronet might have mentioned that in no place had any attempt been made to break open corn stores or to stop food-carts, such as had been made in 1846–7, nor had any person so much as suggested any such riotous conduct. In conclusion, he would again emphatically deny that at Skull, Skibbereen, or elsewhere in the county Cork, had any attempt whatever been made to excite the tenants against their landlords. On the contrary, he would confidently appeal to his hon. Colleague opposite, who differed from him in politics, whether there had not recently been much fraternization between both classes. [“Hear!”] He trusted such mutual good feelings would prove enduring and sincere. MR. POLLARD-URQUHART said,58

he could corroborate what had been stated in regard to the reluctance of even the most destitute persons in Ireland to enter the poor-houses. It had been asked why the same complaints did not arise in England, which was equally subject to the vicissitudes of trade and bad harvests, as in Ireland. The reason was that in England distress was relieved without compelling the destitute poor in every case to go into the workhouses. One great difference existed between the circumstances of Ireland in 1846–7 and at present. Then there was no food. Now there was no scarcity of food, and every labourer who could find employment would be able to maintain himself and his family. He hoped the 149

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worst of the distress was nearly over. After the middle of March there would be no want of employment; indeed, it was a general complaint that there were in general not sufficient labourers to be found for the work to be done. He could not agree with the hon. Member for Cork as to the expediency of giving relief in the shape of advances for public works; the experience of 1846 and 1847 was against the proposal, and he hoped the Government, warned by the results of the past, would not again fall into a similar error. MR. LONGFIELD 

said, that whilst admitting the ability and honesty with which the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. Maguire) had brought the subject forward, as well as the purity of the intentions and the warm-heartedness of the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland, he thought that the truth in this matter, as in many other cases, lay between their respective statements. He would endeavour to avoid both Scylla and Charybdis59 by steering between the two extremes in expressing his opinions as to the actual condition of the country. It was true that distress to a considerable extent prevailed in different parts of the country, especially in some localities in the south and west of Ireland. He thought that amongst the authorities quoted by the hon Member for Dungarvan the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cloyne had stated perhaps most accurately the actual condition of things. That right rev. prelate observed that, after the best consideration of the case, it was his opinion that there would be no famine in Ireland, but undoubtedly there was a considerable pressure. He (Mr. Longfield) would first refer to Skibbereen. He believed that the distress there was considerable, but he had the great happiness of knowing that the distress was met in the most proper way—namely, by the local exertions, the local energy, and the personal contributions of the landlords of the neighbourhood. They felt that the distress was an evil not brought about by man, but inflicted by Providence, and that the exertions of man were capable of mitigating it. He had a small property, unfortunately, there; he would that it were larger, and that it were elsewhere. As an Irishman, nothing gave him greater pleasure than paying a tribute of respect to a political enemy; and he was happy to acknowledge that the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland had evinced his anxiety to serve the most distressed districts and to develop the resources of Ireland generally. The conduct of the right hon. Baronet was most creditable to him, and he would probably accept that tribute of thanks with greater satisfaction as it came from one who was not an habitual supporter, but an habitual opponent of the Government. The hon. Member (Mr. Maguire) had referred to the West Cork Railway. He (Mr. Longfield) had not, and he never would hold a single share; but as a gentleman resident in that part of the country, and well acquainted with its resources—who would never be benefited by that railway if it were made, nor injured by it if it should not be carried out—he had no hesitation in stating his concurrence with the opinion of the hon. Member for Dungarvan that there could scarcely be a more judicious exercise of the paternal care of the Government than by aiding the progress of public works which were calculated to develop the resources of a great locality rich in everything that constituted real wealth 150

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when properly developed. The hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Leader)60 and himself, in company with two gentlemen from Skibbereen, had waited upon the Secretary for Ireland, for the purpose of representing the resources of the district to which he referred, and the advantage of Government aid being given for their development. They were received by the right hon. Baronet in the most kind and sympathizing spirit. They did not speak of their poverty, nor solicit alms, but they showed to him the nature of their claims for assistance. He should be much disappointed, indeed, if the result of that statement was not followed up by the aid which they required. If it were otherwise, he should be disposed to attribute the disappointment to this unfortunate discussion, which, perhaps, in the ears of the right hon. Baronet, might sound like threats, censure, and coercion. He certainly could not attribute the failure to any want of sympathy on the part of the right hon. Baronet, believing that he took a deep interest in the welfare of the country. In reference to the case of Mallow, he regretted to say that the statement of the hon. Member for Dungarvan was but too true. He had made the fullest inquiries into the condition of that town; and he found out of its 5,000 inhabitants 1,000 were suffering considerable pressure. With a feeling of some little humiliation he made that confession; at the same time it was with the greatest pride he alluded to the exertions and the noble self-sacrifices which were displayed by the gentry of the neighbourhood in the relief of the distress. He was happy to say that those exertions had been already attended with much success. He did not agree with the hon. Member for Dungarvan in thinking that the state of the workhouses was no indication of the condition of the country. It appeared to him that it afforded a strong evidence of the condition of the people, by enabling the House to draw comparisons of the distress which prevailed from year to year. In 1860, on the 7th of January, the number of inmates in the Mallow workhouse was 240. In 1861, at the same period, it was 283; and in January, 1862, the number had increased to 366. The relief committee formed there, consisting of Protestants and Roman Catholics, Conservatives and their opponents, were working most harmoniously and energetically together, and their benevolent efforts were fast attended with success. Already the number of inmates in the workhouse had been reduced by twenty, and the distress in the towns had also been alleviated. In a short time that distress and pressure, now unfortunately severe in Mallow, would, he trusted, be completely relieved. THE O’CONOR DON said,61

that he had not intended to take any part in the discussion, but the speech of the right hon. Baronet would compel him to address a few observations to the House. The right hon. Baronet had told the House that “this lament,” as he had called it, had not come in any way from the landlords, or from the tenant-farmers of the country, or from any one at all acquainted with the real condition of the people; he said that it had been tinged with exaggeration, that it had been urged by passion, that the knowledge of the parties with whom it originated was limited and of a very subordinate character. Such having been the language of the right hon. Baronet, he (The O’Conor Don) felt that as a landlord in 151

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the west of Ireland, and in one of its most distressed counties, he could not sit silent. Another reason was, that he had had the honour of waiting on his Excellency, as the head of a deputation, to lay before him the condition of the country. That deputation consisted not of parties unacquainted with the condition of the people, not of persons whose knowledge was limited or of a subordinate character; it was composed almost entirely of landlords, most of them resident, most of them magistrates, and most of them ex officio Poor Law guardians. Now, the right hon. Baronet laid great stress on the statement of an ex officio Poor Law guardian, even without giving his name. He would briefly state a few of the facts which the deputation put before his Excellency. They presented petitions signed by the most respectable persons in fifty parishes of the counties of Roscommon and Sligo— men of every religious denomination and of different political views—and their statements were to this effect:—That there were about 5,000 persons holding small farms who were likely to be distressed, that there were over 9,000 persons in those fifty parishes who possessed no land at all, who were mere labourers, dependent on their earnings, and who were also likely to be distressed; also, that the failure of the potato crop was about three-fourths, that of the oat crop onefourth, while there was a complete and total failure of fuel. Those statements were laid before the Lord Lieutenant, and the right hon. Baronet was present on the occasion. The right hon. Baronet had every opportunity of inquiring into the accuracy of those statements; the deputation did not wish that they should be taken solely upon their authority, but that every means should be adopted for testing their truth. What, then, was his astonishment when the only answer that the right hon. Baronet was able to give to those statements was simply a letter from a working man at Sligo—a working man whose name he did not communicate to the House? But the whole speech of the right hon. Baronet greatly astonished him. He was prepared to hear that the distress did not amount to famine, that it would not warrant the Government in giving any very extensive relief, but he was hardly prepared to hear that the sufferings of the people were imaginary, and that the condition of the country was sound and satisfactory. During the last autumn and winter he had been a constant resident in the country; he had had, perhaps, not very enlarged opportunities of discovering the condition of the people; but, as far as he could judge, he had come to the conclusion that the state of the country was very different from that represented by the right hon. Baronet. He thought it unnecessary to go again over the same ground as the hon. Member for Dungarvan had already occupied, but he desired the right hon. Baronet to go to the Quarter Sessions and ask the barristers who presided over the Small Debts Courts whether they believed that the condition of the country was sound and wholesome? If it turned out that they were obliged to continue their sittings longer than usual in order to clear off the extraordinary number of cases, he would ask the reason of that. Was it because the debtors wished to have the pleasure of paying the costs, or of patronizing some local attorneys? Certainly not. It was simply because they could not meet the demands made upon them. Let him ask the bankers, too, whether they had made no alteration in their practice of lending money, and had 152

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not refused credit altogether, because they feared to trust those whom they knew to be in abject distress. Speaking from his own experience, he could state that in that portion of his county (Roscommon) in which there were many small tenants and small landowners, the greatest distress prevailed in consequence of the failure of the potato crop, on which those persons and their families usually depended for subsistence. What, on the other hand, were the proofs adduced for the purpose of making the House believe that the condition of Ireland was wholesome and satisfactory? First, there was the experience of the right hon. Baronet, who told the House that he had witnessed with his own eyes the state of Ireland, and that he accomplished this feat by spending more than three days in travelling over 300 miles of the country. He would leave that testimony to the judgment of the House, and pass on to the argument respecting the number of people in the workhouses. Notwithstanding what had fallen from the hon. Member for Dungarvan, the right hon. Baronet still maintained that the state of the workhouses was proof that there was no great distress, but the repugnance of the people to enter the unions, rendered that test, except incidentally, a perfectly fallacious one. It had been argued that, as there was abundance of provisions in the country, there could be no real or positive distress. That he did not admit. When the right hon. Baronet visited Sligo, a deputation told him that there was abundance of grain to meet the necessities of the country, but that there were certain poor people on a neighbouring mountain who had not got much money, and that the grant of a little would enable them to come down into the town and purchase at their stores. That last addition to their representation was sufficient to show that with plenty of provisions in a country there might still exist distress. But it might be urged that provisions were cheap— and he would admit that in the part of Ireland where he resided the price of oats was low; but that was rather an aggravation than an alleviation of the distress, for the persons who suffered most severely by it were the small holders of land, who, in consequence of the failure of the potato crop, which usually served as their means of subsistence, were obliged for their support to sell their grain at a depreciated value. Another consideration was that the crop of the previous year had been a bad one, and so when the present failure occurred the creditors came down upon the small farmers, and what crops they had were forced into the market, causing a fall in the price. That, however, instead of palliating the evil, proved its existence and aggravated it. These very persons might be compelled hereafter to buy at a higher price than they had sold for, and the corn merchants would then alone gain the benefit. Nor did he see that the distress was likely to become less as the season advanced, for the failure in the crops would not be remedied until the next harvest. If, indeed, the distress were confined to the labouring classes, it might be diminished as spring advanced and the demand for work increased. But it was not the ordinary frequenters of the workhouses who had suffered most. The statement of the right hon. Baronet as to the condition of the country was exaggerated. He did not mean to say that the distress approached that of the famine year, but in certain parts of the country there existed the utmost destitution and misery; and this had been recorded not by men whose information was limited and 153

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subordinate, but by those well acquainted with the country. He was no professional or disappointed agitator. He stated nothing from any other motive than because he believed it to be true. He was a landlord in one of the distressed districts, and had nothing to gain by making out the distress to be worse than it really was. The only proofs produced by the right hon. Baronet consisted of letters from different persons in different parts of Ireland, stating that they did not believe the distress to be so great as was represented. These statements might be correct, for no one had alleged that the distress extended over the whole country, but in other parts the existence of distress was undoubted. Then the right hon. Gentleman referred to the large number of pigs exposed for sale in Ballinasloe and other fairs, and inferred from this fact that the country must be prosperous. But the fact rather seemed to tell the other way, and to show that the people had been compelled to part with their pigs from the want of other food on which to support themselves. As to the argument that the Poor Law Inspectors in some districts had presented satisfactory returns, it might well be that the distress was confined to certain districts only; but if it could be shown that much distress prevailed there, it could hardly be said that the sufferings of the people were imaginary, and that the condition of the country was sound and satisfactory. He might be asked, “Why raise this cry of distress? Why drag before an English audience the sufferings of your country, if you do not expect thereby to alleviate those sufferings?” He confessed that he felt no pleasure in raising the cry of distress, and would much rather declare that the people were happy and prosperous; but when it was alleged here and elsewhere that exaggerated statements had been made on this subject by the clergy, by landlords, magistrates, and Poor Law guardians, he thought that Irish gentlemen were bound to state their opinions publicly in that House. To bewail or parade their grievances was not a characteristic of Irishmen. Irishmen would endure as much as any other people to preserve their character, and they had, he hoped, as high a sense of honour and as acute a sense of shame as any other nation. He, therefore, regretted the necessity of that painful discussion. It was humiliating to an Irishman to have his country pointed out as a country which was unable to support itself; while, on the other hand, if he admitted that the present severe distress was imaginary, he would be mocking the sufferings of his afflicted countrymen. When the appeal was made to foreign countries for the relief of the misery produced in France by the inundation of the Rhone, or when, not long ago, the inhabitants of British India appealed to the people of England and Ireland for the relief of their distress caused by famine,62 no one pretended that such appeals were disgraceful to those by whom they were made. Nor, again, was there supposed to be anything humiliating in the fact that a subscription was opened throughout England and Ireland for the families of the sufferers by the unhappy catastrophe at the Hartley Colliery.63 Why, then, should the Chief Secretary for Ireland, when a dire calamity had befallen that country, get up in his place and taunt those who were endeavouring to elicit the sympathies of the humane with handing round the begging-box, or with doing what was humiliating and disgraceful? He entirely repudiated that imputation, and he would tell the right hon. 154

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Baronet that his speech was a lamentable failure, for it had not overturned, or even attempted to overturn, a single argument put forward by the hon. Member for Dungarvan. The statements that had been made respecting the distress in Ireland were substantially correct, and, at least, if they had been capable of refutation the right hon. Baronet ought to have refuted them. Some hon. Gentlemen, while acknowledging that considerable suffering existed, had yet maintained that the resources of the country were of themselves quite adequate to meet it. That, however, was not the spirit in which the right hon. Baronet had dealt with the question. He, on the contrary, asserted that the alleged distress was unsupported by any authority to which weight could be attached. [Sir ROBERT PEEL: “Hear, hear.”] No doubt the right hon. Baronet was sincere in his own opinion, but he could tell him that the reports of distress were supported by the testimony of landlords, magistrates, and clergymen, who were well acquainted with the real condition of the country, and whose veracity could not be impeached. In conclusion, he had to thank the House for the patience with which it had listened to him, and to assure it that he would not have trespassed at such length upon its indulgence had he not felt that the question raised that night was not merely a question between the right hon. Baronet and the hon. Member for Dungarvan, but one in which every Irishman, and above all every Irish landlord, was deeply interested. MR. LEFROY  said,

that he regretted that the discussion had not been allowed to terminate immediately after the close of the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary’s able and convincing speech. He could not understand what object was to be served by prolonging the debate; and it was not pretended that a case had been made out for demanding assistance from the Imperial Exchequer. He had himself been much surprised to hear the hon. Member for Dungarvan’s statements as to the alleged general and pressing distress in Ireland, and had felt strongly inclined at the time to get up and contradict some of them coming from the centre of Ireland, he could state that food was abundant in that part of the country; and though fuel was certainly scarce, the deficiency of that article had been greatly made up for by the contributions of the landlords, especially of those whose estates were well-wooded. The right hon. Baronet had satisfactorily answered the allegation of the hon. Member for Dungarvan; and it was to be hoped that, while Ireland was quite able to relieve its own distress, its miseries would not be dragged unnecessarily before that House.

MR. WHALLEY said,64

that he considered that, in the course of the debate, hon. Members had entirely wandered from the subject. The Government had been charged with ignoring the distress which they were called upon to relieve. One part of that distress, it appeared, arose out of unfortunate bill transactions into which some of the small farmers and dealers had entered; was the Government to interfere for the protection of parties who had placed themselves in that position? The whole case as originally stated entirely fell to the ground. There was one point, however, on which he wished the right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary 155

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for Ireland had been more explicit. Who had raised the cry of distress? The right hon. Gentleman should have traced the evil to its real source. He said it was not the landlords or the middle classes who had raised the cry; but he should have gone a little further, and either entirely acquitted the priesthood or boldly charged them with complicity in, or with having originated this most injurious agitation. He was afraid, from what occurred in 1847, that it was the priests, and the priests alone, who were at the bottom of it. At that time, he admitted, many of the priests behaved in the most admirable manner; but in the west of Ireland, where he went with many others to relieve the distress, he had heard it stated in more than one chapel that the millions of money then subscribed was only an acknowledgment of the great debt which, as Mr. O’Connell at his monster meetings always told them, England owed to the Irish people, and that the mess of pottage then offered them was intended as an acquittance. That was the way in which the priests, trained and supported by public money, at Maynooth,65 forgetting their duty to the Government and the people, had spoken of the great exertions which were then made to relieve the distress existing in Ireland; and the very same parties now, for their own purposes, had raised the cry of distress. MR. BRADY said,66 that he sincerely regretted that any feeling of animosity should

exist, or any personalities should be allowed to pass between hon. Members on different sides of the House, believing as he did that both had the welfare of the country at heart. He could not, however, admit that the distress existing in Ireland had been exaggerated. In that part of the country with which he was connected the distress was very great; and, as a proof, he could state that the number of cattle was less by one-third than it was five years previously. He hoped, therefore, that means would be taken to alleviate its pressure and encourage the people to bear up under it. He trusted that the present discussion, however disagreeable in some respects, would lead to good results. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

IRISH DISTRESS OBSERVATIONS, Hansard, House of Commons Debates, 2 May 1862, vol. 166, cc. 1134–83. MR. MAGUIRE  said,

he rose to call attention to the fact that several Deaths from Starvation have occurred recently in Ireland; to ask whether the Government have received official information of such cases having occurred; and, if so, whether they have taken or are about to take any steps in consequence; also, whether they have any objection to lay upon the table all the Reports, Communications, and Correspondence in reference to such cases? Referring to the notice which the hon. and gallant Member for North Lancashire had given as to the state of distress in the cotton manufacturing districts, and to the very cordial manner with which the House had received that notice, he expressed his conviction that every Member of the House deeply sympathized with the severe 156

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distress of the people of Lancashire. The distress which existed in Lancashire was not, however, so much to be attributed to the dispensations of Providence as to the evil passions of man. As an Irish Member, he felt the greatest interest in the alleviation of that distress; but, at the same time, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there was as wide or wider spread distress in Ireland. He was sorry to say that every circumstance which had recently come to his knowledge only confirmed the existence of that distress, and showed the probability of its increasing rather than diminishing during the next three or four months. There was now a state of things in Ireland which should command the sympathy of every man who had a heart to feel for human distress. Several deaths had already occurred from destitution. He begged to call attention to the fact that Ireland was purely an agricultural country, and that her prosperity almost entirely depended upon the state of her harvests. The last two harvests had been very bad ones, especially in respect of the potato crop, which the people continued to cultivate with the greatest pertinacity. Since 1845 there had scarcely been a good potato harvest in the country; but for all that, he believed the people would not relinquish the planting of that valuable esculent, but would trust to Providence to grant to them at last the fruit of their labours in a wholesome and abundant harvest. Cobbett,67 were he alive, might denounce them for persevering in the cultivation of so precarious a crop; but he (Mr. Maguire) could not blame them for thus showing an abiding trust in the mercy of God. He would beg to remind the House of an important fact—namely, that Ireland, from being an exporting country, had recently become an importing country. During the year 1861, while she exported but £2,000,000 worth of grain, she imported about £6,000,000 worth, leaving a balance against her of £4,000,000. Her loss in live stock—that is the diminution of her live stock—amounted, in two years, to nearly £3,000,000. And judging by the analogy of former years, her actual loss from the partial failure of the grain crop, and the general failure of the potato crop, could not have been less than £20,000,000. It should be also remembered that there were in Ireland some 450,000 small landholders or farmers, who occupied farms not exceeding 30 acres each; and if an average were taken of the number in each family—say the occupier, his wife, and three children—the gross number would represent a very large proportion of the agricultural population of the country. Upon this class the loss of the potato, and the deficient grain harvest, fell with the greatest severity. None of this class were in position to employ the labourer; and even the better class of farmers were in many instances deeply embarrassed, and had not the means of employing labour to any extent, as they were accustomed to do in better seasons. In many of the towns of the South and West of Ireland trade had utterly collapsed, the shopkeepers doing almost nothing, in consequence of the farmers and labourers being unable to purchase the usual articles of clothing and other necessaries, with which they were in the habit of providing themselves and their families in other years. There was not a class in Ireland, from the lowest to the highest, that did not feel the general pressure; for it was useless for the humane landlord to attempt to obtain the whole of his rents from an 157

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impoverished tenantry. There were hon. Gentlemen present who had assured him of the impossibility of succeeding in any such attempt, were the attempt to be made. With those facts before him, exhibiting serious and widespread distress and depression, he did not address himself to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland and his Colleague, in an angry or a captious spirit; on the contrary, for the sake of those whom he desired to serve, he addressed him in a spirit of kindness and conciliation, and he only wished that on this occasion the stubbornness of the official would be broken down or laid aside, and that the man should alone be heard. He made every allowance for the position of the Irish Secretary. He was but recently called to his present office; but for the last halfdozen years it had been the habit of the noble Viceroy, his superior in the administration of affairs in Ireland, to harangue the people of that country and the public of this country upon the wonderful prosperity of Ireland. Addresses had been periodically delivered by the noble Viceroy, proving that Ireland was running a race of unparalleled progress, and was, in fact, becoming the model country of the world. Every official who wrote or spoke, wrote or spoke in the same strain; and every organ that represented the Government joined in singing the same joyful hymn. He felt assured that the right hon. Gentleman might not have taken the course he had done if he had not found himself the representative of a system of pertinacious denial that distress existed, which was far from credible to the candour of the noble Lord at the head of the Irish Government; and he implored the right hon. Gentleman to fling-aside all those miserable official shackles, which strangled every generous emotion, and to turn a dead ear to those mere red-tapists 68 who did everything and dealt with everything by the rules of office. On a former occasion he had asserted that widespread distress existed in Ireland—a statement which he now repeated, and was prepared to prove. He should adduce the verdicts given at the coroners’ inquests to show that several deaths had occurred in Ireland from want of the necessaries of life. And the worst was not past. If ever the Government was to do anything, to show any sympathy for the suffering people, or stretch out a hand to aid them, now was the time. In former years of distress it was well known that the worst periods were the months of June, July, and August, before the new harvest could be cut, and especially in the parts of the country where the harvest was late. Generally speaking, the harvest in Ireland was later than in England; and this year, he feared, they would not have till late in August a supply of food for the people at home. The Poor Law, as administered in Ireland, was utterly inadequate to meet the distress that pervaded the country. In Lancashire there was a different state of things from that which existed in Cork or Connemara. In England there was a system of out-door relief; in Ireland there was none. It thus happened, that while in England in any pressure from which the working classes suffered, as at present in the cotton districts, the Poor Law was equal to their immediate relief, in Ireland the Poor Law was not, as now administered calculated to meet the pressure of times like the present. It might seem extraordinary to English Members, but there were masses of people in Ireland who would rather die in their cabins 158

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or on the roadside than go into the workhouse. The statement might appear to be an extravagant one, but it was still literally the fact, and could be proved not only by numberless instances in point, but by the deliberate records of officials. Before he gave any particular cases that proved the severity of the suffering, the House would allow him to state what had been done to relieve it. A number of persons in Ireland had had the audacity—the criminal audacity—to say that the appeals made to Irish charity had been got up by agitators, and that a cry of distress was raised for evil purposes. To that assertion he gave a positive and solemn denial—he would not say an indignant, but a sorrowful denial. It was totally without foundation, or a shallow of truth. Who best knew the condition of the people? The Catholic clergy—those who had given relief from their own scanty means, and ministered to them in the time of hunger and wretchedness. Not a single word had been said by the Catholic clergy that had not been justified by the official Reports laid on the table of the House. In consequence of these appeals several district relief Committees had been formed in Ireland, and a central Committee at the Mansion-house, presided over by the Lord Mayor of Dublin. The central Committee had raised about £2,200, and the district Committee, £6,000; and of that sum above £4,000 was contributed, not by landlords, but by townspeople, strangers, and occupiers, many of whom were themselves suffering under the pressure. The Mansion-House Committee had done great service in eliciting public feeling, and inducing those who otherwise might have been hard and grasping to be merciful and considerate. But that Committee had started into existence almost under the ban of the Government. It had gone on without the patronage of the Government, though the result of its appeal had saved many human lives and diminished the record of deaths by destitution that would have been piled up as a terrible accusation against the Government of the day. He would read a letter from the Catholic Bishop of Galway, Dr. M’Evilly,69 dated April 17. The letter was addressed to the Mansion-house Committee. Dr. M’Evilly was under the impression, common in Ireland, that the Government did not wish this question of distress to be mooted. He said the coming three months would sorely try the people, and he did not see what was to become of them during that time. His Lordship thus continued—“One of the most painful aggravations of the sufferings of the people is that a general impression has gone abroad that the Government, whose first duty one would think it is to save the lives of the people—(for what other purpose do they hold the reins of Government—to what other purpose do the taxation, the armaments, &c, of the country tend?)—not only neglect this duty themselves, but regard with disfavour every effort to save them. It seems to be generally understood that the truly patriotic and charitable exertions of the several relief Committees, without whose interference thousands would have died of cold and hunger, are opposed to the views of Government; and no Government official, no expectant of Government favours, it would seem, can take any part in them, or even publicly contribute to their funds. No doubt we enjoy very great liberty in this country. Where is there any other country on the face of the globe where there is such liberty to starve?” 159

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That was the opinion of the Catholic Bishop of Galway; and no wonder, since the Government had endeavoured to disprove the fact that there was widespread destitution in Ireland. He (Mr. Maguire) would go farther, and say, that the opinion, whether rightly or wrongly founded, was entertained by the great majority of the people of Ireland. He would give a few instances which, while exhibiting the distress prevailing in the districts referred to, would at the same time indicate the felling entertained in reference to the pertinacious incredulity of the Government. Here was a letter from the Rev. R. Prendergast,70 the parish priest of Newport, Mayo— “Newport, Mayo, April 26, 1862. Dear Sir,—You will perceive in the public papers the resolutions adopted by the clergy of the Westport Deanery, on the 23rd inst., proclaiming to the Government the appalling distress now terribly felt by the people of this mountainous district. I beg respectfully to draw your attention particularly to the deplorable condition of my parish. This parish numbers 1,090 families, scattered over an area of 21 by 10 miles, principally mountainous—all chiefly subsisting on the potato crop. There has been a complete failure of this staple food of the people—add to this dire scarcity of food during the winter, and you will form some estimate of the people’s sufferings. The pressure arising from the two-fold calamity has now come to such a crisis that, unless the Government immediately intervene to aid the people, death from starvation will be the inevitable consequence. There was every effort made by local contributions to meet the scarcity of fuel in the parish during the past season; but at present no amount of foreign or local charity can cope with the prevailing want of food. I hope you will earnestly press upon the Government the necessity of attending to their claims.—I have the honour to be, your obedient humble servant, RICHARD PRENDERGAST, P.P., Newport, Mayo. “J. F. Maguire, Esq., M.P.” In reply to those who said there was no distress, he might advert to these resolutions of the deanery of Westport, which stated that no description of the appalling distress of the people of that extensive seaboard and mountainous district could give an adequate idea of the sad reality, and that, as ministers of God, they felt it an imperative duty to proclaim it to the Government, and to urge upon it the necessity of taking effective measures to save the lives of Her Majesty’s subjects from death by starvation, otherwise inevitable. They also stated that the present condition of the country was not the result of indolence, or want of industry on the part of the people, but owing to the calamities of the season, the failure of the crops, the dearth of fuel, and also a malignant disease amongst pigs and cattle, combined with rigid exaction of rents. The last resolution, which he would read, was in these terms—That the false representations of Government officials, and others who studiously endeavour to conceal from the gaze of the civilized world the real state of the country, are equally inhuman and unchristian, and deserve the unqualified censure of every enlightened man, no matter of what land or country. 160

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Whether those expressions were justified or not, he was convinced that they were the prevailing sentiments of a majority of the Irish people. Even Belfast was not without suffering from the depression of the times; for he saw, by a statement in the Belfast News of the 16th of April, that a meeting of Protestant clergymen had been held in that town, at which meeting the prevalence of distress among the working population was fully admitted and strongly represented. It was also stated in the News that the classes now suffering were hitherto the best customers of the traders, who ought to assist them in their distress; and after ridiculing the prosperity reports of people connected with the Poor Law, the writer stated that those who were suffering would endure any privations rather than degrade themselves by entering the workhouse. He (Mr. Maguire) was rather proud than otherwise of this horror of the workhouse entertained by honest and industrious men. He might refer to a letter from the Rev. F. Kenny, P.P., dated Moycullen, Galway,71 April 30th, as it reflected credit upon the decent pride and self-respect of a suffering people. The writer said— “That for a considerable time past the people of his parish had been enduring the most trying privations without his knowledge or any out spoken complaint. As long as credit lasted, and any articles of dress, bedclothes, or furniture upon which they could raise money, he heard not a word about cold, hunger, or any privations. It was only when the sacred duties of Easter brought him into close and daily intercourse with them that he learned the extent and severity of their distress, which their proverbial and characteristic, though mistaken pride, could no longer conceal. Not more than five or six families out of about 550 had provisions up to the date of the letter, and by far the greater number of them were buying food since the beginning of the year, and many since last November. There was not much employment in the parish, as nearly all the landlords were absentees; and the landholders, with one or two exceptions, had only small farms.” The writer added— “So you may easily judge of the condition of my flock, and of the dreary prospects before them. The Government, it appears, is still deaf to the cries of the indigent, as well as to the appeals made in their behalf.” In further confirmation of the distressed condition of the people, he might quote from a communication received from Mr. Murphy, of Bantry, which stated that on Saturday, the 26th of April, a poor man went begging from door to door in the town of Bantry. He was not an ordinary beggar, in all probability had never asked alms before in his life; but his case is equally illustrative of the misery of his class and the operation of the Poor Laws. The name of this man is John Shea, of Faha, parish of Clonlawrence. He has a wife and eight children, one of them, a boy, then lying in a helpless state from the effects of starvation. His family were refused admission to the workhouse unless he consented to go with them; 161

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but as he is struggling desperately to sow a bit of ground—his only chance of social salvation—he refused to accept indoor relief, and preferred making an appeal to the charity of the public, in which he was fortunately successful. The Rev. J. O’Reilly, the parish priest of Clonlawrence,72 bears testimony to the truth of this statement, and states that Shea and his family are suffering from want of food, fuel, and clothing; and the gentleman who sends the case says, “There are some hundreds of such cases in and about this neighbourhood.” He now came to the list of deaths by starvation, proved to be so by unquestionable evidence. He could enumerate as many as twenty inquests on persons who had died in different parts of Ireland, but chiefly in the west, between last November and the 26th of April, and in all of which the verdicts returned were, that death had been caused by exposure to cold and starvation. Some of them were attended with the most painful circumstances, and all evidenced great and prevailing distress. He would not attempt to quote all the cases at his disposal; but he would content himself with enumerating some, giving the name, place, date, and verdict – or, in other cases, the circumstances. November 12th, 1861.—At Manish, near Ennis, co. Clare, on a man unknown. Verdict—“Death caused by exhaustion, starvation, and exposure to cold.” November 20th, 1861.—At Oughterard, Galway, on Mary Sullivan, who was found dead on the hearthstone of a cabin where she had sought refuge for the night. Her body was leaning over the ashes of a few burnt sticks. Verdict—“Death from exposure and want of food.” The death of the child of Anthony Prendergast, which happened in the public street of Athlone, on the 7th of December, was thus described by the correspondent of a Galway paper— “Anthony Prendergast, having consumed the last meal of potatoes, and burned the last fire he could place on the hearthstone, with his wife and three children, abandoned his wretched cabin, and proceeded to the town to seek employment. The father carried one of the children on his back, the mother bore another folded in her arms, while the third child followed, with bleeding feet and a wail of suffering, which told of the pain and hunger he endured. They had scarcely entered the town when the exhausted mother complained that she felt a cold weight pressing on her heart, and, taking aside the rags in which the child was rolled, she found it was his corpse. He had died in her arms of hunger and cold. It was truly a spectacle of woe to see that emaciated, naked, shivering group bewailing that little departed creature in the centre of a public street.” December 18th, 1861.—Enniskillen—Rebecca Liddy, who died in the public street. Verdict—“Want and exhaustion.” 162

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January  28th, 1862.—Galway—James Murphy, who died in a roofless house in Cross Street. The case of this poor man exemplified the horror of the workhouse felt by many even of the most destitute of the Irish poor. His story is thus told by the Galway Vindicator—In an entry, off Lower Cross Street, there is an old house, for years forsaken by tenants of any grade of society. In the cellar of this dilapidated building (the ceiling of which was but partially covered) lay a poor man, named James Murphy, in the arms of death, he had suffered long from the want of the necessaries of life, ending in a series of other complaints, which brought him to an untimely grave. An old woman, who came from time to time to attend him, told us that she advised him to go to the poorhouse before he died, and his words were, “Throw me out into the sink there, but don’t bring me to the poorhouse.” Poor Murphy was between thirty-eight and forty years of age, and was well known about the city as a good, honest man. January 28th, 1862.—Athlone—Poor man, name unknown, who was found lying on a dung-heap, and died immediately on his removal to the workhouse hospital. Verdict—“Died from want and exposure to cold.” February 14th, 1862.—Galway—Anthony Walsh. Verdict after post mortem examination—“Died from exposure to cold, and want of food.” February 18th, 1862.—Athlone—Bernard Boland, a poor schoolmaster, died as he was being conveyed from Cushala, in St. Peter’s parish, to the workhouse of Athlone. Verdict—“Death caused by want and cold, the exposure developing disease of the heart.” Same place and date.—John Barron, weaver. On returning from a neighbour’s house, where he had been to obtain some firing, he fell lifeless at the door of his own wretched house. Verdict—“Death caused by want of food and fuel.” March 11th, 1862.—Glenarm, county Antrim—Owen Dogerty, aged eleven years, Verdict—“Death from cold, and scanty and impure food.” The Rev. Thomas Walsh, P. P., Rusmuck, county Galway, writing to the Connaught Patriot on the 17th of March, says— “I am exhausted visiting the sick and dying, and it is with feelings of the deepest regret I have to record the names of Edmund Concannen, Robert Sullivan, Mary Nee, Honor Mannion, and others, who have died within the last five days for want of food or nourishment.” The Rev. Michael M’Dermott, P.P. of Templeboy, Dromore West, county Sligo, writing in the end of March, when sending a petition in favour of certain amendments in the Irish Poor Law, adds in a postscript— 163

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“I have this week administered the rites of the Church to four of my poor parishioners, who died of starvation.” And in answer to my request, that he would give me particulars as to names and dates, he thus writes on the 8th of April— “The following persons died from starvation in this parish within the month of March last:—John Taylor on the 15th; his wife Bridget on the 16th; Mary Kilcullinon the 21st; Thady Stein, on the 28th.” The writer adds— “These poor people were beyond recovery when I was called on to administer to them the rites of the Church. I have no doubt but many others will meet with an untimely grave, unless immediately succoured. My scanty resources are exhausted, and what to do, or how to remedy this evil, I know not under heaven. May an Almighty Providence look to their necessities, as we cannot hope for or expect aid from our rulers.” On a former occasion the Secretary for Ireland read a letter from a gentleman of large means and high position in Castletown Berehaven, Co. Cork. That gentleman, Mr. Puxley, chairman of the local Board of Guardians, gave a flourishing description of the prosperity of the district. But the following letter, written on the 5th of last month, gave a very different idea of the actual state of the locality:— “Castletown Berehaven, April 5th, 1862. My dear Mr. Maguire,—A woman of the name of Neil died a few weeks ago near this town, and her friends assured me that her death arose from a total want of such food as she could in her illness make use of. It was I who prepared her for death, and while I was in the house I made a close examination of it, and could not discover one particle of any kind of provisions. At this time the family (eight in number—four adults, and four children) were obliged to subsist on 1½ stone of meal per week, allowed them by the Vincent de Paul Society. This very day an inquest was held in the next parish, Kilcatherine, on the body of a girl named Mary Murphy. Her father swore that for several days his family had but one meal, and that an insufficient one, per day to live on; that on Saturday the 29th July, he gave his child a little stirabout, which she at once threw up again; that at this moment he had not a morsel of food nor a penny in his house; and that his mother-in-law and another child of his died about a month ago from the same want of proper food. The child’s uncle, James Shea swore that for the last three months this family was always without a sufficiency and often without a particle of any kind of food. The M.D. swore that Mary Murphy had scrofula and disease of lungs, which could be super induced by bad and spare diet, and that her death was greatly hastened by said insufficiency of food. All who were examined swore that such scenes as occurred in this family were now to be found commonly 164

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in the district. Those present at the inquest subscribed a small sum each for this poor Murphy. The coroner declared he never saw so many symptoms of distress. I am writing in much haste—these are the facts—make the best use of them. Do you remember Mr. Puxley’s (our Chairman of Board of Guardians) letter to Sir R. Peel? I answered it most strongly in the Examiner, and he had not a word to say in reply. In a short time we will have more startling intelligence to send you.—Yours sincerely, JOHN O’LEARY, R.C.C.” 73 Dr. O’Brennan,74 writing on the 6th of April, from Tuam, says— “On Friday evening a man named Sweeny died of exhaustion from want of food, in the outskirts of Tuam. I was at Mass on Sunday by the side of a man who, as soon as he reached his miserable home, fell on the floor from exhaustion. I don’t wish to give his name, but I saw the case. I am sure, if inquests were held, it would be found that many, many had died of destitution. At a recent meeting of the Tuam Guardians, four persons were mentioned to have died of destitution, namely—Mary Coleman, Catherine Monaghan, Bridget Spelman, and John MacHugh. These were in the Headford division. The Rev. Mr. Conway, writing from Headford—the same district respecting which they were told by Dr. Brodie that there were no applications for relief— gives a fearful account of the condition of the people. His letter is dated “Palm Sunday.” He says – “But this moment I am after performing the funeral service of our holy religion in the church over the remains of Margaret Larkin, who died on yesterday in the village of Ballyconlaught. A few days since she was found on the roadside by a carman, who charitably placed her in his cart, and conveyed her to the house where she died. She applied for relief some months since, but was refused (though she was after receiving the last rites of her religion), unless she went to the workhouse, which is a distance of ten Irish miles. . . . After I attended her I sent for the doctor and the relieving officer, who lived miles off. The doctor certified she could not he removed to the workhouse, and she got provisional relief. On the Tuesday following she got 3s. worth of bread and some tea. The Tuam Board of Guardians considered her case on Wednesday, and on the following Friday late she got some relief, and the next morning she was a corpse.” The Rev. Mr. Conway refers to other cases— “On the day after, I attended a poor starving man named Kelly, who got shelter also from Mr. Wilson, near Headford. On the same day I administered to the father, the mother, and the daughter (their names were Walsh), in the town-land of Ballyhale. They were stretched in a little room, sick of malignant fever. They did not want for food, but they wanted fuel, as the nurse could not procure as much fire as would warm for them a little milk. The mother and daughter are since dead. On the same day, and in the same village, I attended a man named Gray, who lay in a hovel six feet by ten, and in it was the bed of his daughter, her husband, 165

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and child. Even during the awful famine of 1846–7 I never met such an object. The doctor certified that he was unfit to be removed to the workhouse. Still the committee which was appointed by the Poor Law Commissioners for Headford refused him relief. And in the same village, and on the same day, I visited a family named Glynne, and on yesterday, a woman named Joyce was buried who walked three Irish miles to see the Headford relief committee and tell them her state, but there was no committee meeting. She came home, lay down in her cabin and died, and after her death the relieving officer sent her provisional relief.” He would pass over a number of other cases, and conclude with one so late as the 26th of April. An inquest was held in Gort on the body of John Ford, whose case was worthy of every sympathy. It was that of a poor man who bravely struggled on to the last, until he was struck down by sickness caused by destitution. The particulars are given by a correspondent of the Morning News— “The wife of the deceased deposed that she brought him some food at three o’clock p.m., of which he was unable to partake. Being in a weak and sickly condition, she urged him to desist from work; but he replied that he would “try and finish his day, as if he did not, what would she and the children do?” He made another attempt to work, got still weaker, and at length fell senseless in the field. He was placed on a car by some neighbours working in an adjoining field, and brought home, when, after lingering for some hours, he expired. This witness added that during the winter and spring deceased and his family were on many days without a meal, and could not have subsisted only for the assistance rendered them by the Gort relief committee; but that since the committee, compelled by the exhaustion of their funds, struck off from the list of recipients the families of all labouring persons, deceased and his family were reduced to a starving condition. She also stated that they were not in possession of any bed-clothing, and that deceased used to sleep with no other covering than the remnants of an old coat.” The doctor stated that he had no doubt death resulted from the effects of starvation and want of bed-clothing. The jury returned the following verdict, in the propriety of which the coroner expressed his concurrence:— “We find that John Ford’s death was caused by the utter state of destitution in which he continued to exist for the past winter and spring, being nearly always destitute of food and bed-clothing. We are further of opinion that a judicious distribution of out-door relief to the labouring poor, who entertain a strong aversion to entering union workhouses, is very desirable, and would enable them to hear the severities of this trying season, with which private benevolence is entirely unable to contend.” He could give a much longer list, but he thought he had given a sufficient number to prove that the existence of serious distress in Ireland was a painful reality. 166

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Now, it might be said that Catholic clergymen occasionally indulged in exaggerated statements, the result of strong sympathy with sufferings and miseries with which they were not equal to cope; and it might even be said that a famine cry was raised for unworthy purposes. But people do not die of starvation merely to prove a case—and these poor people would not have died if they could have had their own wish. Their deaths proved beyond doubt the existence of wide-spread misery, which was not alone likely to continue, but to increase. It was not creditable to the Government that such cases should have to be recorded, and it was less creditable to them that they so long persevered in denying the existence of serious distress. If similar cases could have been recorded as occurring under the King of Naples, the Duke of Modena, or the Pope of Rome, it would have been said that the Government was mal-administered, because it afforded no protection to human life. And what are we to say when they occur in this great and powerful empire? By the end of the present month there would be no employment, save in rare instances, for agriculturists in Ireland. For two terrible months gaunt famine would stare the people in the face. It was the duty of the Government, as the guardian of the lives of the people and of the prosperity of the country, not to persist in denying that there was distress, but to take some active measures to relieve it. No doubt the Government would do something in reference to the relief in Lancashire, and every Irish Member would bless them for their interference; but he desired that they should also be able to bless the Government for adopting measures for the relief of Irish distress. He had stated the case of Ireland calmly and without exaggeration. There his duty ceased. He was not a Member of the Government, but a private and independent Member of the House; and the responsibility of action did not rest with him, but with the Government. He might, however, suggest to the Government that they could relieve the sufferings of the people by assisting local enterprise and promoting useful works. For instance, there were railways as yet on paper—tramways as yet in the same position—harbours to be constructed or improved—public works to be undertaken or completed. Now, loans on liberal terms to reproductive works would ensure that which the Irish people, as the men and women of Lancashire, most desired, and that which was the greatest gift that could be conferred on the industrious classes of the community—remunerative employment.75 The people of Ireland did not ask for alms; they wanted work, and the Government might, if so inclined, assist in providing it for them. In his own city—Cork, of which he happened this year to be Chief Magistrate—the public boards were making every effort to supply employment by promoting useful public works; but still, in spite of their exertions, numbers of the working classes were suffering great distress from the pressure of the times. After giving instances of the anxiety of the working classes to obtain employment instead of alms, the hon. Member continued: Many landlords were anxious to give relief by employing the labourers and small farmers in making improvements on their property, and not a few of them had applied to the Board of Works for loans to enable them to do so. It appeared, however, that the Board of Works 167

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had reduced the amount of the loans given by them, and he wished to know why they now insisted on giving a smaller amount than they were accustomed to give formerly. He begged to call attention to the following letter, dated April 5th, addressed to him, and signed “A Landlord”—but written by a respected nobleman of the South, whose name he was ready to communicate to the right hon. Gentleman:— “I am desirous to call your attention, and that of other Irish Members, to the position in which landlords, especially those who are life-tenants of their estates, who wish to improve their estates and employ the people, are now placed. From some unaccountable reason the loans from the Board of Works, which were originally fixed not to exceed £10,000 on any estate, are now limited to £5,000; consequently those landlords who may have expended that amount are now restricted from further improvement. In my own case I applied originally for the full sum of £10,000, which was granted, and I calculated of course on carrying out improvements to that extent. I find myself now suddenly stopped. It appears to me, that as Government call upon us landlords to assist the people in trying seasons, they should at least carry out the measures and means which they originally offered to us.” He hoped the right hon. Baronet would interpose and would induce the Board to adopt a course that would enable those landlords to give the necessary amount of relief to the people. Having now brought this case before the House without exaggeration, and proving every case by the best evidence of which it was susceptible, he did not mean to say that the state of Ireland was anything like so bad as in famine years; but it was and would be for the next three or four months unusually severe and trying while the Poor Law, it was demonstrated, entirely failed to reach those in distress. The Poor Law officials who boasted of the prosperity of the country had not been out of Dublin, and the Chief Commissioner had never been in a single workhouse in Ireland.76 These officials only spoke from the reports they received; and if the right hon. Baronet relied on their fallacious statements, coldbloodedly written in their own offices, he must go wrong, and the people must suffer. He would only say, in conclusion, that the responsibility entirely rested on the Government to take such steps as the nature of the case required; and if the Government and Parliament felt themselves called on to interfere in the case of South Lancashire, they were equally bound to interfere in the case of distress in another part of the United Kingdom; and if they actively intervened for the assistance of one class of Her Majesty’s subjects; in England, as they ought to do, they were; bound to do the same for another class of Her Majesty’s subjects in Ireland.

Notes 1 John Francis Maguire (1815–1872), an Irish writer and politician, who served as MP for Dungarvan in 1852, and for Cork City between 1865 and his death in 1872. In 1870, he joined the Home Rule Party. He was author of The Irish in America (New York, Montreal: D. & J. Sadlier & co, 1868).

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2 Sir Robert Peel, 3rd baronet (1822–95), was the eldest son of Sir Robert Peel, 2nd baronet, the latter being Prime Minister during the first year of the Great Famine. The younger Peel served as Chief Secretary for Ireland from July 1861 to December 1865. In this regard, he was following in his father’s footsteps, he having held this position from August 1812 – August 1818. The younger Peel’s volatile personality was regarded as a hindrance to his political advancement. 3 George William Frederick Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle (1802–1864), styled Viscount Morpeth from 1825 to 1848. During this time, he served as Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1835 and 1841, his departure being marked with a tribute known as ‘the Morpeth Roll’. Carlisle served under Lord Palmerston as Lord Lieutenant from 1855 to 1858 and again from 1859 to 1864. 4 Claude Glass, named after Claude Lorrain (1600–1682) is a convex glass used by landscape artists to change the colour tone of an image. 5 William Donnelly C.B. had been Registrar General of Protestant marriages since 1845. Upon the creation of the Registrar-General’s Office in Ireland in 1864, he was appointed Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, a position that he held until 1876. 6 The most famous member of the company was Joseph Sturge (1793–1859), the abolitionist. The firm went into receivership in 1887. 7 The Courts had originally been set up during the Great Famine, in 1848 and 1849, to facilitate the sale of estates that were in debt. 8 William Haughton had been Chairperson since 1860. He was younger brother of James Haughton (1795–1873), the Dublin abolitionist and tee-totaller. Until 1850, the two brothers owned a corn and flour business. 9 Charles Joseph Cantillon ( 1822–1910) of Arbutus Lodge in Cork, was a corn merchant and local magistrate. He was appointed Mayor in 1865. 10 John Orrell Lever (1824–1897) was an English shipping owner from Manchester. He was one of the men responsible for establishing Galway as a packet-station in 1858, with mail contracts being a crucial part of its income. In 1859, Lever was elected MP for Galway Borough, a seat he held until his defeat in 1865. Initially a Tory politician, after 1880, he moved closer to the Home Rule League. He again represented Galway from 1880 to 1885. 11 Lord George Bentinck (1802–1848) was a Tory politician who, in 1846, challenged Sir Robert Peel over his decision to repeal the Corn Laws. This action brought the Whig Party to power for the remainder of the Great Famine. Shortly before his death, he had suggested that the government invest in railway building in Ireland as a means of creating employment and re-generating the economy. 12 In 1845, the Hon. Edward Twisleton was appointed a Poor Law Commissioner, with responsibility for Ireland; Alfred Power was appointed the second in command in Dublin. In 1847, when a separate Irish Commission was created, Power was appointed Assistant Commissioner. Following Twisleton’s resignation in May 1849, Power had been appointed Chief Commissioner. The Assistant Commissioner in Ireland was Edward Senior, who also had been a Poor Law official during the Great Hunger. Both men took an orthodox approach to Poor Law in Ireland, favouring the application of the workhouse test. Edward Senior was one of a number of Assistant Commissioners appointed in 1838 to oversee the introduction of the new Poor Law to Ireland. 13 Parish priest of Kanturk (later Archdeacon), P. D. O’Regan was a subscriber to the O’Connell Monument Fund. He was also a supporter of the Home Rule movement, see Proceedings of the Home Rule conference held at the Rotunda, Dublin, on the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st November, 1873, p. xi. 14 John McEvilly (1818–1902) was born in Louisburgh in Co. Mayo. In 1833, he entered Maynooth Seminary. In 1857, he was consecrated the Bishop of Galway by the Rev. John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam.

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15 Rev. J.D. Coghlan worked in the Diocese of Achonry. 16 Paul Cullen (1803–1878) was born in Prospect, Co. Kildare. From 1820, he attended the College of Propaganda in Rome. From 1832 to 1850, he served as Rector to the Irish College in Rome, becoming confidantes of Pope Gregory XVI and Pius IX. He advised the latter in regard to the Great Famine. In 1866, he was appointed the first Irish Cardinal. His return to Ireland was also part of bringing Ireland more in line with the increasingly conservative views of Pope Pius. 17 Colonel Robert Peel Dawson (1818–1877) of Moyola Park, served as Conservative MP for Co. Londonderry from 1859 to 1874. 18 Sir Henry John Brownrigg (1798–1873) was Inspector-General of the Constabulary in Ireland. He was mentioned in W. Steuart Trench, Realities of Irish Life (first pub. in 1868; reprinted Cambridge UP, 2011), p. 248. 19 Reference to, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins: A Cornish Man: Taken from His Own Mouth, in His Passage to England (London: T. and J. Allman, 1816) written by Robert Paltock. 20 Laurence Gillooly (1819–1895) was born near Roscommon. He was Roman Catholic Bishop of Elphin from 1858 to 1895. 21 Sir Henry William Gore-Booth, 5th Baronet (1843–1900) an Arctic explorer and adventurer was owner of Lissadell House, in Co. Sligo. During the Great Famine, his family had been associated with the ruthless eviction and emigration of many of their poorest tenants. Sir Henry was regarded as a more progressive landlord. His daughters, Constance and Eva, achieved fame (albeit through different routes) for their radical politics. Constance was a Commandant during the Easter Rising in Dublin. 22 Probably Colonel John James Whyte of Newtown Manor, Sligo, who was also a magistrate in Co. Sligo. 23 Probably Francis Counihan, founder and proprietor of the Munster News since 1851. He had been born in 1807, near Killarney, and died in June 1895. See: http://www.lim erickcity.ie/media/olj%202011%20p010%20to%20014.pdf, accessed 21 May 2016. 24 William Louis Hackett, Mayor of Clonmel, was also a member of the O’Connell Memorial Committee. See, John O’Hanlon, O’Connell Monument Committee (Dublin: Duffy and Company, 1888). 25 Bishop William Keane (1805–1875). He was appointed Bishop of Cloyne in 1857. 26 Mackay, a JP, owned 4449 acres in Co. Cork. See Landed Estates’ Records: landedestates.nuigalway.ie 27 Michael O’Hea (1808–1876) had been born in Woodfield, near Rosscarbery in west Cork. Ordained a priest in Paris in 1834, he was appointed Bishop of Ross in 1858. 28 Rev. William Allen Fisher (1808–80) had been active in Kilmoe on the Mizen Peninsula, during the Great Famine, organizing relief for the local poor, and getting sufficient funds to build an Anglican church, as a way of providing employment. A passionate speaker of Irish, he called it Teampol na mBocht, making it the only Church of Ireland to have an Irish name. However, his refusal to work with Catholic priests, and the number of local converts to Protestantism, led to accusations of ‘souperism’. See Maume, Patrick, ‘Standish James O’Grady: Between Imperial Romance and Irish Revival’, in Eire-Ireland (2004, vol. 39). 29 Hon. William Smyth Bernard (1792–1863) was an Irish Conservative Party politician for Bandon. He was also a captain in the 1st Dragoon Guards. 30 There had been some questions in the British Parliament regarding the building of a fourth Queen’s College, in Dublin. See, Hansard, HC Debates, 25 February 1862, vol. 165 c. 689. 31 The Orange Order, founded in Co. Armagh in 1795, was an exclusively Protestant organization, and named after William of Orange, victor at the battle of the Boyne in 1690. 32 Robert Longfield, Conservative MP for Mallow from 1859 to 1865. He held land in Ballynoe, barony of Kinnatalloon. See: landedestates.nuigalway.ie

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33 The Society of St. Vincent de Paul had been founded in Ireland in 1844. 34 William Delany was born in Bandon in 1804 ordained in 1827. He served as Bishop of Cork from 1847 until his death in 1886. Despite taking office at the height of the Great Famine, he undertook an ambitious programme of building schools in each parish. 35 An appeal to pity. 36 Only a few years later, the company filed for bankruptcy, The Irish Law Times and Solicitors’ Journal (Dublin: J. Falconer, vol. 1, 1868), p. 568. 37 The elder Peel had received the honour of Freedom of the City in 1817. See Irish Times, 2 May 2000. 38 Rev. Lawrence Gillooly (1819–95) was born in Co. Roscommon. He was appointed Bishop of Elphin in 1858. He died in office in 1895. 39 Peck is an imperial unit of dry volume, equivalent to 2 gallons or 8 dry quarts. Four pecks make a bushel. 40 The Castletown Berehaven Poor Law Union was one of the 33 new unions formed during the Great Famine. It was built to accommodate 600 inmates. In 1862, the Chairman was Henry Lavallan Puxley, Esq., J. P. (1834–1909) of Dunboy Castle, Castletown. The Puxley family had made money by developing copper mining in the area. Puxley owned over 9,000 acres of land. 41 Cess (short for ‘assess’) was a local tax. From the 1830s, cess-payers were given limited representation in matters of local government. By this stage also, the word was being used in a derogatory way, eg, ‘Bad cess on them, man and beast’. 42 Daniel Conner (b. 1798) of Manch House was Chairman of the Dunmanway Board of Guardians. At the first meeting of the Guardians in February 1840, Conner had been appointed Chairman. The surviving Poor Law records are in the Cork archives: www. corkarchives.ie/media/BG83web.pdf, accessed 13 December 2016. Conner owned over 4,000 acres of land in Cork. See, landedestates.nuigalway.ie 43 Thomas Aiskew Larcom (1801–1879) had been an official in the Irish Ordnance Survey, which was introduced in 1824. In 1853, he was appointed Under-Secretary in the Dublin Castle administration, a position he held until 1868. 44 Father Peter Conway (1814–1872) built both St. Mary’s Church in Claran and St. Mary’s Church in Headford, in 1859 and 1865, respectively. In 1847, he had been appointed curate in Ballinrobe, where he witnessed appalling scenes of famine, some of which he recorded in the parish records. A supporter of tenant right, Conway spoke out against evictions both during the Great Famine and subsequently. 45 Richard James St. George (l838–l891) had inherited the estate in 1857. In 1874, the estate was put up for sale in the Encumbered Estates Court. 46 Lord George Hill (1801–1879) had entered the army in 1817, retiring in 1838. He sat as MP for Carrickfergus from 1830 to 1832, voting for parliamentary reform. He retired from politics on the grounds of ill health. In 1838, he purchased an extensive estate in Gweedore in Co. Donegal, where he established a reputation as an ‘improving’ landlord. This sometimes resulted in evictions, which were controversial, especially with the local people. During the Great Famine, he was a hard-working member of a number of relief committees. His pamphlet, Facts from Gweedore, first published in 1845, went through a further four editions before 1887. 47 Also referred to as Lord Grey’s Act, it was passed largely in response to the agitation against the payment of tithes. 48 This position was created in 1831, and William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse (1800– 1867) served in that position until his death. Rosse, whose estate was in Parsonstown, was a noted astronomer. 49 Henry Maxwell, 7th Lord Farnham (1799–1868) succeeded to the title in 1838. He also sat as an MP for Co. Cavan from 1824 to 1838, and following that, in the House of Lords until his death. He and his wife were killed in a train accident. They were both evangelical Protestants, who supported proselytizing missions.

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50 The Rotunda Rooms, which adjoined the Rotunda Maternity Hospital, were the location of many political meetings. 51 A reference to the Young Ireland Rising in 1848. See, Kinealy, Repeal and Revolution. 52 John Bagwell (1811–1883) was a Liberal politician for Clonmel between 1857 and 1874. He was also a Justice of the Peace. 53 Vincent James Scully (1810–1871) was MP for Co. Cork, 1852 to 1865. He wrote a number of papers on the Irish land question, including Free Trade in Land (Dublin, 1854). His personal and family papers are in the NLI, MSS 27,478–27,599. 54 Sir William Henry Gregory (1816–1892) entered parliament as a Conservative MP for Dublin in 1842. He was not re-elected in 1847, however, his name was associated with subsequent famine relief as a result of the notorious ‘Gregory Clause’ (part of the 1847 Poor Law Amendment Act), which deemed that relief should not be given to anybody who occupied more than one-quarter acre of land. William Smith O’Brien opposed the act on the grounds that, ‘as he understood the Government were determined to accede to this clause, it would be useless for him to remonstrate against it. There were many instances, however, where it would operate harshly. If a man was only to have a right to out-door relief upon condition of his giving up his land, a person might receive relief for a few weeks, and become a beggar for ever. He thought this was a cruel enactment, and should therefore enter his remonstrance against it.’ ( POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) BILL. HC Debate, 29 March 1847, vol. 91 cc 575–613.) In 1880, Gregory married Augusta Persse, remembered as ‘Lady Gregory’ and for her role in the Irish cultural revival. 55 Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) was an Anglo-Irish politician, who served as Foreign Secretary and as Prime Minister, twice. He owned an extensive estate in Co. Sligo and, during the Great Famine, was one of the first landlords to finance the emigration of 2,000 of his starving tenants. The poor condition in which some of them travelled led to comparisons with the slave trade. See Tyler Anbinder, ‘Lord Palmerston and the Irish Famine Emigration’, Historical Journal (vol. 44, 2001), pp 441–469. 56 Rev. William Keane who was Bishop of Cloyne from 1857 until his death in 1874. 57 The Quarter-Acre Clause, which excluded anybody who occupied more than onequarter of an acre of land from receiving Poor Law relief, had been introduced in 1847. It was amended in 1862 in regard to those receiving indoor relief (that is, within the workhouse). 58 William Pollard-Urquhart (1815–1871) was born in Castle Pollard (he took the name Urquhart on marriage). He was a writer on economic and political issues. He served as a Liberal politician for Westmeath from 1852 to 1857, and from 1859 to his death. 59 Originating in Greek mythology, it means having to choose between two evils. 60 Nicholas Philpott Leader of Dromagh Castle was Conservative MP for Co. Cork from 1861 to 1868. The family owned valuable colleries in the vicinity. 61 Charles Owen O’Conor, the O’Conor Don (1838–1906) was a Liberal MP for Roscommon from1860 to 1880. He was President of the Society for Preserving the Irish Language. The clan name originated in the 10th century, and was associated with Connaught, notably counties Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon. 62 Famines occurred in India after 1860 more frequently than at any time previously. Relief committees were established in Ireland to raise funds for the victims. 63 The ‘Hartley Colliery Disaster’ – a coal mining accident in Northumberland - took place in January 1862. As many as 220 men and boys were killed, the youngest being aged 10 years old. See, Illustrated London News, 25 January 1862. 64 Born in Gloucestershire in England, George Hammond Whalley (1813–1878) was a lawyer and Liberal Party politician. During the Great Famine, he established a number of fisheries on the west coast of Ireland. He served as MP for Peterborough from 1859 until his death. In Westminster, he led the anti-Catholic, and anti-Maynooth crusade in the British Parliament. See Oxford DNB.

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65 Maynooth College had been founded in 1795 as a Seminary for the training of Catholic priests in Ireland. Prior to this, they had trained in France, but the French Revolution had marked an end to this as the revolutionaries had confiscated church property. The British government had provided a small grant for the college to be established. In 1845, a further grant had been provided—an action that outraged ultra-Protestants. 66 Dr. John Brady was elected MP for Leitrim in 1852 as a Tenant Right candidate. He was an early supporter of Home Rule, attending a national meeting in the Rotunda in Dublin in 1873. Brady retired due to ill-health following the 1880 General Election. 67 William Cobbett (1763–1835) was an English polemicist and pamphleteer who believed that parliamentary reform would contribute to an ending of poverty. He was an avid supporter of Catholic Emancipation and visited Ireland in 1834 and commented on the high dependence of the poor on the lumper potato. He served briefly as an MP, being elected to parliament in 1832. 68 The term, red tape, meaning regulation or bureaucratic interference, dates from as early as the 16th century, when official documentation was bound in red tape, or ribbon. 69 John Mc’Evilly (1818–1902) was born near to Westport in Co. Mayo. In 1857, he was appointed Bishop of Galway, and following the death of John MacHale, the Archbishop of Tuam in 1881, he succeeded to this position. 70 Rev. Richard Prendergast—in the subsequent famine of 1879–80, he was a spokesperson for land agitation in Co. Mayo. 71 Father Francis Kenny was parish priest of Moycullen from 1848 to 1897. Prior to this, he had served in Spiddal from 1844, thus witnessing the worse years of the Great Hunger. He made repeated appeals of behalf of the local poor. In 1848, he was moved to Moycullen, where he remained until his death. 72 Near Castletownberehaven in west Cork. 73 R. C. C. stands for Roman Catholic Curate. 74 Dr. Martin Andrew O’Brennan (1812–78), nationalist, lawyer and amateur historian, was editor of the Tuam Herald and the Connaught Patriot. Found guilty of sedition in 1865, he emigrated to America. His papers are in the Newberry Library in Chicago: http://mms.newberry.org/xml/xml_files/OBrennan.xml, accessed 10 February 2016. 75 In 1863, the British government provided the local authorities in Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire with £1,850,000 to assist the victims of the Cotton Famine. 76 Alfred Power (1805–1888) was born in Leicestershire. In 1834, he was one of the first Assistant Commissioners appointed under the new English Poor Law. Following the resignation of Edward Twisleton in May 1849 (who objected to the parsimony of Poor Law relief in Ireland and the fact that Irish paupers were treated less well than English ones), Power had been appointed Chief Irish Poor Law Commissioner. He served in this capacity until 1873.

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11 REPORTS OF THE MANSIONHOUSE COMMITTEE FOR THE RELIEF OF DISTRESS IN IRELAND; AND OF THE CENTRAL RELIEF COMMITTEE (1862) During the 1861 to 1863 famine, a number of committees that had previously assisted the poor revived. One of the most prominent of these was the Mansion House Committee, which operated in 1862.1 Its origins lay with an extraordinary meeting convened by Dublin Corporation on 26 November 1861. Two resolutions were passed: the first asking the Lord Lieutenant to promote public works, the second, requesting the Lord Mayor to reconvene the Mansion House Committee. While the Lord Lieutenant was dismissive of their appeal, suggesting that private charity and the Poor Law would meet any distress, a new Mansion House Committee was formed.2 As was the tradition, it was presided over by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Denis Moylan. Paul Cullen, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, was also a member.3 The Committee closed its operations in August 1862. As had been the case in earlier periods of crisis, large amounts of money came from outide Ireland, notably from the U.S. and Canada, possibly donated by people who were themselves refugees from the Great Famine. This included contributions from soldiers fighting in the American Civil War.4 Additionally, aid came from other parts of the world, including an early contribution of £500 from the Irish Relief Committee in Melbourne, Australia.5 The Manison House Committeee first met on 17 February 1862, when £150 was raised.6 At a special meeting held at the end of March, reference was made by the Mansion House Committee to the preceding major famine and to the continuing reluctance of the poor to seek Poor Law relief: The bitter experience of 1847, when the people perished outside the workhouse gates, has proved this. Recent coroners’ inquests held in the localities where want most prevails, and whose verdicts have decided that deaths by destitution have there occurred, afford additional proof that the aversion to those institutions has not diminished among the poor of Ireland. But while in some places the local clergy of all denominations, the gentry, landed proprietors, traders, and persons of every class above downright poverty, have associated themselves, and contributed 174

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to alleviate the appalling misery they see around them, we regret to state that in too many districts similar efforts have not been made. In any case, and even where such local exertion has been made, the resources obtained are either quite exhausted, or miserably inadequate to the calls upon them. To appeal to kindly Christian benevolence beyond the reach of local efforts, the Lord Mayor and corporation of Dublin, by unanimous vote of that body, have called together this committee to collect and administer funds for the relief of the widely existing distress. An earnest and sustained effort will be needed to save many of our people from actual starvation. We solicit the assistance of men of all classes and creeds for this purpose. Remembering that those who so generously came forward during the famine years of 1847–8 to help Ireland in her need, we have a well-grounded hope that in her present acute distress, our claim on their sympathy will not be without response.7 This was not the last time that the Mansion House Committee would convene, it reforming during the famine of 1880–1882. Its intervention demonstrated the importance of Irish people in coming to the assistance of the country’s poor.

Reports of the Mansion-House Committee for the Relief of Distress in Ireland, 1862; and of the Central Relief Committee, 1862 (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1862). 1. In giving an account of the proceedings of the Committee some allusion to the peculiar circumstances under which it was formed and conducted appears to be necessary. 2. Soon after last harvest, the Public Press contained many statements from respectable persons that the potato and oat crops were very deficient in their respective districts, and that they apprehended a season of much distress in consequence of these deficiencies, and of the almost total want of turf. The representations were chiefly made by parties connected with the Western Counties. To alleviate such distress, some, including the Corporation of the City, urged Government to take measures by which employment could be provided for the ordinary labouring class, and for that immediately above it, as small farmers, whose means of support were lessened or altogether lost by the deficient crop; others suggested the construction of railways, drainage, &c.; and many, in addition, advised that outdoor relief should be given to the aged, infirm, sick, and poor widows, as empowered under the Poor Law Act of 1847, so that the contribution of local or other parties might be principally disbursed to assist the able bodied, whom it might not be desirable to send to the workhouse, or who would not go there, however deep their distress might be. 3. Whilst these statements were occupying public attention, the Irish Government informed a deputation which waited on them from the Corporation of 175

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Dublin, in reference to the existing and prospective distress, that they “considered that the operation of the Poor Law was adequate to meet any pressure that might be expected to fall on the unions.” Government thus plainly and truly enunciated that the Poor Law Boards are invested with extensive powers to relieve such of certain classes as may be in want of the necessities of life, and that on those boards they threw the responsibility of doing so—a duty which, in fact, they virtually bound themselves to discharge when they undertook that office. 4. There were, however, grounds for believing that, even if the guardians gave relief in workhouses and outside, as they are authorized, many would still be unassisted by them. The small farmer class could not, and, as few able-bodied males would go into the workhouses, these two classes, amongst which distress most prevailed, were not likely to be much benefited by the Poor Law. But the published evidence of the Poor Inquiry Committee of 1861 clearly proved, that in many unions in Ireland, including most of those in the West, the guardians had given relief very sparingly for several years, and almost entirely in the workhouses, and that in several, not one sick or aged or other person had otherwise been assisted. It did not therefore appear likely that this stringent system was to be departed from this year, particularly as the Poor Law Commissioners in their evidence before the Committee, fully approved of it. 5. Considering that, under these circumstances, some effort ought to be made to assist those distressed districts, this Committee was formed to be a medium of transmitting any contributions that might be had from wealthy and humane to districts where, on careful inquiry, some assistance might appear to be much needed; and as such a means of relieving distress would, it was considered, be so far auxiliary to the Poor Law, and could in no way conflict with its operation—a point on which the Committee were very careful—its general approval might naturally be expected. Unfortunately, however, a portion of the Public Press asserted that there was no distress which required more assistance than would be met by the Poor Law, aided by local efforts. This view was also taken in Parliamentary and other public discussions, by the Chief Secretary for Ireland,8 and other members of the Government, and in consequence many were led to believe, and others probably led to affect that the cry of distress was in a great measure artificial and chiefly sectarian, and the further consequence was, that with few exceptions, the contributions received by the Committee have come, not only from one section of the community, but from a very limited portion of the wealthy of that section, as will be perceived by a glance at the subscription list which is herewith published. 6. In making this observation, the Committee are well aware that many humane persons of all sects have been prevented from exercising their usual benevolence from this misunderstood view of the extent and severity of distress; but that severe distress, which was neither relieved nor likely to be relieved by the Poor Law, nor by local efforts, prevailed in many districts, the Committee 176

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will now endeavour to show; and that their proceedings were neither commenced nor conducted in any sectarian spirit, they trust that their acts will fully prove.  7. Having been favoured by the Poor Law Commissioners with returns that show the rate or rates made in every electoral division in Ireland, in the year ended March last, and the numbers on indoor and outdoor relief, fortnightly, in each union since the first of November, and having framed queries which were answered by applicants for funds, the Committee were much assisted by these data in deciding for far any or how much funds should be allocated in each case.   8. From the 18th February, to the 10th August, the Committee have had applicants for assistance from parties connected with 592 electoral divisions of thirty-seven Poor Law Unions in the West and South of Ireland, from four in Ulster, and from three in Leinster, and they were allocated £4,861 to the several applicants, who chiefly are Protestant or Catholic clergymen and members of Relief Committees—parties on whom representations of the extent and severity of distress much reliance must naturally be placed, from the sacred character of many, the respectability of all, and their local means of observation. Letters from many of these parties, detailing numerous marked instances of destitution, have been published, yet the Committee are not aware that any contradiction has been attempted in respect of them, except in one instance, in which on inquiry the representation of distress was found to be far under its reality.   9. Though it is possible that even respectable persons who are in frequent contact with much distress, which they cannot sufficiently relieve, may colour or somewhat exaggerate in their representations of the sufferings of their neighbours, it is not likely that they would intentionally misrepresent or mislead; and that they have not done either, would seem to be proved by the fact that none of these published statements have been contradicted or even questioned, as doubtless they would be, and ought to be, if materially exaggerated or incorrect. 10. Unfortunately, the material and social condition of many parts of Ireland is still such that, whatever improvements there may be in other portions of it, the recurrence of a similar bad harvest may cause even greater distress than that which had resulted from the last. It may, therefore, be useful to examine how far the opinion is well founded that the Poor Law, as heretofore administered, or as it is likely to be administered in most unions under existing circumstances, is capable of meeting any similar emergency or unusual extent of distress. The Government itself, as well as the public, must be much interested in a dispassionate examination of this important question, on which the Committee’s experience may, perhaps, assist in throwing some light. 11. An Act of Parliament may contain excellent provisions for effecting most useful results, and yet these results will never be obtained if the authorities, from whatever cause or causes, neglect to carry them into operation. 177

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12. That part of the first section of the Poor Law Act which empowers the guardians to give out-door relief to the sick, &c., had been a dead letter in more than one hundred unions for many years, and none more than in most of those from which the Committee have received very pressing applications for assistance. In thirty, to which the Committee have sent funds, not one sick person, for instance, has had the benefit of this provision for the last ten years; though, at least, above thirty thousand poor persons have annually undergone serious illness at home under the care of the dispensary doctors; and though it is notorious that under a similar provision, that class is freely assisted with appropriate food, &c., in their own residences in England and Scotland, and, the Committee are pleased to be able to add, in a few unions in Ireland. 13. As some may attribute this stringency in the administration of the Poor Law to existing high rates, or to high rates for some years past, or to the number of paupers that have been and that are relieved – rendering the rate-payers unable to meet any increased expenditure – the following facts may perhaps disabuse them of that impression. (a.) In 172 electoral divisions, from which representations of much distress were received by the Committee, and its assistance urgently requested, the current year’s rate did not exceed one shilling in any district. In one, it was 2d.; two had a rate of 3d.; two of 4d.; two of 5d.; eleven of 6d.; fourteen of 7d.; twenty-four of 8d., thirty-eight of 9d.; twenty-five of 10d.; twenty-three of 11d.; and twenty-nine of 12d. in the pound; and it may be added, that the necessity for assistance was as pressingly put from the lowest rated districts as from the highest of the other four hundred and twenty divisions in which the current rate ranged from 1s. to 4s. 7d. In one it was 8s. 5d. (b.) The annual average expenditure, during the last three years, of twentyseven Connaught unions, which received funds from the Committee, was £48,760, which was an average poundage of 9¼d. or £1,268,158, the valuation of most unions. In each of twenty, it ranged from sixpence to one shilling; in seven it exceeded a shilling. (c.) In these twenty-seven unions, whose population is now about 850,000, the average daily number in receipt of poor relief during those three years was only one in 191 of that population. In England the proportion was one in twenty-four; even in Leinster it was about one in eighty-six; yet, though the rates were much higher there than in most of Connaught, no application for assistance came from the province, with the exception of one from Parsonstown union, and some from the charitable Society of St. Vincent de Paul, in the North and South Dublin Unions. 14. It appears to the Committee that these facts go far to prove that neither the current rate, those of late years, the number of paupers relieved, nor the expenditure incurred, satisfactorily account for the stringency with which poor relief is administered in those and in many other unions; and that they further prove 178

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that, however adequate the law may be, and really is, to afford much valuable relief, when administered according to its plain letter and spirit, it fails to do proportionately when its humane provisions are not properly carried out. If this opinion be well founded, it would follow that the law, when so administered, is inadequate to meet the carefully ascertained requirements of a period of much distress, whilst containing the elements of conferring great benefits. 15. Though the Committee trust and believe that they have been the medium of alleviating much distress even by the moderate sums at their command, they feel bound to observe that they consider such a chance mode of doing so to be very objectionable, whilst a law exists by means of which the same object can be much more promptly, more certainly, and more effectually attained, as the Committee think could be readily drawn. 16. When assistance is pressingly requested for the relief of distress in electoral divisions in which the poor rate has been low for years, and still continues so, and when the number in the workhouse is very small, and none, or only very few, on outdoor relief—all of which is the case in many of the distressed western and southern unions—it is impossible to resist the conclusion that when such distress really exists, the ratepayers and the guardians of these divisions are unwilling to make any addition even to those low rates, and that they consider it no discredit to solicit and to receive, it that others should solicit and receive, that assistance from benevolent strangers which a slight addition to their own rates would have enabled them to raise. This observation cannot, of course, apply to highly-rated electoral divisions, but if the suspicion be well founded, as these facts are undeniable, the circumstance affords a strong additional ground for making the Poor Law what its provisions are calculated to effect, and for taking away the necessity, or the pretext, of calling for eleemosynary assistance, where the union resources, if moderately raised and judiciously used, might be fully adequate, or at least should be made fairly available. The Committee trust that these remarks will not be understood as applying to the parties who have asked for assistance, and who, they assume, merely exerted themselves to supply that which was not sufficiently done by the guardians and ratepayers, or by local contributions. 17. As the Boards of Guardians are returned by the proprietary and their tenants, it may be assumed that, generally, both approve of the manner in which relief has been administered—in some unions with great stringency, in others far more liberally. Of course, as the cost falls on those classes, it is to be expected that they should administer the law with such due economy as is consistent with its plainly expressed provisions. How can this be the case in any union in which only one in two or three hundred is in receipt of workhouse relief, and no aged, sick, or other person assisted outside, even in the most distressed unions, the Committee are unable to understand. Under these circumstances, it is not likely that a law, whose provisions are equally intended to relieve the same classes in England and in Ireland, can long continue to be so very differently administered; and in the former country one in twenty-four of the 179

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population is in receipt of relief in ordinary years, whilst in Ireland there is only one in one hundred and fifty; and that in Great Britain, whilst one in twenty-eight of the population is assisted at home, on account of old age, sickness, and other causes, only one in three hundred is similarly relieved in Ireland. 18. Such a difference in carrying out benevolent provisions having the same object in two countries, under the same Government, Parliament and Laws, is too striking and too unfavourable to the Irish poor, to admit apparently of its long continuance. One or two bad harvests, with the potato much blighted, may possibly induce Government and Parliament to consider the Poor Law in this country, like the Income Tax and other measures, as an Imperial, rather than, as heretofore, an Irish question; and to provide some compulsory process for a more liberal, and, where deep distress prevails, a more merciful administration of it. Besides, it is not likely that, so long as such great discrepancy exists, English and Scotch members of Parliament will consent to rescind the Poor Removal Act, whose extremely harsh and unjust provisions are universally acknowledged. For such compulsory process, though the Committee are far from suggesting the like, there are precedents in Ireland, as, for instance, in the case of District Lunatic Asylums, which are built, supported, and conducted under compulsory enactments, the cess-payers having no necessary voice in their establishment, expenditure, or supervision. 19. Though the guardians and ratepayers are the parties immediately connected with the administration of poor relief, the indirect action of the Poor Law Commissioners may be presumed to have some effect. It may not, therefore, be amiss to advert to some circumstances which would appear to show that more or less of such action, which contrasts strongly with the administration of the Poor Law by the English Commissioners, has taken, and does take place. 20. The English Poor Law Board report the numbers that are annually relieved indoor and outdoor, and the expenditure incurred; and, though the outdoor class are in the proportion of more than six to one of the other, no allusion is ever made to any advantages or disadvantages attending either mode of relief. The Poor Law Commissioners in Ireland have acted differently; they state, in their 13th report, that “the indoor system, although the most expensive in the individual case, is the most economical in the long run,” with other observations which lead to the preference of indoor to outdoor relief. Though for years previously not one person got assistance except in workhouses in 93 Irish unions, and altogether the average daily number inside and outside did not exceed one in 140 of the population. Mr. Power, the Poor Law Commissioner,9 informed the Poor Inquiry Committee of 1861, in answer to the question, “do you consider that the relief in Ireland is adequate?” that “he didn’t see why it should not be so; that “adequate relief is given by means of the workhouses.” Mr. Senior,10 also, in reply to a similar question, informed the Committee, that “he believed it to be adequate,” that “the action of the 180

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Boards of Guardians, on the whole, is very satisfactory to the Commissioners,” and “that the discretion of the Guardians has generally been wisely exercised under the section” – i.e., the first of the Act of 1847. The Committee must assume that these gentlemen fully believed what they stated on that occasion, but, with the knowledge of the vast difference between the extent of poor relief which is usually given in Great Britain, and in Ireland, and being of opinion that, relatively with population, it is as much needed in the latter as in the former, they are utterly unable to understand how relief can be adequate under the circumstances above described. In the same report the Commissioners refer “to some of the most obvious advantages which present themselves in favour of indoor relief,” and observe – “that all outdoor relief, whether in money, food or clothing, is liable to much more uncertainty.” Yet, though several hundred cases of outdoor relief in each of fifteen or sixteen unions have been published annually for years, no observation has been ever made in these reports that any abuses did take place in that form of relief – a fact which goes far to prove that none of any importance occurred, or they would have been reported by their inspectors, and alluded to by the Commissioners. 21. The Committee may perhaps appear to have unnecessarily dwelt upon the defective administration of the Irish Poor Law; but they felt it desirable to do so, as much of the distress that has taken place, though not the entire, could have been alleviated under a more liberal system, and they therefore consider that they are called upon to enter into some detail, to explain by official facts, the extent of relief which is given in Ireland, and to compare it with that given in England, and from these facts to infer the insufficiency of it in this country. 22. The returns that have been made to the Committee, show the very depressed condition on the small farming class in many districts, where persons holding a quarter of an acre to five, or even to ten acres or more, were assisted even in much greater proportion than those who have no land. That farming class can now get admission into workhouses, of which, however, many are not likely to avail themselves. How to improve their condition, so that under similar circumstances they may not suffer as they did on this occasion, must be a matter for the serious consideration of landlords, and of Parliament. 23. The Committee have learned, with sincere gratification, the kind benevolence of her Majesty, in aid of the sufferers in Belgium and Lancashire,11 and feel convinced that the same benevolence would have been extended by her Majesty towards her Irish Poor, had she been faithfully informed of their distressed condition. 24. The Committee would fail in its duty if it omitted further to advert to the temporary distress which unfortunately exists in a few of the manufacturing districts in the north of England, and so favourably notice the sympathy, and the practical measures which it elicited. More liberal in some of its provisions, and far more generously administered, the English Poor Law, as it reaches the recipients of relief, forms a contrast with that in practical operation in 181

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Ireland, yet the humanity of the English people and the sympathy felt by the Government for the suffering classes, deeming the existing law to be inadequate, promptly led to the passing of the exceptional Act in order to afford adequate relief, whereas in Ireland, with deep distress, and extending over a large population, no measures, legislative or administrative, were adopted to enforce the provisions for relief which exists in the Irish Poor Law.12 25. The Committee tender their most grateful thanks to the Contributors to the Mansion House Relief Fund, but particularly to the Most Holy Father Pius IX,13 who, in the midst of his distresses and anxieties, remembered the poor starving Irish people; to the Rev. Abbe Merlimmod, for undertaking a long journey from Geneva to preach a charity sermon in aid of this fund;14 to the American nation, which, altogether suffering from the terrible scourge of civil war,15 did not forget the sufferings of Ireland; to their generous friends in Paris, Brussels, Liverpool, London, Leeds, &c.; and in an especial manner to CHARLES PUTLAND,16 JOHN DONEGAN,17 and RICHARD DEVEREUX,18 Esquires, for their munificent and repeated subscriptions in sustainment of the efforts of the Committee; which contributions amounted in the aggregate to the sum of £5, 179 16s. 9d., as per list appended.19

Notes 1 Reports of the Mansion-House Committee for the Relief of Distress in Ireland, 1862; and of the Central Relief Committee, 1862–63 (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1864). 2 Cardinal Adolphe Louis Albert Perraud, Ireland in 1862 (Dublin: J. Duffy, 1863), pp. 266–68. 3 The Trustees of the Committee were Denis Moylan, Lord Mayor of Dublin; Archbishop Paul Cullen of Dublin; Laurence E. Knox; and Peter McSweeney, a member of Dublin Corporation. Its secretary was R.J. Devitt and it had thirty-three committee members. 4 Damien Shiels, ‘Irish Relief Fund. The Remarkable Contribution of Union Soldiers and Sailors’: https://irishamericancivilwar.com/2012/11/24/irish-relief-fund-theremarkable-contribution-of-union-soldiers-sailors-part-1/, accessed 4 February 2017. 5 ‘Mansion House Committee’, Freeman’s Journal, 31 October 1862. 6 Perraud, Ireland, p. 301. 7 ‘Mansion House Committee’, Freeman’s Journal, 1 April 1862. 8 The Irish Chief Secretary at this time was Sir Robert Peel the Younger, who served from July 1861 to December 1862. 9 Alfred Power, Assistant Poor Law Commissioner. 10 Nassau Senior (1790–1864), an English classical economist who was also a government adviser. 11 In July 1862, Queen Victoria, using her title the Duchess of Lancaster, donated £2,000 to help relieve the Lancashire Cotton Famine. 12 The unemployed workers in Lancashire also hated the Poor Law, especially the ‘labour test’ that was imposed for outdoor relief. In 1863, a public works act was belated passed. 13 Pope Pius IX subscribed £100. 14 This sermon took place at the Church of St. Clotilda, Paris, on 22 March 1861 and £418 10s 8d.was collected.

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15 Among the contributions sent from the United States was £266 from Bishop Rappe of Cleveland; £300 from a collection in St. Louis and £100 from Bishop Duggan of Chicago. 16 Charles Putland was one of the Putland family of Bray, who were known for their philanthropic activities. 17 John Donegan of Dame Street in Dublin made 19 donations to the Committee, totaling £350. 18 Richard Devereux was a merchant in Wexford. 19 The largest amount of relief was sent to Louisburg, Co. Mayo (£75); Clifden, Co. Galway (£80); Galway (£165); Clonbur, Co. Galway (£70); Templetogher, Co. Galway (£70).

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Part VII DISTRESS IN THE WEST IN 1867 AND 1869 For the most part, the food and fuel shortages of the early 1860s did not last beyond 1863. However, the precariousness of life in the west of Ireland, and the vulnerability of the poor, intermittently surfaced, with a failure of the potato crop causing immediate distress. This proved to be the case in both 1867 and 1869. Although Poor Law relief was made available, the poor continued to be reluctant to go into the local workhouses and endure the breaking up of families and the harsh regimentation. The documents below are reminiscent of the conditions of the west of Ireland in the late 1840s, suggesting that despite repeated subsistence crises and the dramatic fall in population since the Great Famine, little had changed for the poor. Moreover, the lack of security of tenure continued to be a disincentive for improvements to be made to rented properties.

12 CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE CLIFDEN POOR LAW GUARDIANS (GALWAY COUNTY LIBRARY, CLIFDEN POOR LAW MINUTE BOOK, WEEK ENDING 18 MAY 1867) Correspondence to the Clifden Board of Guardians about conditions on the island of Inishboffin where there was great distress because of the failure of the potato crop and urgent relief was required to save the people. Clifden, 22 May 1867 Gentlemen, In accordance with your instructions I  visited the island of Boffin on the 20th instant. I went carefully through the island, visited the several townlands. A good many families in the East and West quarters stated they were destitute. I gave them provisional tickets of admission to the workhouse and offered them a conveyance which they refused to avail of. The only case of provisional relief I gave was to one family. I have no doubt but that the people of the East quarter and a portion of the West quarter must suffer for the next two months to come as they have no provisions whatever and they won’t get credit on the island, they are also with a bad state for want of fuel. The island is in a most filthy state with large dung heaps up to the doors and fetid cesspools which if not looked immediately after will cause sickness amongst the inhabitants. The houses would require to be whitewashed inside for most of them are very filthy.1  I am Gentlemen, The Board of Guardians

your able Servant

Clifden Union

Con King,



Relieving Officer

187

D istress in the west in 1 8 6 7 and 1 8 6 9



Inishboffin,



Mar. 20, 1867.

Sir, I beg to call your attention to the absolute necessity of having a relieving officer immediately appointed for the island and that he should be likewise sanitary officer for their houses are in a most filthy state and pools of filth outside their doors that the people are in a near destitute state. I beg to recommend to the notice of the Guardians as a fit and proper person to fill the office of relieving officer and sanitary officer Michael Lavelle and I  hope the appointment will be forthwith made as the necessity of the case admits no delay. I have taken on myself of course[to] write with the sanction of the Board to ask Lavelle to look after the most urgent cases of relief pending his appointment. I have the honour to be sir Your very obt (obedient) Servant, Patrick Loftus, C. C.2 P.S. I beg likewise to inform the Guardians that no one would very much like to have the privilege of issuing visiting tickets to the Medical Officer as it might happen that Mr. McCormack might be sometimes from home. To the Board of Guardians

Boffin,

Of Clifden Union

21 Mar. 1867

Gentlemen, I beg to bring before you the necessity of appointing a Relieving Officer and Sanitary Officer for at least two months in the islands of Boffin and Shark. The necessity arised, 1st. from the absolute want of provisions by many of the families on the islands. 2nd. From the fear of fever and the disorder arising as the result of the total want of (in many cases) wholesome food: the people in a number of instances living upon seaweed with whatever shellfish they can procure. James McCormack, PLG.3

Notes 1 It was felt that the whitewashing of the houses helped to reduce diseases. In some cases, landlords demanded that their tenants whitewash their homes as on the Gore Booth estate in Co. Sligo. See Gerard Moran, Sir Robert Gore Booth and his Landed Estate in County Sligo, 1814–1876 (Dublin, 2006), p. 17. 2 Rev. Patrick Loftus was the Catholic curate for the parish of Ballynakill and Inishboffin. 3 Poor Law Guardian.

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13 THE IRISH TIMES COMMISSIONER’S REPORT FROM CONNEMARA AND WEST MAYO, SEPTEMBER 1869, STATING THE CONDITION OF THE PEASANTRY, IRISH TIMES, 29 SEPTEMBER 1869 1 THE IRISH TIMES LAND COMMISSION. (From our special commissioner). Leenane. “Thou art so full of misery, Surely ’twere not to be.” I found at Leenane half a dozen persons who gave me some information on the subject. They were natives of certain villages called, as I understand my informants to say, Letterassah, Garde, and Letterwest, lying at the southern base of Muilrea, exactly opposite to Leenane. I am not sure that these three names indicate three distinct places, as one of them may be the name of a townland, while the other two designated villages standing upon it. Be these places two or three, however, sixty families live there. The families were very unequal in wealth, one man having 12 or 20 cattle, another only 1 or 2. I made out, however, that the average number of cattle possessed by them was 5 or 6, and 5 or 6 was also the average number of Irish acres of arable soil. They had free range for their cattle, and also for a number of sheep which they possessed on the mountain. One of them kept a schoolmaster in his house for the instruction of his and some neighbours’ children. They all derived a portion of their income from fishing. Herrings were a common article in their food – (this fact is corroborated by a passage in Arthur Young)2 – and they sold both herring and salmon at Westport and at Louisburg. These people contradicted a statement I had heard at Louisburg, and which I mentioned in my letter from that place, namely: that there was a cart road from their side of Muilrea across the peninsula to Louisburg. I think my former informant meant to tell me the truth, but was mistaken in his recollections. The potatoes were better, and the 189

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cattle far better, at the time these Leenane people referred to than at present. The people were better clothed, and their clothes were mostly manufactured at home. As to shoes and stockings, there was about the same deficiency as now. There was a great deal of money, they said, spent on whiskey, and a great deal of time wasted and heads broken at fairs, wakes, patterns, and faction fights. The villages were, however, not unfrequently scourged with typhus. The information I collected at Louisburg was very similar in character. In addition, I learned that there used to be, as there are still, four fair days held every year in that town. The number of refreshment tents set up on those occasions used to be between 50 and 60. It is now 3 or 4 at most. The crowds which assembled then could not be collected now. There was too much drinking and jollification, said my informant. The cattle sold were worth two of those now commonly seen at Murrisk. I regard with some suspicion the accounts which the old are disposed to give of their young days. By a natural illusion, memory softens down the harsher tones of the past, even as youth gilds the future with the bright rays of hope. But there is one piece of evidence which powerfully corroborates the account which these people gave of their former condition. The town of Louisburg was evidently built by a more prosperous generation than the present.3 It consists of two streets, which cross at right angles, and which open out at the point of crossing into a place of a “diamond” figure. Most of the houses, both in the Diamond and in the streets which radiate from it, are in a half ruinous condition. Some of them, indeed, are wholly unroofed and windowless. The petty sessions’ house occupies one side of the Diamond. In external appearance, it now resembles a disused stable, while its interior suggests the idea of a poor barn or corn loft more than of a temple of Themis.4 I hear that for this edifice the barony pays, by operation of law, a rent of £10 a year to the lord of the soil. I should suppose that £10 would be about the value of its fee-simple. The only buildings of a credible kind, which have been erected of late years in Louisburg, are the Catholic chapel, and the priest’s house adjoining. But these were raised, not out of the savings of Murrisk industry, or the gains of Murrisk trade, but by the subscriptions collected in other places, and chiefly in England and America, through the wonderful energy and enthusiasm of the parish priest.5 As Louisburg, the only town which the Peninsula boasts of, stands in the northern district which Mr. Brewster tells us contains such good tillage, and such a comfortable tenantry, its manifest decay appears to be at variance with the otherwise universal law which makes the condition of a country town an accurate measure of the prosperity of the surrounding country. But there is no exception in the case. There may be half a dozen good tillage farms along the shores of Clew Bay. But the prevailing character of the tillage and the condition of the cottier farmers in this locality are such as I found to exist in the other parts of the peninsula. I shall transcribe from my notebook the memoranda I made of three visits I made to the cottiers in this “favoured” locality. I am sure they are fair specimens of the small tenant class, on the road along the shore. 190

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NO. 1. – Difficult to approach the door by reason of the filth before it, and the slippery, loose stones in the puddle. Half the eastern floor occupied with a manure bed on which a cow was standing. Two pigs running in and out during my visit. Furniture a small deal table, one stool (there may have been another in a corner too dark for me to see), an iron pot, a dresser with a few plates, cups and jugs, a tin milk pail, and a very dirty bed in an unventilated recess. A hole in the roof let out the smoke. A pig through with some mess in it was in the middle of the floor. The owner was a widow, strong and middle-aged. She paid £5 a year rent for her arable soil. She said she had for this sum only two acres. (This was the highest rate I met, except for conacre).6 These two acres yielded her a quantity of oats and potatoes, which, on calculating from her data, I find to amount to £7. She paid besides £1 10s. for “mountain” for her cattle. (She had three cows and a pony). She paid also 5s. a month, during eight months of the year, for good grass land for her cattle; and she was charged 2s 6d. for access to a bog near at hand, on which she cut as much turf as she required for her own fire. No 2. A two-roomed cottage, a mile or so from the shore. Same difficulty as before in entering. The outer room, which was the principal pone, was occupied by a pony and a donkey, a woman with a baby a fortnight old in her arms, and three other children, only one of whom, however, was her own. The woman was sitting on a low stool by a good turf fire. She was unutterably haggard and dirty; her real age about 30, but she looked quite old. He husband was out, digging potatoes in the dark. The family had not eaten their dinner yet, although it was 9 p.m. Her baby was ill. The doctor had seen it, and told her to take care of it. I should think that all the care she can give it, without help from others, will not keep it alive. The children were all standing, as we were obliged to do for want of seats. While we were conversing the man came in from his work. He was a small-weak looking man, who seemed to be unable to answer our questions clearly, but told us that his father-in-law could do so. He struck me as dazed from over-work and long fasting. The father-in-law was in bed in the inside room and called on us to go in. We had great difficulty in getting a light, but finally procured a bit of bog-wood which we lighted and brought in with us, the wife calling out to her husband to take care not to drop fire on the flax. We found the inside room nearly full of dried flax, very inflammable. Several times the bog-wood dropped sparks on the flax, and set it on fire. I put it out twice. He himself extinguished it another time. Had the fire spread, it would have been almost impossible to save the old man. He was four score years of age, and was lying on a miserable and filthy pallet in a corner. There was no possibility of ventilating the room. The father-in-law was a large and had been a powerfully built man, and was remarkably intelligent. He told us he paid £5 a year for six acres of poor arable land. He had one acre under oats, one under potatoes, the rest gave him grass for his beasts. He had one cow, and access was allowed her 191

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to the mountain. He paid 2s 6d for leave to cut turf in the bog outside the house, and 1s in the pound county cess. The principal manure he used was sea-wrack. (This is the limestone district.) It was terrible work, even in the fine weather, carrying this manure on the pony’s back, the road from the shore to the farm was so bad. I asked why a general rule of Mayo estates was departed from in this instance— namely, in permission being given him to introduce a son-in-law into his house.7 The answer was he was too old to work. No 3 – (At Askavawn, two miles N W of Louisburg) resembles the previous cases in all particulars, except that this cottage was a little less bare of furniture than the others. Along with the man’s own three children were three others, aged eleven, six and four respectively, belonging to a brother who had given up his holding, sold off his cow, pony, and two pigs, and emigrated with his wife and the elder children to America. He had been away now two years and was very slow in getting on. He had sent home 50s to buy some clothes for the younger children, and to pay their passage from Murrisk, via Westport and Dublin to Liverpool. He was making up the price of the tickets which would take them from thence to Chicago. Their uncle and aunty thought the 50s would be insufficient to do all that was expected of it, as the children were badly off for clothes. The children were aged twelve, five and three respectively, and were to travel from Murrisk to Liverpool by themselves. The eldest of them was unable to read. We spoke of the difficulties they would experience in getting from the Broadstone8 down to the quay at Dublin, and in finding their way from the Clarence Docks at Liverpool to the American packet. Once landed at New York, we hoped they would find benevolent arrangements to conduct them to safely to the railway station for Chicago. But fancy three ill-clad children deck passengers to Liverpool in winter-time? Fancy them arriving tired and hungry in Dublin, and subsequently in Liverpool, and in both places having to make their own way through bewildering streets to the vessel where they were in quest of? Yet this ordeal would be faced. The uncle and aunt could hardly do for their own little flock, and the neighbours were too poor to give any help. The infant emigrants should set out from Louisburg without a human friend between that village and Chicago. There are a few specimens of the “comfortable and contented” cottiers whose little rents form a large part of a noble lord’s income. I think Mr. Brewster lays too much stress on the presence of limestone as necessary to tillage. I visited three townlands a few days ago in the vicinity of Renvyle and Letterfrack, in the county of Galway. There is no limestone fit for burning in these townland (Lettergesh East, Lettergesh West, and Tully), but the tenants are

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judiciously treated, and either they or their landlords on their behalf, import lime for their farms from Malbay, in county Clare, and from Achill. If limestone exists in certain favoured spots along Clew Bay, why do not the proprietors facilitate the distribution of lime manure to the tenants who are without it? The River Lee, at Cork, separates a limestone from a sandstone district, but the tillage is as good at one side of the river as at the other. Where there is a will there is a way. Mr. Brewster thinks I betray great ignorance in supposing that mica-schist, Silurian formations, and black bog twenty feet deep, can ever be converted into tillage ground. How can I help believing it when I have the evidence of the fact before my eyes? As to black bog, I saw, not two miles from Louisburg, a couple of acres of such bog, which have been reclaimed within the last two or three years, and on which very fair crops were growing. I do not know what security the reclaimer has that he will be allowed to remain undisturbed and at a low rent in the little farm which he has recreated. But what this man has done others would do, though they may be probably more particular in requiring security of tenure. I saw in another place also near Louisburg, a crop of potatoes worth £20, according to the owner, growing in the ground which was a bog two years ago, and was surrounded by bog still. The manure used was chiefly sea-weed, but it is possible that there was some lime used in addition, as I observed near the place a wretched attempt at a lime kiln consisting of a shallow hole in the ground, which they told me was used to a small extent now and then for burning lime. I thought the landlord might have built a proper lime-kiln for his tenants, if lime existed in that spot. I am sure he would have done so had he desired to keep them in their holdings. I know but little of geology, but I observe from the geological map of Ireland that the formation of those middle and southern districts of Murrisk, where Mr. Brewster asserts are condemned by nature to perpetual sterility, is identical with the formation of parts of Ireland, and the capacities of which for tillage cannot be called in question. Thus, the middle districts of the peninsula is identical to identified, as to its subjacent rock, by the map before me with that large portion of the county Galway which extends from Athenry to Shannon Harbour, and with a great belt of land varying in breath, and extending from Dublin through Trim and Athboy in the South, and through Navan, on the North, to Ballinalee in the county Longford. It is, in fact, on the soil and subsoil, not on the subjacent rock, that the agricultural capabilities of a farm depend, and for the defects of every soil and subsoil there is an appropriate remedy. It may not pay a capitalist to reclaim such soil seeing that he can get better interest for his money in other ways, and yet it may be well worth the while of a poor cottier to do so, whose only source of wealth is in his industry, and who desires by that industry only to gain a livelihood. “The worthless sandy soil of Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire has been brought” says Mr. Purdon in his “Practical Farmer,” “into regular and profitable cultivation;” and it is to the agriculturalist, Arthur Young, I believe, who tells that “the magic of property will turn a barren rock into a garden.” Writing of Murrisk as well as of to the baronies

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of this county, Dr. McParlan, the author of the Statistical Survey of Mayo,9 published in 1800, says – “The mountain and bogs of all those baronies are every foot reclaimable. The best manures are nowhere unreasonably inconvenient” (in modern phrase, inaccessible), so that, in fact, the work only requires hands and encouragement,” of which two essentials the first is being withdrawn from the country, while the other is too often withheld. And we may say at the present day with even greater truth what Mr. M’Parlan said in 1800. “The obstacles to reclamation are three in number: Superfluous grazing, expatriation and short leases.” I don’t know what leases Dr. M’Parlan considers short. In Murrisk no small farmer has any lease at all. Perhaps, so much the better, as a more effectual stimulation to improvement seems needful. The Tenant Right of Ulster should be legalized,10 systematized, and extended to the other three provinces.

Notes 1 Prior to the introduction of the Gladstone Land Bill in 1870 the Irish Times sent a Special Commissioner to report on conditions throughout the country. These reports highlight widespread poverty and destitution, in particular along the western seaboard. 2 This is a reference to Arthur Young’s Tour in Ireland, with General Observations on the Present State of that Kingdom (1776–1779) where he referenced the agricultural conditions of the people. 3 The town of Louisburg was built in 1795 by the Marquess of Sligo to house Catholic refugees from Ulster. 4 Themis was the Greek Goddess of divine law and order. 5 The Parish Priest of the parish of Kilgeever where Louisburg was situated was Rev. Michael Curley. 6 Conacre is the letting on land for tillage in small stripes. 7 On some estates landlord rules stated that tenants had to secure the permission of the proprietor for their children to get married. See Rev. Patrick Lavelle, The Irish Landlord since the Revolution, with Notices of Ancient and Modern Land Tenure in Various Countries (Dublin, 1870), pp. 394–99. 8 The railway terminal in Dublin. 9 James McParlan, A Statistical Survey of the County of Mayo (Dublin, 1802). 10 Also known as the Ulster Custom, due to its origins during the Plantation of Ulster in the early seventeenth century, Tenant Right bestowed some protection on tenants. It became a demand of nationalists and reformers after the 1850s, although there was a lack of consensus about what it meant.

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Part VIII THE ‘FORGOTTEN FAMINE’ OF 1879–81 A combination of factors led to the crisis of 1879–82, sometimes regarded as the ‘Forgotten Famine’, which had the potential to be as devastating and catastrophic as that of the late 1840s. The late 1870s had witnessed a decline in the earnings of seasonal migrants to Britain, a mainstay in the lives of many communities in Donegal, Mayo and Roscommon in the nineteenth century; a fall in the price of kelp,1 which many coastal areas relied on; increased competition from American agriculture as a result of the opening up of the mid-west by the railways; and shopkeepers refusing to extend credit to farmers because of the debts they were owed, as in Castlebar where one shopkeeper was owed £16,000 and another £8,000.2 However, the failure of the potato crop in 1879 exacerbated the distress when the average yield proved to be only 1.4 tons per acre compared to an annual average of 3.2 tons between 1870 and 1876. This represented the lowest yield since ‘Black ’47’. The impact on those communities who survived on a knife edge was catastrophic and by March 1880 over one million, out of a population of twoand-a half million along the seventeen western counties, were being kept alive by the private charities that had been established. The charities included the Mansion House Relief Committee, the Duchess of Marlborough Relief Committee,3 and the ‘New York Herald’ Relief Fund, in addition to donations that came from Catholic communities throughout the world that were forwarded to the Archbishop of Dublin, Edward McCabe, for distribution to those areas in severest distress.4 As early as June 1879, clergy in many parts of the country predicted that famine was imminent and called on the government to introduce remedial measures to counteract the crisis.5 It coincided with the Land League agitation and the demand for agrarian reform. While many of the speeches at the demonstrations did refer to the failure of the potato and the difficulties of the people, the issue was largely secondary to that of the land question. The impact of the shortages was largely contained due to the intervention of the private relief organisations and the quick response of the international community.6 The world was made aware of the unfolding calamity from local clergymen who were among the first to alert the wider world to the impending disaster, which led reporters from national and international newspapers, as well as private

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individuals, publishing first hand accounts of the distress. It also led to large sums of money being collected towards alleviating the crisis with the Mansion House Relief Committee dispensing £181,000 and the Duchess of Marlborough Committee distributing £135,000. Many local committees were established comprising of clergymen, merchants, landlords, their agents, and other professions who distributed the funds they received and who issued regular reports to the central committees in Dublin on the extent of the distress in their areas. The relief committees had two remits: the money was to be used to provide the poor with food and also to purchase seed potatoes to be given out among tenant farmers to ensure that the crisis did not continue into the following year, as many had consumed their seed potatoes when the crop failed. The Champion potato7 was given out as it was felt to be the most resistant to the blight.8 While this averted a continuation of the crisis in most parts of the country, there were areas where the potato crop failed once again, as in Carna in Connemara, Gweedore in County Donegal and Achill Island in County Mayo because inferior seeds were distributed. The ‘Forgotten Famine’ of 1877–82 has been largely overshadowed by the political and agrarian events of the period. While mortality levels were not on the scale of the 1840s, this was largely due to the manner in which the world was made aware of what was happening as a consequence of the widespread coverage by Irish and international newspapers. This, in turn, resulted in a quick intervention by private relief organisations, as the international community responded to the reports of an impending famine. Irish newspapers played a key role in this dissemination of information. The reports of an imminent famine along the western seaboard in the autumn of 1879 had resulted in the Freeman’s Journal, the main nationalist daily newspaper, sending a special correspondent, to write a series of articles to show the extent of the problem’.9 The seriousness of the shortages of 1879 to 1881, and their potential to have lethal consequences, is evident from that large range of documents provided below, which painstakingly outline the suffering and vulnerability of the poor in Ireland. The first is a petition from Claremorris Poor Law Union in County Mayo regarding the situation in the Union and making suggestions how relief works could be funded. Many are by parish priests who were amongst the first to draw attention to the suffering in the west. Regardless of the seriousness of the situation, the famine was largely overshadowed by the Land League agitation. At some of the demonstrations, the speakers did highlight the condition of the poor and what they had to endure, citing the poverty as resulting from British misrule. A number of appeals were made directly to Charles Stewart Parnell, the President of the Land League. Document i. below, was written in January 1880 by Vere Foster,10 to Parnell (who was then on a fund-raising tour in North America) asking him to support emigration as a short-term solution to the crisis.11 James Hack Tuke, an English Quaker who, like Foster, had provided relief during the Great Famine, returned to the west of Ireland also with a view to promote well-organised emigration schemes. While much of the relief efforts were focused on the western counties, document l is a reminder that other counties—in this case Monaghan—were also suffering. 196

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The section is followed by a poem and a pamphlet written by Fanny Parnell, a radical nationalist activist who was living in America at the time of the Forgotten Famine.

Notes 1 A brown seaweed that could be burned to obtain soda ash (sodium carbonate), which was used in the manufacture of glass. 2 Evidence of Rev. Anthony Waters to the Bessborough Commission, Hansard, HC 1881 (c-2779–i), xviii, p. 543, q. 16908. 3 Frances Anne Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (1822–1899), an English noblewoman, the wife of British statesman John Spencer-Churchill, and mother of Unionist politician, Lord Randolph Churchill. Between 1876 and 1880, her husband was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. For her work in helping to alleviate the famine of that period, she was invested as a Lady of the Order of Victoria and Albert by Queen Victoria. 4 Edward McCabe (1816–1885) was archbishop of Dublin from 1879–1885. He was made a Cardinal in 1882. 5 See Gerard Moran, ‘Near Famine: The Roman Catholic Church and the subsistence crisis of 1879–82’ in Studia Hibernica, no. 31 (2002–3), pp. 155–178. 6 Gerard Moran, ‘From Great Famine to Forgotten Famine: The crisis of 1879–81’ in Patrick Fitzgerald, Christine Kinealy & Gerard Moran (eds), Irish Hunger and Migration: Myth, Memory and Memorization (Quinnipiac University, 2015), 7 The Champion potato had first been bred by John Nicoll in Scotland, but it was widely grown in Ireland in the late nineteenth century. 8 It was felt the older potato varieties were unable to resist the blight as they were worn out. 9 These reports were written by William O’Brien (1852–1928), a young journalist who was later to become the editor of the pro-Parnellite newspaper United Ireland in 1881 and an Irish Parliamentary Party MP between 1885 and 1918. 10 Vere Foster (1819–1900) was a diplomat and philanthropist who lived most of his adult life in Belfast. He visited Ireland during the Great Famine and became an advocate for the poor, especially poor emigrants. Between 1880 and 1883 he assisted approximately 18,000 young women to emigrate from Ireland. 11 Vere Foster born in Amsterdam was a philanthropist who saw emigration as one of the solutions to Irish famine and destitution and in the 1850s and 1880s provided funds to assist people, in particular young single girls to emigrate to North America. See Mary McNeill, Vere Foster, 1819–1900: An Irish Benefactor (Belfast, 1971); Ruth-Anne Harris, ‘Where the poor man is not crushed down to exalt the aristocrat’: Vere Foster’s programmes of assisted emigration in the aftermath of the Irish Famine” in Patrick O’Sullivan (ed), The Irish Worldwide: History, Heritage, Identity; vol. 6, The Meaning of the Famine (London & New York), pp. 172–194.

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14 PETITION FROM THE CLAREMORRIS BOARD OF GUARDIANS TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT (FREEMAN’S JOURNAL, 4 OCTOBER 1879) 1 HUMBLY SHEWETH - That owning to successive bad harvests, great depreciation of all kinds of farm produce, and a depression in every other class of industry, the tenant farmers are in extreme poverty and hopelessly in debt to the shopkeepers, the banks, and the landlords. The labourers are without employment and in an almost starving condition. That unless some prompt and energetic measures be taken to alleviate this deplorable state of things the condition of the poor people during the winter will become desperate, either perishing of cold and hunger in their wretched homes or becoming paupers in the workhouse, a burden on an already overtaxed and impoverished community, and ending perhaps in a recurrence of the awful visitation of ’47. That petitioners therefore deem it their duty to respectfully and urgently appeal to your Grace, and earnestly request that you will be pleased to draw the attention of the Government to the immediate necessity of inaugurating some public works in the union, such as the reclamation of waste lands and general drainage, thereby enabling small holders and labourers to obtain employment and tide them over this exceptionally bad year. That your petitioners would respectfully suggest that a portion of the Church surplus funds be appropriated to the object, as it was the belief generally understood in Parliament at the time of the passing of the Act of Disendowment that this surplus should be applied solely for the benefit of Ireland;2 and in the opinion of petitioners no more useful or fitting way could it be laid out than in the improvement of the waste lands and in the warding off of an impending famine. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, Signed on behalf of Board,    A. C. CREAN, Chairman,

JAMES T. BURKE, Clerk of Union.

1st October, 1879.

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Notes 1 Claremorris Union in Co. Mayo was one of the second wave of workhouses built to deal with the impact of the Great Famine. It was formally opened in February 1852 and could accommodate 800 inmates. 2 This was the money that was available after the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869.

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15 ‘LETTER FROM MAURICE BROOKS, M.P. 1 ON THE DISTRESS AND SUGGESTING MEASURES SUCH AS THE PROVISION OF HOUSES FOR FARMERS AND LABOURERS, TO COUNTERACT IT’, FREEMAN’S JOURNAL, 4 OCTOBER 1879 Mr. Maurice Brooks, M.P., in a letter to the daily newspapers, writes: -. SIR – It is unnecessary to adduce proof to establish the lamentable fact that distress among our agricultural population throughout Ireland during the approaching Winter will be widespread and severe. How to meet the inevitable evil is our immediate concern. Permit me to offer some practical suggestions on the matter, to which I have given anxious attention. There are some cardinal points which in considering the subject must be kept steadily in view. The relief should in nowise be of an eleemonsynary [sic] character; it must be based on the wholesome principle of requiring “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wages.” It should be promptly afforded, and the works should, for the advantage of the whole community, be of a remunerative and improving character. In dealing with the subject I assume it is the duty of her Majesty’s Government—indeed, it had been admitted to be so by more than one of the Ministry—to provide the remedy; and we need not seek far to find a precedent when we recall to mind the cotton famine in Lancashire, when the Government advanced some three million of money for expenditure on relief works. There is one want which is universal throughout Ireland, and that is the want of decent dwellings for our farming and labouring classes, and the present conjuncture of events forms an opportunity which should be availed of to remove the greatest reproach from our country— viz., the wretched condition of the humbler classes. No traveller in Ireland can have failed to view with surprise and sorrow the miserable hovels in which our agricultural population is – I was going to write “housed,” but the term is inappropriate, and I substituted condemned to exist. These cabins – generally containing but one or two apartments for an entire family, filthy, unventilated, affording neither the decencies nor the comforts of life 201

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and their unsanitary surroundings have often been described. The dwellings of the farmers are but little better. The social, moral, and physical evils consequent on such dwellings have formed frequent topics for the philanthropists. I propose to seize the present opportunity for remedying this sad state of things, and to suggest that the advancement by Government of loans on an extensive scale for the erection of well-constructed farm-steadings and labourers’ dwellings would be a blessing to the country, and afford, in every part of Ireland, works of a remunerative and productive nature, and conferring incalculable advantages in raising the condition and character of our people. In England the farm buildings and labourers’ cottages are erected, for the most part by the landlord. In Ireland it is otherwise and hitherto the landed proprietors have generally neglected to improve the dwellings on their estates, although facilities have been afforded to them to obtain loans on reasonable terms for such purposes. This plan has many advantages. The machinery—viz., the Board of Public Works through which it could be effectuated, is already in operation in this direction, and would only require extension. Admirable plans for suitable dwellings, and capable of erection at moderate cost, are already at their offices. The relief would be immediate, and the works would include all classes of artizans and labourers. And as decent dwellings are required throughout the length and breath of the land, such beneficial work would be universal. The necessary funds could be advanced by the Treasury through the Board of Works in Ireland, and the payment secured by a charge on the lands, repayable by the owners in terms of, say, 25 or 30 years. The buildings should be erected under their supervision of the county and district surveyors, who are thoroughly acquainted with every part of their respective districts and the instalments paid from time to time to their certificates.

Note 1 Maurice Brook (1823–1905) was the Home Rule M.P. for Dublin City between 1874 and 1885. He was Chairman of the Duchess of Marlborough relief Committee.

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Oughterard, Tuesday. It is time for those who are responsible for the lives of our people to be a-stirring. They hurried out commissioners to Bengal in search of an imaginary famine. They forearmed Madras with rice-stores. They had their gold for starving China. They have their officious sympathy for starving China. Are they going to heed no cry of agony from Connemara until it comes from the coffinless graves. You have been called a panic-monger and many other naughty words for my sins. The Bardolphs and Ancient Pistols,1 who swagger in the train of the Irish landlords, stamped and sneered and raged—did everything except overthrow, or even seriously assail a single one of the specific facts with which these letters have been crammed. I now deliberately raise the cry of famine in Connemara, and I take all the responsibility of employing that terrible word. It is not a day too soon for the alarm. It is not when men are turning to corpses for want of food that the public mind should be nerved for what is before us. Food there is for the moment, foul and scanty and unwholesome though it be. It is running out at a terrific pace. The rot is still preying wholesale upon whatever is left healthy in the potato fields. The half of almost every peasant’s field of potatoes is already eaten out. You heard of a man not being able to find his breakfast among a stone of potatoes, and not being able to find the stone of potatoes without struggling solely himself, declared to be that he would not have the heart to ask a penny from the starving creatures to whom he had let out a bit of his potatobog in conacre. Within one month in many cases, within two months in most, the present stock of provisions will have been most certainly consumed. Thousands of helpless peasants will hear their children cry for food, and will have none to give them. Money will have disappeared from the community, it is madness to think that credit, can be any further prolonged. As money grows scarce so will food grow dear. Indian meal is already advanced three shillings a bag. Flour is rising. Coal will inevitably rise, and if coal were to be had for the asking at the pit’s mouth it would be as impossible a luxury as Turkey carpets by the time it came to be distributed through the Connemara wilds. In short, if the people of this neighbourhood are abandoned to their unaided resources—if the Government 203

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which has heretofore sent them nothing except extra police, buttons its purse; and refers them to the ordinary channels of relief – as surely as plague and famine once turned those lovely regions into charnel houses, so surely will famine and plague once more give the ghouls a feast this approaching winter in Connemara. It is horrible to think that men raving with the pangs of hunger, of choked workhouses, and deathbeds by the ditches, and graves in unconsecrated pits, all at our own doors, in the nonage of this boastful century; but there is a more horrible thing still than thinking of them—it is to see them acted out in grim reality under our eyes; and if we are to be spared that apparition before Christmas, I am persuaded in my heart it must be by the prompt interposition of the State (for the distress will altogether overflow the bounds of private charity). I desire as far as possible to detach the circumstances of this particular districts from the faults and virtues of the land laws, for “the Gods know” that the despairing peasants of the West, like the famished Romans, “speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.”2 It is not a question of politics; it is a question of life or death, of food or starvation, for thousands of the most inoffensive fellow-creatures under the sun. It is not whether laws are to be amended, but whether lives are to be saved. To judge a place like this by the ordinary canon of agriculture would be like establishing a property qualification in a poorhouse. The people are inured to sufferings that would be intolerable elsewhere. They are broken to slavery, all but naturalized to famine. Beyond the radius of this cleanly little town, from end to end a district of seventeen miles by twelve by extent, there is not a single jaunting-car, nor a single pair of boots among the country school children, not half a dozen hats or bonnets among the country maidens. A respected gentleman told me that within the last few weeks he saw an absolutely naked child haunting the roads. The number of cases in which there is but one straw bed among six, or even nine, persons would shock your dainty philanthropists. You might pick out hundreds to whom a meal of fresh meat would be an event in their lives. Their houses are huts, their farms scratched wildernesses. The only avenue to a considerable section of country lies over a rough wooden bridge. When I inquired how the car traffic was accommodated the reply was that there was not even a country but in the whole region, and that the business of its beasts of burden was done either by asses panniers or by buckets carried upon the people’s backs. I saw hundreds of women toiling for miles along the Galway road to market with huge laden wickerwork hampers, weighty enough for oxen, fastened between their shoulders, like Brobdignagian knapsacks.3 If it were a time of merriment, there tatterdemalion of a harvest, their fugitive morsels of greenish oats prostrated to the ground, in the midst of brown deserts of bulrushes and heather; their potato fields, with gigantic rocks cumbering the middle of the beds and streams of bog-water coursing lazily down between the furrows; their potatoes of the size of black marbles; their turnips also of most diminutive size; their meadows a poisonous fungi, and tillage plots where nothing blooms except the ill-omened poppy—might seem to be a mauvaise plaisanterie, rather than the recompense for which the husbandman endures merciless rents and more than the labour and less than the feeding 204

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of beasts. I cannot bring myself to speak with patience of the little caricatured crops I saw withering about me; the hay simply so much poison; the very oats unfit for animal food; the cars filled with clammy pulp where they are called at all, the potatoes blackened to death as under the torch of a destroying angel. One man had forty tons of hay soaked in to common manure, and is forced to feed his horse on Indian meal. The hardy little mountain cattle with which the commonage used to be stocked would have been sacrificed long ago as a sop to the landlord or the main bank only that there is no one to accept the sterifice [sic]; and when you hear of heifers offered for sale at £3 12s. 6d. a piece, and sheep selling for 10s. 6d., you are half reconciled to creatures, who have travelled twenty to thirty miles to fairs, soaked with rain and dropping with hunger, have stood all day in the wet awaiting the offer that never came, and have turned half-broken home without getting the chance of denuding their little farms of their last beast upon those terrible terms. I have only to repeat my solemn conviction that, in the absence of aid from without, those people are doomed in thousands to starvation. The machinery of the workhouses (which are much the most sumptuous popular mansions in these parts) will no doubt be overweighted; but workhouse relief, even upon a colossal scale, cannot stand between a whole community and famine. Not only are the ratepayers worse fed than the paupers, and as incapable of paying increased rates as of giving champagne luncheons; but, in becoming beholden to the poor rates for assistance, the ruined peasant must surrender his land, the last plank of his shipwreck, the one desperate hope that he will ever again raise his head amongst men; and come what will, he will wall himself into his cabin out of the pleasant sun, and die there first. He is no mendicant pulling for alms; he is a strong man hungering for honest work. Once it is confessed to be the duty of the State to provide employment for the perishing people out of the public moneys, there is no necessity in life for insisting upon this or that particular form of employment. Probably no engineer travelling through Connemara for fifty miles upon a jaunting-car, could, without shutting his eyes, avoid seeing that the first necessity of this immense territory, bordered by thousands of acres and reclaimable wastes, beautiful enough to be one of the showcases of the world, and grit with unfathomed ocean riches of turbot and lobster, worthless for want of markets, would be a railway to disenthrall it from its present prison; and that a narrow gauge railway through the smooth levels of the valleys would be as cheap and practicable as it would be a sufficient source of present employment, and a priceless permanent advantage.4 The importunate demand of the hour is not the adoption of a crotchet, but the realization of a crisis, not that a railway shall run here or there, but that the people shall not rot of cold and hunger. Let the Government dispatch any respectable officer into Connemara to see what I have seen, to hear what everybody in the community will tell him with a heavy heart, to estimate the resources of the people; and if he shall certify under his hand that there is no risk of famine, and if the result shall so acquit him, the public mind will at least be tranquillised, and I must be content to bear the odium of a wicked and groundless alarm. But if the 205

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Government, wrapt in its majesty, turns a deaf ear much longer to the hoarse murmurings of that earthquake which, like a buried Enceladus,5 is already beginning uneasily to stir the ground, let the world be not over scandalized if Irish coroners’ juries in their despair should once more bring an unsavoury verdicts of wilful murder against an English Prime Minister. Heretofore I have grounded my appeal upon motives of common human pity for men trembling on the brink of starvation. A word or two now of the engines by which they have been bruised in body by a spirit to their present woeful semblance. It is not the act of God which sentences the people of Connemara to the pangs of semi-starvation. There are many thousand acres scattered here, there, and everywhere, which are quite as capable of reclamation as the patches which have been reclaimed. It is not the industry to reclaim them that is lacking, for those peasants labour harder for a guerdon of yellow stir-about than misers do for gold; nor the capital, for it is in their stout right arms. It is not agitation which has debauched them, for the mule whose back bows under his master’s ingots is not more dumb and uncomplaining than they. It is that the product of their industry is devoured by a cormorant land system, those monstrous appetite grows with what it feeds upon. They dare not improve. Bad as it is to be poor, it is still worse to appear rich. Their only security is to have nothing worth securing. As in a land infected by banditti their best protection is indigence. But even poverty like theirs, forever hovering on the borders of hunger, is not too lonely game for the scent of your smaller freed of traffickers in Irish land. It is one of the melancholy reflections which has dogged me at every stage of this investigation that here again, where a peasant never fired a gun nor uttered a threat in anger, his poverty has been recognized, and his submission regarded by exactions infinitely more intolerable, mutatis mutandis, than have ever been attempted against his fellow-countrymen in richer and more turbulent latitudes. I mark this trait of all despotisms here in the perfect confidence that a people who have humbly kissed the rod in days when despair was their only counsellor will not be stung from their beautiful and sinless trust in Providence now, when, I hope, the lawful power of national opinion is awakening to their rescue. This whole territory half a century ago formed part of the magnificent possession of the Martins of Ballinahinch,6 whose soulless castles and uprooted avenues and sumptuous gate-lodges turned to smithies, still dot the country like living pages out of Lever’s romances,7 and whose princely misfortunes and bankrupt grandeur once made them almost in power what they were in name—the Kings of Connemara. The crash which extinguished all their barbaric splendour involved their unhappy serfs far and wide in the ruins First, and English Insurance Company fastened upon those magnificent estates. Then they became the spoils of various speculators, English and Irish, three of whom at this moment divide their fairest slices. You may form some judgment of the quality of the soil we are dealing with when I tell you that the poor-law valuation of the 159,000 acres which fell to one of those gentry (an opulent London tradesman) is, as nearly as I can calculate, 7½d. per acre, and that of another division more favourably situated at 1s. 1½d.; 206

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and I believe if there is anything satisfactorily settled about Sir Richard Griffith’s valuation,8 it is that, although the grazing was at that date in its infancy, and pasture lands escaped proportionately lightly, plots of mountain tillage were estimated at their full, if not an exaggerated, value. Need I repeat the miserable tale which might stand in stereotype for a hundred letters from a hundred different corners of Ireland—how famine and consolidation, like fond twin brothers, went hand-in-hand to read their merry harvest—how those swarming tenantry were huddled into cholera pits and fever-ships—how “the clearances” finished what this half-hearted famine had left unslain—how whole villages tottered, fell and were buried out of sight—how a few great graziers and their herds roamed lordly over the silenced hills—how the new proprietors learnt the luxury of rackrenting—how the new agents came burning with ingenious patents for doubling rents and taming tenants—how whatever remnant of the old tenantry had struggled through the jaws of death and eviction found themselves spared only for the lash, their bodies weakened, their spirit cowed, their rents doubled, trebled, sometimes quadrupled, the potato-crop which had been their mainstay doomed to an incurable disease, until it seemed scarcely a mercy that they had survived to be bled and tortured instead of resting under the tender grassy-shroud beneath which their kith and kin slept their untroubled sleep. I collected the melancholy statistics of dozens of depopulated and levelled villages which men of middle age can remember studding those neighbouring hillsides – villages of 25 houses where there are now only three, of 62 houses where there are only two, of 104 houses where there are only 11, of 15 houses where there is not a stone left upon a stone—and it were sad to tell their names, and deaths, and numbers, and then to turn to the handful of graziers and shepherds who have usurped their fields. But the ruin of dead tenants is less to the point than the ruin of living ones. There is hardly a miserable holding for miles around that has not been wrenched up to twice its valuation. The increases were effected by the process known in Connaught as “stripping the lands” that is to say, fields which were parcelled out in doubtful divisions among the members of the small communities, as in the vineyards of Champagne, were cut up into separate lots, and erected into separate tenancies at enormously increased rents upon the pretext of enlarged holdings. And so what upon the surface would seem to be a judicious way of determining the tenant’s rights and putting an end to litigation became by due legerdemain a cruel instrument of oppression. One townland which passed through this subtle crucible went in with a rental of £60 a year, and came out with a rental of £217; and the turbary and mountain pasture which used to be thrown in with the £60 had been shorn away in the process. Another which was once yielding £15 a year was with skilful manipulation milked for £70. Gold was wrung out of the very bogs. Upon one estate tenants who once enjoyed a free range of turbury were charged 2s 6d per house for their fuel (which, in the matter of eight or nine hundred houses, became an exceedingly handsome feather in the agent’ cap). Upon another estate the unfortunate turf-banks were rack-rented from 1s to 4s per man’s day cutting. A man was paying a rent of £7; he reclaimed an acre of 207

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bog, and his rent was in consequence raised to £14. A holding on the outskirts of Oughterard, which is valued to poor-rates at 15s is rented at £12. One of the most improving tenants in the district, whose holding was rented at £16 10s was mad enough to build a farmhouse and expend £300 on fencing and draining; his reward is a rent of £40 5s, instead of £16, 10s. Not to pester you with cases which have a ghastly family likeness, I will be content with settling down twelve instances taken at random from four different estates, premising merely that the particulars are at the service of whoever shall question them. – Old Rent £ s. d.   1 . . . . . . . . .  30  0  0   2 . . . . . . . . .  42  15  0   3 . . . . . . . . .  11  0  0   4 . . . . . . . . .  25  0  0   5 . . . . . . . . .  20  0  0   6 . . . . . . . . .  48  0  0   7 . . . . . . . . .  36  0  0   8 . . . . . . . . .  20  0  0   9 . . . . . . . . .  60  0  0 10 . . . . . . . . .  14  0  0 11 . . . . . . . . .  60  0  0 12 . . . . . . . . .  120  0  0

Increased Rent.

Poor Law Valuation.

 £  s.  d.  55 0 0  81 13  6  34 0 0  80 0 0  36 0 0  68 0 0  81 0 0  50 0 0 300 0 0  62 0 0 105 0 0 206 4 0

 £  s.  d.  25 0 0  48 10  0  14 5 0  52 8 0  16 10  0  35 5 0  33 15  0  17 10  0  95 16  0  25 15  0  42 10  0 114 5 0

I have searched in vain for materials to lighten this picture of pitiless extortion. The only landowner in the neighbourhood of whom I can honestly say a praiseful word is Mr. W. D. Griffith, whose lands are let only below and seldom above the valuation, and who, like merciful landlords all the country over, has been first and alone among his neighbours to recognize the pressure of the times by reducing the rents all round to the level of the valuation.9 You may judge of the contrast between him and his mightier brethren from the fact that one man, who holds a farm from him at £19, the valuation being £18, holds a second farm of precisely the same quality at the other side of the ditch, from another proprietor, to whom he pays £15 12s, on a valuation of £7 10s; and while this man is relieved of a substantial share of his moderate rent by the benevolent landlord, the answer to his appeal to the other proprietor, to whom he has for years been paying 100 per cent. over the valuation, is that he will sell out the whole property rather than give a reduction of a penny. Apart altogether from the misery wrought by sordid usuriousness, I could wring the hearts of your readers with tales of the sufferings heaped upon peasants by the sallies of mere wanton caprice and intoxicated power. I could tell of an old man of high respectability, whose son quarrelled with the agent; how father and son were flung on the roadside together; how the sheriff’s myrmidons tore down the rooftree; how the old man hung to the roofless walls, and haunted them night and day until reason forsook him, and the poor old maniac caught a

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disease which mercifully killed him; how the stalwart son was driven across the Atlantic, and his five young children into the Oughterard poorhouse. I could tell of another old gentleman (gentleman none the less for his rough coat of frieze), whose deathbed was rudely disturbed by the threat that upon his decease those whom he left after him should dwell there no more. I could name the tenants of a townland who are at this moment under notice to quit under penalty of paying double rents, for no other reason in the world than that their little pastures are coveted by a neighbouring grazier. But need I add another bitter sentence to convince the world that, if the people of Connemara are kept forever suspended over a gulf of ruin, and are at this very hour in danger of toppling in, it is not by the will of God but by the will of heartless and devouring men?

Notes 1 2 3 4

Characters in plays by William Shakespeare. The Pistols were swaggering soldiers. A line from Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus (c. 1606) and spoken by the First Citizen. In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Brobdingnag is a land inhabited by giants. A light railway from Galway to Clifden was not constructed until 1892 under the auspices of the Congested Districts Board. 5 In Greek mythology, Enceladus was one of the Giants who fought for control of the Cosmos. 6 The Martins of Ballinahinch were one of the largest landowners in Connemara before the Great Famine. They got into financial difficulties resulting in the estate being sold in the Landed Estates Court. By 1879, the estate was owned by Sir Richard Berridge, a brewer from London who was one of the largest landowners in the country with over 160,000 acres. 7 This is reference to the writings of Sir Charles Lever whose works included O’Malley and Tom Burke. 8 The Griffith Valuation was carried out under the Valuation Act 1852 to regulate taxation in Ireland. 9 One of the main demands at the Land League demonstrations during this period was that the rents should be the same as the government valuation. See Gerard Moran, ‘James Daly and the rise and Fall of the Land League in the West of Ireland, 1879–82’ in Irish Historical Studies, 29, no. 114 (Nov. 1994), pp. 193–4.

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17 ‘DECLARATION OF THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY CALLING ON THE GOVERNMENT TO INTRODUCE RELIEF MEASURES, OTHER THAN THE POOR LAW, TO SAVE THE PEOPLE’, FREEMAN’S JOURNAL, 29 OCTOBER 1879 THE DECLARATION OF THE HIERARCHY1 The Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland, assembled in Dublin on the 24th Oct., the Primate of all Ireland in the chair,2 having exchanged views regarding the present condition of the suffering classes of their respective dioceses, came to the unanimous conclusion that a very serious crisis is now impending, and that the distress with which the great body of the people are threatened are likely to be so deep and widespread that mere private efforts for its alleviation will be totally inadequate. It was, therefore, agreed: 1. That it is the urgent duty of the Government to take effectual measures to save the people from a calamity which has come upon them through no fault of their own. 2. That with the sad experience before us of the operations of the Poor-law Act for the relief of the masses during the famine of the past generation, we consider its provisions unsuited and insufficient to meet the necessities of the impending crisis. 3. That some scheme of public employment which would at once relieve the present pressing wants of the people, and be productive of permanent benefit should be promptly devised, and carried into immediate operation throughout the country – such schemes to embrace arterial drainage, the reclamation of waste lands, the construction of earthworks for trams and railways, the plantation of mountain and marshy districts, as well as the improvement of tenants’ holdings. 4. That a deputation, consisting of the Primate, the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Bishops of Elphin and Limerick, wait on the Lord Lieutenant to request his Grace to submit these views to her Majesty’s Government.3 210

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5. That we applaud and cheerfully bear testimony to the generous conduct of many landlords in our respective dioceses towards their distressed tenantry, and that we appeal to others to promptly imitate their example. That we beg of public administrative bodies, as well as private individuals, to continue, and, where possible, to extend the employment of the labouring classes. 6. That, whilst making this appeal for the relief of our people, and resolving to use our utmost efforts to bring it to practical results, we feel it equally our duty to exhort our flocks to act under their trials with Christian patience and charity; to help each other to the utmost of their ability; to respect the rights of others; to pay their just debts to the fullest extent of their means; and to obey the laws – whilst using, at all time, all peace and constitutional means to improve their condition, especially by the reform of the Land Laws, which are a main cause of the poverty and helplessness of our country. (Signed), + D. M’GETTIGAN.4

Notes 1 The Catholic bishops were among the first to inform the government of the crisis that the people faced in 1879 and called for government intervention. 2 Michael Logue (1840–1924) from Donegal had been appointed Primate of All Ireland in 1887. In 1893, he was made a Cardinal. 3 Edward McCabe was Archbishop of Dublin, Laurence Gillooly was Bishop of Elphin and George Butler was Bishop of Limerick. 4 Daniel McGettigan (1815–1887) was Archbishop of Armagh from 1870–1887.

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18 ‘LETTER OF PATRICK GREALLY, OUTLINING THE LEVEL OF DISTRESS IN HIS PARISH, AND ADVOCATING EMIGRATION AS THE PANACEA TO THE PERENNIAL DESTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE,’ 1 NATION, 10 JANUARY 1880 SHOCKING DESTITUTION. To the Editor of the Freeman’s Journal Carna, Recess, Co. Galway, Dec. 29. DEAR SIR, - In the interests of suffering humanity will you kindly allow me, through the columns of your patriotic paper, to return thanks to his Grace, the illustrious John of Tuam,2 for his characteristic paternal charity and solicitude in sending the timely air of £20 for the relief of the poor of this, the poorest and most remote parish in all Ireland, and which came to hand on Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve several poor, virtuous women – mothers of large, helpless families – came to me in tears asking for God’s sake to give them even the price of one meal for their starving children, that they had not even a morsel of the coarsest food for the little ones on that great night of Universal Joy, when the angels proclaim “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good-will,” that they had neither money nor means to procure it, and would not get a shilling’s worth on credit if they travelled all Connemara; and, finally, that their husbands were gone for the last fortnight to England or Scotland to try and earn something to support their families at home.3 As for this locality, there is not a shilling given in it for labour. What is more, there is not a workhouse nearer than from twenty to thirty-three miles of this parish, and no relieving officer nearer than from sixteen to twenty-six miles, so that relief under the Poor-law system is a forlorn hope – mere mockery – in this locality. How will a poor mother travel between thirty-one and sixty miles in search of but doubtful food for her starving children; for after that fatiguing journey, is she sure

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to find this man of charity, who would require to be endowed with the attribute of ubiquity in order to see after and supply food to all the hungry applicants? We have no board of guardians, no town commissioners, no corporate board, no public body of any sort to give employment or to raise a sympathetic voice on behalf of a naked and starving population. In these appalling circumstances what can a poor priest do, who has more than enough to attend to in his spiritual sphere, without taking upon himself singlehanded the entire burden of temporal affairs in such heartrending times as are unfortunately visited with us now?—little or nothing. As to relief he can give none, for is not the Irish priest sharer in the poverty as well as the wealth of his people; sharer in their adversity and prosperity, in their sorrows and joys alike? The population of this parish is over 800 families, the one-half of whom have not this day a month’s supply of food. Nay, many of them to my certain knowledge have not a week’s supply, and are destitute of money, means and credit. They will neither have seed potatoes, oats, or barley. The good Sisters of Mercy residing in the temporary convent of Carna have within the last six weeks clothed 100 naked children attending their school. But I suppose that twice or thrice that number applied in vain for garments to cover their naked and emaciated bodies; and surely much as these poor children suffered bodily by not getting, the virtuous nuns suffered at least as much mentally by being obliged to refuse, not having any more to give. Nemo dat quod non habet.4 It is universally admitted that the landlords, even if willing, which, I regret to say is not so, are entirely inadequate to ward off the dreadful famine from the doors of the people. The landlords could do much, but, blind to their own interest and that of their tenantry, they do not seem inclined to do anything. I asked all the landlords of this parish to employ the people, which they could do to the advantage of both, there being no part of Connemara where drainage, reclamation, and road making are more required, or where they would be more remunerative. There are hundreds of acres of the best land here, worthless swamps at present, which might be easily made produce food for man and beast. Private charity, such as that initiated by the Catholic Hierarchy of England and America, having the illustrious Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster at its head,5 and, though last and not least, that noble lady the Duchess of Marlborough,6 whose hand and purse are always open to works of charity and benevolence, may do much to alleviate the distress, but all they can do is but like a drop in the ocean at the present crisis. Therefore, I say emphatically that nothing short of employment on an extensive scale in every parish and townland by the Government can save the masses—the bone and sinew of the land—from the lamentable death that otherwise invariably awaits them in the not far distant future. It is but right to state that, with one exception, all the landlords of this parish have notified their intention of giving an abatement—some of 20, others of 25 per cent—and in the half year’s rent due last November, under certain restrictions, such as that it and all other arrears to be paid before a certain fixed period will have elapsed. I hereby declare solemnly before the world that the greater portion of the tenants of this

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parish could not even pay even the 20 or 25 per cent of the arrears of rent now due, and that the landlords might as well put in the condition that no man could get the benefit of the above-named concession who would not have reduced within one week the Twelve Pins of Connemara to the level of the sea. – I remain, dear sir, your faithful servant, PATRICK GREALLY, C.A.

Notes 1 The Roman Catholic clergy played a major role in highlighting the extent of the famine crisis in their parishes and while the government accused them of exaggerating the extent of the problem, the priests often provided the only leadership in their areas. See Moran, ‘Catholic Church and subsistence crisis of 1879–82’. 2 John MacHale (1789–1881) was Archbishop of Tuam and during the crisis of 1879–80 distributed over £25,000 to the priests in his dioceses from money that had been sent directly to him from all over the world. The archdiocese of Tuam was one of the most distressed areas in the country. 3 This refers to the large number of males who were engaged in seasonal migration to Britain. It was estimated that the remittance from seasonal migration contributed over £250,000 to the economy of the West of Ireland, see Gerard Moran, ‘A Passage to Britain: Seasonal migration and social change in the West of Ireland, 1870–90’ in Saothar, no. 13 (1988), pp. 22–31. 4 ‘No one gives what he doesn’t have’. 5 Henry Manning (1808–1892) was the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster between 1865–1892. 6 The Duchess of Marlborough was the wife of the Irish Lord Lieutenant who, in December 1879, established the Duchess of Marlborough Relief Committee.

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19 JOHN DONOVAN TO EDWARD MCCABE (DUBLIN DIOCESAN ARCHIVES, MCCABE PAPERS, SECULAR PRIESTS), 3 JANUARY 1880 Celbridge,1 Jany 3, 1880 My dear Lord Archbishop, I wrote to your Grace asking for an exemption for this Parish from the collection about being made in favour of the poor of Ireland, on account of the special condition of this locality. Not having heard from your Grace I feared that my note did not reach. I send therefore this second now again explaining our position. Both factories are now closed. 800 or 900 hands thrown idle with their families, more than half our population.2 Their receipt per week used to be £400, all of which was spent in this locality or nearly all. A great sum in a small place and nothing in its stead. The able bodied left, seeking work elsewhere: but the old, the feeble and sometimes the young left after them depending on casual employment or alms. Some went to the Union so our rates are very high. And very few persons here are able to pay rates. Our Catholic population is of the very poorest, scarcely a dozen are comfortable. All were nearly dependent on the factories or their workers. Now as the factories are closed and the workers mostly gone, the shopkeepers are greatly impoverished. The collections here in our church exhibit this only too plainly. The people still give as well as they can. Yet our collection in Celbridge is not much more than half what it used to be. Straffan is not affected by the stoppage, but it was only a very minor portion of the parish formerly. The union is £50 a year, and only for it two priests could not live here. I often wished to speak to your Grace fully, but I feared I was not welcome of late. If unconsciously I have offended your Lordship I regret it exceedingly. Poor as the Parish is however, I shall give your Lordship a little of my own towards your charitable fund. I enclose my mite of one pound sterling, and only wish circumstances would permit me to record your Grace’s noble efforts as I desire. Hoping My Lord Archbishop that your health and strength are not impaired by your excessive exertions and God may grant you every blessing. I remain as ever, 215

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Your Grace’s well wisher and very affectionate humble servant. John Donovan.3 His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin.

Notes 1 The town of Celbridge is located in Co. Kildare and is a parish in the archdiocese of Dublin. 2 While the crisis of 1879–1882 was most severe in the countryside, it also had a major impact on urban centres, see Gerard Moran, ‘The land war, urban destitution and town tenant protests, 1879–1882’ in Saothar, no. 20 (1995), pp. 17–31. 3 John Donovan was the parish priest of Celbridge.

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20 SPEECH BY REV. PATRICK COYNE, CATHOLIC ADMINISTRATOR OF THE PARISH OF KILLANIN, WHO CHAIRED THE LOCAL LAND LEAGUE MEETING IN NOVEMBER 1879, HIGHLIGHTING CONDITIONS IN THE PARISH’, 1 NATION, 22 NOVEMBER, 1879 The Rev. chairman, who was very warmly received, said, after some preliminary observations – Famine is already, I am aware, at the doors of many of you in this parish, grimly staring you in the face, and to complete this woeful business of your miseries your landlords are mercilessly worrying you for the usual pound of flesh (hear, hear). Poor Lazarites, you have appeared at their gates and appealed to their sympathies to share with you in this your present distress, and what I understand you most received was great insults and abuse (hear, hear). And what, may I ask, has been the cause of these ever-recurring periods of destitution and famine? I tell you plainly here to-day that it is owning to that vicious and iniquitous system of land tenure under which you live (hear, hear). There will neither be prosperity nor happiness in store for our common country until that system is remodeled. A Voice – It is long wanting. The chairman – The landlords – I mean especially the rackrenting landlords – have brought upon us slowly, but not the less surely, these awful calamities. They have rackrented, oppressed, and ground you down to the very dust, so that yourselves and your children are living in semi-nakedness and semi-starvation (groans). No worse class of landlords ever breathed the free air of Heaven than those who possess land in this locality (hear, hear). The rent-roll of one property in this parish has been raised within the last six or seven years to the enormous amount of one hundred and fifty per cent. and more (groans). It is said that a poor tenant on that property actually got out of his mind at the idea of his rent being so raised (cried of “Shame”). Now, I saw that if that one hundred and fifty per cent., usuriously 217

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exacted, were handed back to those tenants this year I warrant you there would be no such things as murmurs of famine among them (no, no). Therefore, I hold that it is owing to the land system that the calamities and periodical famines have taken place (hear, hear). During my short time in this parish I have witnessed cruelties and eviction scenes, the mere description of which would drive any other nation into open revolt, and make the very stones in the street rise up in mutiny. So mercilessly and brutally are those eviction scenes carried out that I have seen myself, with my own two eyes, in this parish, a poor man actually drop down dead while the clearing process was going on (oh, oh, and cries of “True”) and what horrified me the more was to see the heartless agent afterwards surrounded by his posse comitatus of police (groans) and ordering the body, now a lifeless corpse to be thrown out into the street (cries of “Shame”). It is no lie. A Voice – It is a fact. The chairman – I have seen another case of late as twelve months ago where five poor wretched families, on account of refusing to go under a rise of rent, on falling into arrears were pounced upon by the agent on the first opportunity and brought into the superior courts, and thus saddled with a crushing load of costs. Sixty police were drafted into that poor peaceful hamlet, and the usual harrowing scenes took place upon the public street (groans). Another poor sickly old man, to whom I had administered the last sacrament a few days previously was taken out of his bed and brought out an old blanket, to the horror and disgust of all who were present (groans). Public sympathy—public indignation and sympathy—were at once aroused, and a public meeting was convened on this very day twelve months, and on this very spot, and to your credit be it recorded that you generously and charitably defrayed the entire costs of these poor outcasts, and reinstated them afterwards in their humble huts (cheers). They have been since comfortably clothed and partly fed by the generous charity of a Dublin gentleman. A Voice – Three cheers for him (cheers). The chairman – and they are now as well off as most persons on the property. A Voice – No thanks to the landlord for that (true). The chairman – Still I say the angle of death is hovering over them, and their fate is signed and sealed in the agent’s book. And now may I ask you what are you to do? Your landlords have refused to come to your aid, and I know from my own experience that twenty farmers in this parish are not able to meet their engagements. I know that it will be a miracle if they keep body and soul together until this day twelve months. What, then, are you to do? A voice – Pay no rent. 218

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The chairman – Be united and determined, offer your landlords a fair rent, give them the Government valuation if you can; those who cannot give them rent, let them not starve themselves on any account (cheers), for credit you will not get this year, and do not act as a man did in this parish in 1847, who went and sold all he had and paid the landlord, and afterwards met a coffinless grave himself and his children that very Winter. Therefore, I say be united. You have already formed an organization in this parish, and that organization, I am glad to say, is well supported, and will be better (hear, hear). Union what is required be unanimous on this occasion. Strive to meet your landlords if you can in giving them a fair rent, and if they do not accept that let them do without it (cheers and laughter).

Note 1 Parish of Killanin is situated between Moycullen and Oughterard in Connemara, Co. Galway. Among the speakers at the demonstration was the Land League leader, Michael Davitt.

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21 REPORT OF DISTRESS IN THE PARISH OF GEESALA, CO. MAYO FROM REV. PATRICK MCHUGH, C.C., THE LOCAL PRIEST, 1 TO E. DWYER GRAY, LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVES, MANSION HOUSE RELIEF COMMITTEE PAPERS, 1880; CH/1/15/1) To: E. Dwyer Gray, M.P. & Lord Mayor of Dublin.2 My dear Lord Mayor, Knowing well your kindness of heart and the deep interest you have always evinced on behalf of the poor I humbly beg to call your Lordship’s attention to the dire distress prevailing in this locality. Geesala is a remote district of Erris and belongs to the diocese of Killala. The poor people have been at all times remarkable for their simple piety, good order and industry. But their many virtues and good qualities could not avert misfortune over which they had no influence. They have no food, raiment and but indifferent fuel. Their little mountain cattle would fetch nothing in the market. They are in despair. No credit and therefore nothing before them but starvation or the workhouse.3 I appeal to you on their behalf and hope you will direct attention to their case.4 If funds come, the sooner the better, there is no time to be lost. I felt a diffidence is addressing the public and yet in face of such imminent peril to my poor people – I cannot remain silent. I hope you will kindly take them under your protection. You always delight to champion the weak and poor and oppressed. Gratify your humane inclinations and save my poor people. Wishing you all the blessings of this Holy Season. I remain Your obt [obedient] servt [servant] Patk J. McHugh, C. C., 220

R eport of distress in the parish of G eesala

Geesala, Bangor Erris

Jany [January] 7th /80

Notes 1 Parish of Geesala is in the diocese of Killala and regarded as one of the poorest areas of the country where the people had to supplement their incomes through seasonal migration and fishing. 2 Edmund Dwyer Gray (1845–1888) was a newspaper proprietor and politician who was a supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell. His family owned the nationalist Freeman’s Journal, the Belfast Morning News and the Dublin Evening Telegraph. 3 The nearest workhouse was Belmullet. 4 Appeals were also being made to other relief organisation and directly to the Irish diaspora in North America by the clergy in the Erris area.

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22 VERE FOSTER’S LETTER TO CHARLES STEWART PARNELL (P.R.O.N.I., 1 VERE FOSTER PAPERS, 10 JANUARY 1880) 2 Sir – As you are a gentleman by birth and education, and are in the enjoyment of youth, of good health, of an independent fortune, and of great influence among the Irish people, I take the liberty of addressing you as follows: I believe the prosperity and happiness of the people of Ireland would be greatly advanced by such large increase in the number of freehold properties in land as that the number of resident owners in fee simple should be increased at least one hundredfold. I therefore desire that the multiplication of small holdings in fee simple should be promoted by the abolition of the laws of primogeniture and entail, and by the simplification of legal proceedings for the transfer of ownership of land. As far as I agree with you, and heartily endorse your sentiments; but I cannot believe that the interests of the tenant farmers or of good government would be promoted by adoption of the course proposed by some theoretical enthusiasts – namely, the compulsory purchase by the Government of the estates of all landlords, and their subdivision among the present tenants, who would thereafter themselves become landlords through purchase from the Government by means of annual instalments spread over a number of years. For instance, suppose a farm of ten acres, rented at £1 per acre. In cases of compulsory purchase compensation should be liberal, therefore the Government should be expected to pay, say, thirty years’ purchase of the rental, 300 pounds. The desirous to purchase the freehold of his farm would have to redeem this sum, according to the usual practice of Government loans, by annual instalments at the rate of five per cent. spread over 35 years, so as to clear off both capital and interest. Accordingly, he would have to pay for thirty-five years an advance of 50 per cent. on his present rent—namely 15 pounds per annum instead of 10 pounds. To be sure, he would be his own landlord at the end of that time, but if he finds his present rent burthensome, he would perhaps find its increase by fifty per cent. intolerable, the Government, insisting on payment, would become more unpopular and hateful to the disaffected than ever it has been hitherto, and the Irish difficulty would become intensified; nor can I see, if compulsory subdivision is right, why it should stop short with the tenant farmer, holding perhaps fifty or one hundred or maybe a thousand acres, and not embrace the common labourer by 222

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dispossessing all capitalists and employers or labour of every degree, subject to compensation of course, for the benefit of those men only who till the land with their own hands. Still less can I approve of the advice which you are incessantly tendering to the tenant-farmers of Ireland to demand reductions of rent; to refuse any payment whatever if these demands are not compiled with; and to keep, nevertheless, a firm grip of their holdings. I am bound to say that such advice is most mischievous; that it is calculated to sap the foundations of civilized society by invalidating all contracts; that it would, if followed, inaugurate a pandemonium, and lead to misery far greater and more widespread than that which already exists; and that it is quite inconsistent with your position in society as a legislator, for lawmakers should not be inciters to law breaking, while, however, I dissent from compulsory dispossession, whether for the benefit of tenant or labourer, from violations of law, and from social disorder. I desire to invite your attention to assisted emigration as the most practicable and certain mode of, not only temporarily but permanently relieving the present poverty and ever-recurring distress in the West of Ireland. It is as natural and prudent for young people to emigrate from over-populated countries to new regions as it is for young bees to swarm, and it is unstatesmanlike and cruel to the poor to contravene the laws of nature by decrying emigration as some people do. I took an active part in organizing and assisting emigration from Ireland to North America, and from New York to the West, between twenty and thirty years ago, with the best results. I am now too old to resume the necessary labour, but I believe that, if you were to apply your acknowledged talents and influence to solicitation of public subscriptions, and to organizing a scheme of assisted emigration to the Western States of America and to Canada, you might be eminently successful in conferring lasting benefits on great numbers of poor people whose normal state is ever verging on starvation.3 These persons have no reasonable expectation of improvement in their condition here, but they might, under your auspices, migrate to happier homes in a magnificent country, which has an ever-increasing glorious future before it, and where there is already a greater number of inhabitants of Irish extraction than there is even in Ireland itself. If you should think proper to embark in such a project, I feel sure that you will receive the hearty co-operation in money and work of the American people, whether of Irish extraction or otherwise. In proof of my sincerity, I hereby express my willingness to subscribe towards the proposed Emigration Fund at the rate of 2 pounds for each young man or woman between eighteen and thirty-five years of age, in the proportion of one of the former to two of the latter, because, as men earn higher wages than women, they are usually better able to provide for themselves. This offer to hold good until the end of the present year, and not to exceed £15,000 in all, and to be paid by me in instalments as may be hereafter arranged on information reaching me from yourself or your agent of the embarkation of each such emigrant from the 223

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province of Connaught or from the counties of Donegal, Clare, Kerry, or Cork, with particulars of name, age, and parish. I am, sir, your obedient servant. Belfast, January 10, 1880 VERE FOSTER.

Notes 1 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. 2 Vere Henry Louis Foster (1819–1900) was an English diplomat and philanthropist. However, he visited Ireland during the Great Hunger and dedicated his time to providing relief. To understand the emigration process, he travelled three times to North America, his graphic reports led to the Passenger Act of 1851. In 1879, he again worked in famine relief, this time focusing on the emigration of young women to North America. 3 Parnell was opposed to assisted emigration, instead wanting internal migration. He was one of the Directors of the ill-fated Irish Migration Company which was established in 1884 and did purchase an estate at Kilcloony, Co. Galway. See Gerard Moran, ‘The Irish Land Purchase and Settlement Company and the attempted migration scheme to Kilcloony in the 1880s’ in Irish Economic and Social History, xxxii (2005), pp. 47–62.

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23 LETTER FROM BISHOP FRANCIS MACCORMACK 1 TO E. D. DWYER GRAY, LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVES, MANSION HOUSE RELIEF COMMITTEE PAPERS, CH/1/10/ G142, 27 JANUARY 1880) Ballaghadereen, 27 Jan. 1880 My dear Lord Mayor, I believe the Mansion House Committee are desirous to have Central Committees formed throughout the distressed districts, for the distribution of relief. I am of opinion that Diocesan Central Committees would be found much more easily and successfully worked than County Relief Committees. Here in Mayo, for instance, the County is very large, and, I would think, a Committee of the County would be very unwieldy and unmanageable. The distance from this to Belmullet is at least 60 Irish miles. On the other hand, if this Diocese were constituted into a Central Committee District, a Centre might be easily fixed within easy distance of every member of such Diocesan Committee. To constitute the proposed Diocesan Committee, I would respectfully suggest that two members, one a clergyman, the other a layman, be selected from each of the parochial committees already established in every parish of the Diocese. There are 22 parishes in Achonry: the number of proposed Diocesan Committee would be 44. Should the Mansion House Committee see sufficient reasons for preparing Diocesan to Central Committees, we could easily have one established – as the Parochial Committees are already in operation. I remain, My dear Lord Mayor,

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Yours faithfully, + F. J. MacCormack, Right Hon.   Bishop of Achonry. The Lord Mayor, Dublin.

Note 1 Francis McCormack (1833–1909) was born in Ballintubber, Co. Mayo, and was bishop of Achronry from 1875 to 1887. The diocese which had twenty-two parishes in counties Mayo and Sligo took in much of the poorest areas of the country.

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24 ‘REPORT FROM THE GLENTIES POOR LAW UNION, CO. DONEGAL’, 1 JAMES H. TUKE, IRISH DISTRESS AND ITS REMEDIES. THE LAND QUESTION: A VISIT TO DONEGAL AND CONNAUGHT IN THE SPRING OF 1880 (LONDON: W. RIDGEWAY, 1880), pp. 9–24 25th (February). – The Relief Committee of Killybegs consisted of all the clergy in the town – rector, priest, and Presbyterian minister, and also tradesmen. They appeared thoroughly in earnest. Out of the 600 families in the parish, they had 450 cases on their books, say 2,000 people out of 3,100 at a weekly cost of £70 to £80. The greater part are holders of small portions of land, from 15s. to £3 or £4 rental, scattered over the wild mountain districts round Killybegs. Many formerly gained something of a livelihood by fishing, but the fish have nearly all left the Bay; where cod and ling abounded a few years ago they are now scarce; and mackerel have disappeared, so that the combined loss of fish and potatoes really leaves them destitute. Doubting the necessity for so many being relieved, we called the attention of the Committee to the very large number of families on their lists; but after many inquiries, and subsequent visits to families assisted, I cannot say that it is larger than is proper; at any rate, one-half of the population about Killybegs needs help. The fact is, the small farmers, paying from 15s. to £3, £4, or £5 rent, are permanently on the verge of want, and usually in debt for one year’s meal, though the rents are fairly paid. During the past three years the bad crops and the failure of potatoes have plundered them deeper and deeper into debt, so that many a man owes £30 or £40 or more to the shopkeepers.2 This year the shopkeepers, alarmed by the total failure of the potato, have declined to give more credit, leaving the majority of the small farmers without any resources. There is no employment for the people, and the extreme dampness of the climate and the want of proper drainage, prevent, in many cases, their being able to cultivate the land at present. I was very glad to hear that cultivation all round Killybegs was 227

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fully as forward as usual. This, I think, is in part owing to the wise resolution of the “Relief Committee,” “that no relief should be given to able-bodied men except for work done- on their own lands or elsewhere.” We were glad to hear that a new road was being surveyed in the neighbourhood, which would give some employment. In the meantime, it is absolutely necessary that they should be assisted, and it is unhesitatingly said that had it not been for the Duchess of Marlborough’s Fund, which gives assistance here, many would have died.3 It becomes a very serious question whether the assistance needed can continue until the new crop of potatoes is grown and fit for use. We called this morning upon Mr. Brooks, the Chairman of the Duchess of Marl­ borough Relief Committee for the large Union of Glenties. Mr. Brooks lives in a house beautifully situated at the head of one of the numerous inlets of the lovely Donegal Bay, and is the agent for several of the proprietors in the district. He mentioned one, property, with a rental of about £8,000 a-year, in which the rents did not average £5 each, and, in this parish, the rents of a portion of the same property did not average £3. Many of the rents due last November were not paid; but the landlords do not appear to evict any tenants. The value of the Tenant Right on these petty holdings is enormous, and it was curious to hear how completely Mr. Brooks recognized this right when speaking of the tenants “as selling their farms”—just as we should in England when speaking of the fee-simple.4 He told me that in ordinary times the tenants “sold their farms” (i.e., their tenant right to their farms) for about £30 to £100, according to their size and rental. And in the after part of the day, a man who pays £5 12s. 6d. a-year told me that he had given £125 for the tenant right upon the twenty-two acres he held! Another curious fact in connection with these little farmers on the West Coast, is their intimate connection with the United States. I was told that there was hardly a family in the district who had not more than one or more members in America, and that from thence the funds came for the purchase of the tenant right.5 From the general poverty of the times this value is just now very much reduced; men who had given £30 to £100 would not now be able to sell at all, or only for a small sum. The man who gave £125 for the tenant right told me he had earned the money in America in seven years, and that he could not obtain half this sum now for the tenant right. “But,” he added, with emotion, “this is my last year here; it’s no use, a man may as well lie down and die—we are beaten—everything is against us; there are no roads you see to the land – the bit of turf from the bog (about a cartload) takes me two days to carry upon my back; and I shall take my wife and family away to Ameriky again.” When I asked him why he had come back before, and bought the farm, he replied, with bitterness, “Nature binds a man to his own counthrey – but I can’t stand it any longer.” What true pathos and sentiment there is in these men! In the afternoon we walked with a guide into the mountain farms around, ordering the carriage to meet us on the road to Kilcar and Carrick, where we intended to stop for the night. The afternoon was wet and blustering, and the moorland farms looked pretty dreary enough; however, we pursued our way up one boggy path 228

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and down another, or over tracts of wild country, from one little district or townland to another, calling upon many tenants, whom our guide knew to be destitute, and who are on the Relief List. Here are a few specimens:(1.) John Kearney – has “two cows’ grasses,” pays £16. 8d, and county cess on the valuation at 2s. 9d. in the £. The poor rate is 2s. 6d., but the valuation being below £4 he does not pay any. He could have sold his tenant right “for threescore of pounds, but now it is now worth five.” He seemed to have no stock of any kind, except six or seven fowl, which gave him a few eggs worth 6d. a dozen, and the cat, which like the people, is invariably found crouching round the fire. He had two daughters, two fine grown-up girls, doing nothing whatever. He advised them to go into service, telling them what good situations they could obtain. (2.) Patrick Burns holds four cows’ grasses, pays £6 a-year, and owes 9s. 6d. county cess. “Has neither cow, nor calf, nor ewe, nor lamb, not baste that treads the earth;” “only ten fowl which left a few eggs.” He owes three years’ rent. His son had gone to America; he sent him the first 30s. he earned, leaving himself only two dollars. Then he sent £3, but he had not heard of him since November. “Its all truth, yer honour.” He had a loom and was sitting at it as we entered, but there was neither wool nor warp, he was only mechanically moving the frame backwards and forwards. Then he told us how, one after another, his family had died, and how he had got gradually lower and lower, and that had it not been for the meal given away he would have had nothing to eat. But, added the daughter, “we must not grumble,” It is touching to hear how patiently they bear their want. Another family, six or eight in number, cowering over the fire – very poor – “had neither cow, nor calf, nor lamb, nor ewe, nor aught that walks the earth.” “Only the cat,” I said, which causes them all to laugh; “Yes, we must keep that.” Other families, some with the father or other members of the family ill, were also visited. The willingness of these people to send their children to school was strikingly shown, when we offered to give them help in this way and a little clothing to allow of their going backwards and forwards. Their cases where the head of the family was ill or unable to work, as in that of a man who had lost his leg, would undoubtedly be relieved by the Poor Law in England, but the Poor Law here is inoperative as regards out-door relief. The guardians do not incline themselves to tax themselves, it seems. The children in these cottages are many of them very pretty; one of them, Catherine McBriarty was a singularly fine child, and most desirous to go to school. Though we saw no starvation, so common here in 1847, we could not feel sufficiently thankful that the aid given by the Funds had arrived in time to avert anything like the terrible suffering and death of that year. As we were leaving these mountain lands to return to the high road, a woman, apparently well-to-do, called us back to see her daughter, who was ill. She opened a little door, and in a miserable room half filled with potatoes (the only good ones we had seen), was a poor delicate-looking 229

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bedridden woman, paralysed whose husband had gone to America and “forgotten her,” as she said, and who was now with her two or three children, wholly dependent on her mother. The room was dark and wholly unfit for a human being, yet here the poor woman had to lie “from month’s end to month’s end,” dependent upon others. We gave in this, as in some other cases, a little help, which was most gratefully received; but in no case except this was there the slightest approach to begging. Always a simple pleasant welcome given us, some offering us their hand, others a seat, as we entered, and all treating us with the simple well-bred courtesy which is so marked a feature in the character of the true Irish peasant. It was growing dusk as we reached the high road, and whilst waiting at a “National School” our carriage passed us unnoticed, and, but for the kindness of a man whom we had been talking to, might have gone on for miles. As it were, we had a walk of half-a-mile before we overtook it, and were heartily glad of shelter, as the rain fell heavily. In passing through Kilcar we thought the people looked more destitute and emaciated than any we had seen, but as it was late we deferred our visit. A drive of ten miles through a very cold and miserable country brought us to our destination—Carrick Bridge. 26th – Carrick Bridge, Glencolumbkill [sic].6—After a very stormy night, the rain still falling made a walk rather difficult among the cottages in this neighbourhood and towards Tielin on the coast. The population in this district have been largely dependent upon fishing, and as this and the potatoes have both failed, their circumstances are deplorable. The district of Glencolumbkill is about ten miles square, and inhabited by a small farmer and cottier population, whose rents vary from 15s. to £2 or £3, or, in a few instances, amount to £5 or even £10 – the average of the whole parish, I was informed, not exceeding 35s. The cottages are even less suited for human habitation that those we visited yesterday in Killybegs. Four rough stone walls, often without any plaster, covered with thatch, 12ft. by 15ft. or 18ft., constitute the home of a family of five, of ten, or twelve persons. The floors are the stone of the rocky hill-side upon which the dwelling is built, and the smoke from the peat fire on the hearth, after filling the house, finds its final exit either by the door, or the hole in the roof which serves as a chimney. There is usually one small window; but as you stoop to enter the low door the blinding smoke for some time prevents you from seeing the inmates, who are usually cowering over the peat or ling embers. When you have become sufficiently accustomed to the dim interior light, you find, perhaps, in addition to the family, that a cow is lying in one corner, and that there may be a loom, at which some native cloth is made, or heaps of fishingnets—now useless, alas!—and gradually, as you further explore the recesses, you see the miserable heap of rags which constitutes the bed, on which, it may be, a hen is quietly laying her egg! Or perhaps you find some old crone, the grandmother of the family, worn and dirty, whom you hardly distinguish from the heap of rags on which she is lying. In a few we found the women busily engaged around the little window, embroidering handkerchiefs, or beautifully-worked fronts for babies’ frocks, for the Belfast market, at which work they earned the magnificent sum of 1d. per diem. Imagine such work at such a price, under such circumstances—smoke, 230

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dirt, semi-darkness, cows, hens, men, women, and children around them in a space of 12ft. by 15ft. or 18ft.—and who can say that Irish women will not work if work is given them? Large quantities of fish were caught here a few years ago, but the fish seem to have left the coast, and the large curing-house erected by a Belfast firm is closed. Hence destitution is so general that 600 out of the 800 families in the district are upon the Relief List, receiving per week in each family at the rate of half a stone of meal per head. This costs about £100 a-week, and it is thought will have to be continued at the same, if not at an increasing rate, for five or six months, until the potatoes are ready. When one contemplates the wide area over which this relief must extend, the prospect is indeed a serious one. In fact, whenever the cottier or small farmer, at a rent of £5 a-year or under, exists, there also exist destitution and want. The normal condition of this very large class in the West of Ireland is one which is at the best scarcely above want. In the afternoon in the village of Glencolumbkill, a wild drive of six or seven miles, rendered still more so by the rain, snow, and heavy squalls of wind. The views on the coast, with the huge waves of the Atlantic dashing up the sides of the rocky cliffs many hundred feet in height, were magnificent. A turn in the road brought us to the house of Dr. Thompson, the Protestant rector of Glencolumbkill,7 who is working most zealously for the people. On the road and around his house we saw a number of men very busily at work in spite of the rain. They received either 9d. a-day wages, or 6d. where the families received an allowance of meal. When they came up for their small pay we saw them receive it with the greatest thankfulness. Dr T. calculates that but for the relief given eighty per cent. of those around him would be wanting food. There is no wool left, so that the people cannot spin or prepare yarn for their coarse woollen fabrics. Hence, in part, that fearful want of clothing for the children and of bedding or blankets. The poor-rate here is 2s. 6d. in the £, and the county cess (collected from the smallest holdings) 3s. 9d. to 4s. in the £. Dr. Thompson doubts the advantage of the present small-farm system. In looking over the County Cess collector’s book, I noticed that whilst in one parish about one-sixth of the valuations were £4 or over, in others a much smaller number were as high. Hence the actual number of tenants paying the poor-rate is very small—probably only the chief landlord, the Protestant and Catholic clergymen, and a few of the larger farmers. Here is a list of annual valuations for the poor-rate taken from a page in the collector’s book: £ 2 1 0 1 2 1 1

s. d. 1 0 15 5 0 15 5

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

£

s. d.

£

s. d.

0 1 1 1 1 1 0

15 10 10 10 0 0 15

1 1 0 3 1 1 0

5 5 5 10 15 0 5

231

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

T he ‘ F orgotten F amine ’ of 1 8 7 9 – 8 1

On returning to Carrick Bridge we met in the hotel an inspector of the constabulary, who offered to give any information in his power. He thinks the relief is very well administered, and spoke of the great length of time he feared it would have to be continued, and the great strain it was upon the very few living in the district, and who are able to attend to it. He doubted whether it would be possible for these to continue their work for the six months it would probably be needed. Father Kelly, the Roman Catholic priest at Carrick, is working very hard, and gave us many instances of actual distress. He mentioned two crazy women, mother and daughter, who lived in the most fearful state of destitution. They thought everything was bewitched and had pulled off and burned the roof [of] the cabin, and gradually pulled down the walls to look for the witch. They were now left with only a heap of stones behind them, and with no covering over their heads. They had no fire except that kept up from fuel supplied by the neighbours. They had no bed, and were not able to lie down in the small space for them amongst the stones. In this condition they had lived more than a year. Some funds were supplied by a son in the police. Where are the Poor Law administrators? One asks in vain. Father Kelly said he believed many people would have died had it not been for the relief Funds. Mr. Musgrave, a Belfast merchant, who purchased and owns most of this property, and built the good hotel we are staying at, is giving some work, making roads, &c.8 27th. – Left early for Kilcar. Called on the Rev. Patrick Logue, whom we found overwhelmed with the amount of work and extent of distress.9 Kilcar we think is, as a whole, the most destitute parish we have seen. The faces of the people are more like the “Famine” faces than those in any other place; 500 families, out of 650 in the parish, are receiving relief, and others are begging to be put on, and will need to be, he fears. “Many are looking for it. They have no seed—some ate all their potatoes as they dug them. Average holdings are about one acre of arable, with some ‘cows’ grasses.’10 Many families lying on the bare stone floor, with hardly any bedding—he had bought some blankets himself—a grant of blankets would be very useful indeed; clothing for the children to enable them to go to school much needed. The fishermen had no boats and no tackle; little work was given (except the making of one road) and there was no harbour to protect the boats or fishermen.11 Much work might be done if means were forthcoming; at the best of times they cannot live on their present small holdings, and there is plenty of waste land which wants cultivating and which they ought to have, as the land is for the people.” He thinks this much better than going to America, though quite admitting the present holdings to be insufficient. Father Logue has no one in his parish except the Dispensary doctor to help him to consult with; the burden is terrible; scarlet fever is prevalent, two died in one house, and many are ill; some other fever cases. In the whole parish only two cases in which outdoor relief was given by the guardians. As an instance of poverty he mentioned seeing a poor woman bringing up salt water from the beach to boil her meal in so as to give it a salt flavour. We offered 100 blankets, which he said would be most valuable. 232

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From Kilcar we returned to Killybegs, and took the opportunity of calling at St. Catherine’s, upon the Protestant rector, who is a member of the Relief committees. He thinks there are too many cases on the list. He is not able to attend often, and our previous visit made us think the list a fair one. We arranged with his daughter that she should form a little Committee of ladies in connection with the Dublin Ladies’ Committee for knitting, and with Mr. Rogers to attend to the distribution of 100 blankets, to be sent from Dublin for the most inform and destitute. From Killybegs we drove to Ardara, over a better class of country. By the way we stopped at a National School; only five grown-up boys—a pupil-teacher’s class— were there. We heard them read out part of “Goldsmith’s Deserted Village.”12 One boy especially was very intelligent; and quite a politician. He had no doubt the farms would be better cultivated if the farmers owned the lands. At Ardara we met Mr. Brennan, secretary of the Relief Fund Committee, and with him the priest’s curate. They informed us that 450 families out of 1,100 were on the list; £45 to £50 needed weekly; local collection £70 to £80; no resident proprietor; 13 Mr. Murray Stewart, living in Scotland, the sole proprietor; nothing done by him to employ or help the people; four-fifths of the tenants under £4 annual rating; are likely to have about £600 expended on roads under presentment in two baronies; parish very wide, extending over twelve miles; two Protestant and two Roman Catholic clergymen working on committee; clothing for children much needed, also blankets. Called at the Protestant clergyman’s [house], Mr. Crawford, but he was from home. We saw his wife, who stated that clothing was much needed, and that she would be very glad of help in the way of wool and knitting. We promised 100 blankets. Then on to Glenties, a poor town with a poor inn. In 1846 Glenties was in a terrible plight – people dying by hundreds, and the poorhouse a pesthouse. Four hundred and fifty families out of about 1,200, are now receiving help. 28th – Met the Clerk of the Union at the workhouse. There are 162 inmates, of whom only two men and five women are able-bodied. Last year there were 145 inmates. The total number receiving out-door relief in the union is 124 persons, being an increase of 63 over last year. The population of the union of Glenties is (or was in 1871) 38,000, and the total valuation is £20,280. The number of holdings above one acre is 6,333, giving little more than £3 annual value per holding for the whole union; whilst the acreage value per holding under cultivation last year (1879) was – of oats and barley an acre and a –quarter, and of potatoes not an acre and a-half! This union extends from Killybegs to Dungloe, a wide area of not less than fifty miles by twenty, and is undoubtedly the poorest and most distressed union in Donegal. It includes Killybegs, Kilcar, Carrick, Glencolumbkill, Ardara, Glenties and Dunglow. The Clerk of the Union estimated that there could not be less than half the population, probably more, now receiving help in the union from the Relief Funds. This would give about 20,000 persons—say 4,000 families—who may require help until the potato crop is rope in August or September—that is, unless labour be given by the employment of the people in improving the land, and making roads, harbours, &c. This union has set a good example to 233

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others in Donegal by applying to the extent of about £6,000 for works of this kind. Under the recent Act the guardians have also purchased for distribution 300 tons of Scotch potatoes, at a cost of £3,125. No one is to have more than 4 cwt., costing £2, about enough for one rood of ground. The above quantity is, at this rate, sufficient for 1,500 tenants. As the Clerk said, “If the people have no seed potatoes and oats supplied, the prospect simply is awful: famine worse than in 1847 will then come.” In 1847, 36,000 persons were employed on the relief works, and nearly 2,000 were in the workhouse and in the other auxiliary. The workhouse was then in a horrible state, the people lying on the bare floor, with only one rug to six or seven persons, and the death-rate most fearful; many were even leaving the house, preferring to die outside rather than within its plague-stricken walls. And here again let me say, that it appears probable, and the opinion is confirmed by many with whom we have conversed, that had it not been for the timely relief given by the Duchess of Marlborough’s and other Funds, the people in these impoverished districts must ere this have been dying on all sides. All honour, then to those who, foreseeing the impending crisis, gave the warning cry in time. That which, next to the seed question impresses us most deeply is the fact that, unless some vigorous out-door relief system be adopted, the supplying of food by the Relief Committees must be continued for a long time. It is possible for private funds, or for volunteer associations, committees, individuals, whether in Dublin or in the distressed districts, who are now labouring night and day for the succour of the people, to continue for five or six months longer their self-denying labours. At Glenties we were informed by a clerk in the Bank that the amounts on deposit were less than usual, and that they did not appear to be doing much less business! He thought it quite possible that one or two, having small deposits, might be receiving relief. They regard such deposits as almost sacred, and will even borrow money for a short time rather than touch them. Of course such persons are abusing the charity, and on detection their relief would be stopped; but the difficulty of making a perfect selection is indeed great, when all alike are so very poor, and so intensely close about their money matters – “fearing to appear to be doing well lest their rents should be raised.” In this union of Glenties, the yearly valuation of which is only £20,280, there are more than 8,000 ratings,” or holdings, including those under one acre. Probably not 1,000 of these are at £4 each, or above the amount which constitutes a rate-payer. The poor-rate on all ratings below £4 is collected from the landlord. A thriving well-to-do man in the town spoke very strongly of the injustices of raising the rents upon those who had reclaimed land. He gave his own case as an instance. Some years ago he had taken a plot of bog; had drained, fenced, cultivated it, turning the wilderness into a tidy little farm. For this land he had been paying £2 a-year; but some little time after he had brought it into cultivation his rent was raised, and now, although the landlord had not expended a shilling on it, he was paying—as he said, almost with tears—nearly four times the original rent. We heard the present system complained of on all sides, both by the poor little tenant and the well-to-do. He thought “fixity of tenure” would make a very great 234

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difference.14 The little farmer “needed examples, teaching, encouragement, and to know that the rents would not be raised for improvements.” Around Glenties there is a large amount of stocking and glove knitting, and there is an extensive warehouse in the town, where the people obtain the yarn they knit, generally receiving at the rate of 1s. per dozen pairs. In some cases it may be more, in others less; as a woman said at Dunglow, where the same firm have a depot, she received 2s. 9d. for two dozen pairs. The woollen gloves, with coloured plaid backs, so much worn at present in England, are made here by thousands: 3s. per dozen pairs is paid. The reason for the low price is that the hand-made have to compete with the machine-made; yet low as is the pittance the women gladly earn it. As we drove in the dull wet evening to Gweedore, we saw women, five, six, or seven miles from that place, returning with their small earnings, and with fresh supplies of yarn for another week’s or fortnight’s work. At Dunglow, twenty miles from Glenties, where we stopped for the horses to bait, we saw crowds of women, none of whom looked to be in want, waiting at the depot for the supply of yarn. We were heartily glad when, at the close of a drive of nearly forty miles over this wild tract of land, the lights of the Gweedore Hotel came in sight. The little farms lying among the granite rocks look as if they had been pelted with enormous stones, the huge masses or boulders of granite being scattered over them in all directions. The labour exerted by the people in reclaiming their little patches must have been enormous. Could they have done more if they had been their own? Some were narrow stripes of land, a few yards in width, extending nearly a quarter of a mile, and carefully fenced with stones taken from the land. At Gweedore we had the pleasure of finding Howard Hodgkin, who had arrived a few hours before from England.15 I must not omit to mention that in a very wild, exposed position on the road, we met Major Gaskell, one of the inspectors of the Duchess of Marlborough’s Fund, who was returning from a visit to the Island of Arran.16 We took shelter in our carriage from the biting wind, and he had nearly an hour’s talk. His inquiries had extended over most of the ground we had seen, and we were pleased to find that his conclusions coincided with ours, save that we thought Killybegs, which we had carefully examined, needed more help that it received. We were glad to hear him say that he would make an addition grant. He is much impressed at the thought of the probable long continuance of the need for supplies, and the great want of bed clothing or blankets among the people. 29th was spent at Gweedore; busy with letters to Committee. H. T. M. met at Bunbeg the Rev. R. Carson, Secretary of the Relief Committee, and Mr. Mc­Keown, who is also a member of the Committee. In the evening we had a meeting with the indefatigable parish priest of the district of Gweedore, who resides at Bunbeg, about three miles distant. Like the other members of the Committee seen in the morning, he spoke in very strong terms of the cruel nature of the distress pervading his district. Out of about 1,000 families, 600 are now receiving food, and, before summer, 200 more will need help. The 235

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holdings are extremely small: hardly anyone is rated at £4. Rents very low. On one estate a list of seventy-six tenants was shown me, sixteen of whom paid 15s. a-year, forty-nine between 10s. and 15s., ten from 5s. to 9s. Many of these are “new cuts,” i.e., tenants recently settled, who hold quantities of bog-land varying from one to two, to ten to fifteen acres partially reclaimed. I was sorry to hear that the process of subdivision was going forward on Captain Hill’s and other estates.17 Some holdings are valued as low as 2s. 6d., making the amount collected for the county-rate 1½d., and many pay from 3d. to 6d. In addition to the failure of the potato crop, the men, who go en masse to Scotland for the harvest, had returned last year without any earnings, and some had even to borrow money both for going and returning.18 On the average, two men or boys from each family go in this way. In ordinary years, a sum of about £8,000, averaging £8 for each family, is the result of this movement. This pays both the rent and the debt at the store for the previous year’s supplies, which it is unfortunately, the custom to owe. In ordinary years the younger boys and girls also go to other parts of Ulster, “The Lagan,” (as it is called), on hire for the summer months, and the wages they bring back amounts to nearly £8,000. Last year both resources failed. Thus the parish alone, containing about 6,000 persons, was poorer by £16,000 than in ordinary years. The seed question is considered of the most importance, and if the seed be not supplied the consequences will be terrible. We met here the inspector of the constabulary, who spoke in the highest terms of the conduct of the people in his district. There is little or no crime, very little drunkenness, and great chastity among the women. Probably the Ulster tenant right has an influence in preventing agrarian outrages. He spoke of the multiform duties performed by the police, and of the education which the men needed to enable them to know and to carry out the law in relation to those duties. The population in this parish appears to be increasing, and owing to the demand, the holdings have in some cases unfortunately been subdivided. It may have been an exceptional case, but, as an instance of the extraordinary sum paid for the goodwill or tenant right, we had pointed out to us a plot of ground the rent of which was 7s. 6d. a-year, for the tenant – right of which £90 had been paid. Another plot, rented at 10s. had been sold for £80. The average price for tenant-right of the small holdings is from £30 to £40.

Notes 1 During the Great Famine, the Society of Friends played a major role in relief operations and, in February 1880, sent a representative, J.H. Tuke, to report on the crisis. Tuke spent six weeks in the west of Ireland visiting those areas which he visited on in 1847 and outlining the conditions that he was now witnessing. He documented his travels in a pamphlet, J.H. Tuke, Irish Distress and its Remedies. The Land Question: A Visit to Donegal and Connaught in the Spring of 1880 (London, 1880). 2 The level of debt to shopkeepers in the union was quite high. One shopkeeper in Burtonport, Co. Donegal was owed £10,000. See Moran, ‘From Great Famine to Forgotten Famine’, p. 122.

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3 The Duchess of Marlborough Relief Committee was established by the wife of the Irish Lord Lieutenant in December 1879. In addition to providing direct relief to the poor and destitute it also distributed seed potatoes to endure there was not a continuance of the crisis the following year. 4 Tenant Right was the process was where landlords allowed their tenants to sell the improvements they had carried out on their farms to the incoming tenant. This was known as the Ulster Custom in the province of Ulster, but was not available on all estates. 5 Money for emigrating to the United States from many parts of Ulster often came from the sale of the Tenant Right on a farm. 6 More usually Glencolumbkille or Gleanncholmcille. 7 Rev. David Thompson. 8 Messrs Musgrave of Drumglass House, Belfast owned 23, 673 acres in Co. Donegal, with a valuation of £2,012. 9 Rev. Patrick Logue (1834–1889) was Parish Priest of Kilcar up to the time of his death. 10 Cows’ Grasses was the amount of land needed to keep a cow. 11 During times of crises it was the practice of fishermen to pawn their boats and etc. in order to buy food. 12 Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) was an Irish writer whose other renowned works include The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), and She Stoops to Conquer (1771). The Deserted Village was published in 1770. 13 The Murray Stewart estate comprised 50,818 acres in Co. Donegal. 14 Fixity of tenure meant that the tenant would not be evicted as long as he paid the tent. 15 Howard Hodgkins was to play a major role in Tuke’s emigration operation in the 1880s and the Congested Districts Board in the 1890s. 16 More commonly known as Arranmore Island. 17 Lord George Hill was one of the largest landowners in Donegal with an estate of over 24,000 acres. He died in 1879. 18 Glenties Poor Law Union had one of the highest levels of seasonal migration to Britain, with the official number for 1882 being 623.

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25 BISHOP JAMES DONNELLY OF CLOGHER TO ARCHBISHOP EDWARD MCCABE OF DUBLIN 1 (DUBLIN DIOCESAN ARCHIVES, MCCABE PAPERS, RELIEF OF DISTRESS, 1879–80, 17 FEBRUARY 1880) My Lord Archbishop, I am grieved to assure your Grace that destitution has already reached, and for some weeks past has been spreading over the territory comprised within this diocese of Clogher; and because we are not among the first to feel it and to raise our cry for help, no one seems to think of us. The alms of the world are, for the most part, pouring into the districts which were earliest affected and the first to call for aid. Alas, My Lord, we have at this moment destitution bordering on absolute famine, more or less, in almost every parish of this diocese – want of food and fuel of clothing and what is frightful for the future prospect, want of seed for the crop now to be planted. The remnant of potatoes, in a large and increasing number of families, are already consumed, and their stock of grain, is either sold for rent and other debts or turned into meal and consumed. On many small farms, there is no seed or money to buy it, and credit of these people there is none. Such, I say, is the condition of a number of families in almost every parish, even in the parish of Monaghan where we find children coming to school without having broken their fast. In many cases, labourers cannot find work to earn, and many houses have of course no one able to work. To one fact alone I shall call your Grace’s attention as conclusively proving the reality of our destitution in this county, viz. the falling off in the number of school-attendance of the children, which in the last quarter had reached 30 per cent. when compared with the corresponding period of last year. This fact, which Your Grace, may find verified by official reports, surpasses anything to be found in Kerry, Galway, Mayo, Donegal or elsewhere. Everywhere we are now getting up collections and forming relief-committees; but what can we do unaided to cope with such widespread misery? I see that your Grace, and naturally, is made the channel through whom are sent many of the contributions from abroad, and I write these things that your Grace may be made 238

B ishop J ames D onnelly of C logher

aware of the distress which has reached and is fast spreading over the counties of Monaghan, Fermanagh and Tyrone. I trust you will be moved by this appeal to send us some share of the foreign charity funds daily coming into your hands. Whatever you may be pleased to forward to us will be distributed through our clergy and shall be sure to reach the victims of destitution. I remain, My Lord Archbishop, Your Grace’s Faithful Servant, + James Donnelly, Most Revd Edward McCabe, Archbishop of Dublin & Primate of Ireland.

Monaghan, 17th Feb. 1880.

Note 1 While the famine of 1879–81 was severest along the western seaboard, many other areas were also in great distress and want. Among those who provided detailed information on conditions in their areas were members of the hierarchy such as Bishop James Donnelly of Clogher. Donnelly (1823–1893) was born in Scotstown, Co. Monaghan and was bishop of Clogher from 1865 to 1893. The diocese of Clogher comprised 38 parishes covering county Monaghan and parts of counties Fermanagh and Tyrone.

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26 JAMES REDPATH, 1 TO ARCHBISHOP EDWARD MCCABE OF DUBLIN INQUIRING INTO THE STATE OF DESTITUTION AND FAMINE IN THE COUNTRY 2 (DUBLIN DIOCESAN ARCHIVES, MCCABE PAPERS, RELIEF OF DISTRESS PAPERS, 15 MARCH 1880) Dublin, March 15th, 1880. My Lord Bishop, I came to Ireland some weeks since as the special commissioner of “The New York Tribune” the most influential journal of America, to ascertain the extent of the existing distress in Ireland and the amount of assistance that would be needed to prevent the famine from culminating in the horrors that swept one-third of your people from earth or into exile in 1847. America has already so contributed quite liberally to aid the sufferers in this country, but when I left New York the impression was beginning to prevail that the distress had been greatly exaggerated or at least that the funds that had been secured from abroad would suffice to stay the suffering until the crops of next summer should be gathered. Yet if this belief be an error as I believe it is I know that America would not withhold whatever additional supplies may be needed. As I knew that I could not visit all the distressed districts I addressed a circular letter to all member of Parish Priests in different counties asking them to send me for publication in America a plain statement strengthened by statistics of the conditions of the localities of which they have personal knowledge. In response to this request I have received a number of very awful and sadly interesting letters and I have forwarded them to America. Having personally visited several districts of the West, my own reports I trust will help on the good work these letters are sure to accomplish. I shall be obliged to return to America at the end of this month and while I shall visit in the meantime as many districts as I can reach, yet it will be impossible for me to see as much of the country as I should like to see in order to give the people of America a full and trustworthy account of the districts. 240

J ames R edpath , to A rchbishop E dward M c C abe

I take the liberty therefore of addressing you now to ask you to write to me for publication in America a letter giving a general account of the distress in your diocese. The Parish Priests have written of their own parishes only. I had hoped to visit every parish from which I received no letter or with which I did not communicate, and in this way present a full statement of the distress in all Ireland, but as I cannot do so I appeal to you to do so. Your voice would be listened to in every state. Your account would be accepted as authoritative. And unbiased. Your plea would be promptly responded to throughout the length and width of America. I should not presume as a journalist merely to ask this favor – but as a representative for the time being however humble of a nation that has shown by its deeds that it sympathizes with the sorrows of Ireland. I do not hesitate to ask it because I desire it not from any personal motive, but to help to aid the distressed here. If the Reverend Bishops of Dioceses in which there is want would each write to me a letter for publication in America the effect would be to silence all doubts there and to keep open the purses of my countrymen. As the ecclesiastical divisions of Ireland are not well known in America I take the liberty of suggesting that if you write you might incorporate in your letter a statement of the territorial boundaries of your dioceses, its population, the number and names of the parishes in it, how great their need is, how long it may be expected to endure, what amount of money will be needed to supply the need, and through what hands the American contributions should be sent. If you will kindly comply with my request you will confer an additional favor by writing as soon as possible and addressing your letter to me to the care of “The United States Consulate” at Queenstown, Co Cork as that I may cable the substance of it to America at once and then forward without delay the unabridged letters by the earliest mail. I have the honour to remain, My Lord Bishops, Very truly yours, James Redpath. Special Commissioner N.Y. Tribune. To His Lordship, Most Reverend Dr McCabe, Archbishop of Dublin, Kingstown.

Notes 1 James Redpath (1833–1891), although English-born, was more associated with America, where he was a renowned journalist and abolitionist. 2 Redpath came to Ireland in February 1880 to report on the land agitation and the famine crisis for the New York Tribune. When he retuned to the United States he gave a number of lectures on the famine in Ireland. Redpath provided a first-hand report on the Boycotting activities in Co. Mayo and is accredited with giving the term ‘Boycott’. See N.D. Palmer, The Irish Land League Crisis. (rep. New York, 1978), p. 200.

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27 RESOLUTIONS OF THE CHARITABLE IRISH SOCIETY IN BOSTON 1 (MINUTES OF MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY, CHARITABLE IRISH SOCIETY PAPERS, 17 MARCH 1880) 1880 – March 17th, In accordance with the action of the Society at the meeting of February 20th, the following resolutions were proposed and unanimously adopted. Whereas, Ireland, the land of our fathers and of our love, is again prostrated with the dreadful scourge of starvation, the result of ages of British oppression and misgovernment; and, whereas, she is again engaged in the earnest and resolute struggle for the restitution of her land and her own parliament; Resolved, That the annual banquet of this old and time-honored Irish society on each recurring St. Patrick’s day be dispensed with for this year. Resolved, That the National Land League of Ireland, in its present struggle for more just and equitable laws relating to Irish land, and for a better government for the Irish people, has the full confidence, the hearty sympathy and the moral support of this society. Resolved, That this society hereby endorses the action of the previous meeting contributing the sum of one thousand dollars ($1,000) for the relief of the present famine in Ireland, said sum being sent to the National Land League of Ireland.2        “Signed”     Thomas Riley Patrick Donahoe3

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Notes 1 The Charitable Irish Society in Boston was founded in 1737, and among its aims was to alleviate suffering and aid those members who were deserving of its charity. 2 Most Irish communities in North America sent their donations for the relief of distress in Ireland to the Land League in Dublin. 3 Patrick Donahoe (1811–1901) was born in Cavan but his family had emigrated to America when he was 10 years’ old. He was a successful publisher and business man, his newspapers included the (Boston) Pilot.

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28 EVIDENCE OF REV. CANON TIMOTHY BROSNAN OF CAHERCIVEEN, CO. KERRY 1 (REPORT OF HER MAJESTY’S COMMISSIONERS OF INQUIRY INTO THE WORKING OF THE LANDLORD AND TENANT (IRELAND) ACT, 1870, AND THE ACTS AMENDING THE SAME, III, HC 1881 XIX (C – 2779 II), pp. 793–797) 25571. The O’Conor Don2 – Canon Brosnan you are the parish priest of Caherciveen, and you appear here to give evidence with regards to the cases of tenants in that district? – Yes; generally for the barony of Iveragh. 25572. Who are the principal landlords there? – Trinity College,3 the Marquess of Lansdowne,4 Sir Maurice O’Connell,5 Daniel O’Connell of Derrynane,6 and Mr. Hartopp.7 15573. These are the chief landlords in the district? – I might add the Hon. Mr. Wynne, for Glenbeigh. 25574. – Have you anything to say with regard to any one of those landlords with regard to the treatment of their tenants? – I regret to say that in my judgment the majority of them have imposed rents above the capacity or ability of the tenants to pay, and have insisted on the payment of those rents by harsh measures.8 25575. – Have you any complaint with regard to Trinity College, which is the first one you mentioned? How do the tenants hold  – do they hold direct or through a middleman? Direct. 25576. – Do they hold by leases? Hardly in any case. 25577. – Who is the agent for Trinity College? – Captain Needham. 25578. – Are the rents upon the College estates excessive? – In many cases quite excessive.9 244

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25579. – Have they been raised within late years? – I have not been there more than a year and a-half, but before that there was a revaluation, and in some instances their rents were reduced, and in many others raised. You can get that information better from the farmers who have come here. They will give you particulars. 25580. – Are there farmers from that district here today? – There are, from the country about. 25581. – Have you anything else to say with regard to the Trinity College estate – have you any instances to quote? – In what way? 25582. – Anything that you would like to bring before us? – First with regards to particular rentals: the people complained that we were not taking up their cause as the clergy had done in other parts of Ireland, and I gave them an opportunity to come and lay their complaints before us, and amongst others came a great number of Trinity College tenants, and I have some of their rentals here which I can submit to you if you choose. 25583. – I find that in some cases the rents on the Trinity College estate are more than double the valuation? – Yes. 25584. – And they were raised within the last ten years? – Well, I should say so, but you will get particular information with regard to that from some of the farmers who are here. I have to complain of mismanagement of the property by the college authorities, and if you like I can give you instances. The convent schools are chiefly attended by the children of the college property; and there was a memorial drawn up by the people, and signed by all classes, asking them, through me, to relieve the convent of rent, in respect of the place on which these schools were built. As you are aware, in the convent schools education is given gratuitously to the children attending; and it was considered, under the circumstances I have mentioned, that the college authorities might well relieve the schools of rent. But, I was refused, and I considered that was very illiberal, considering that their tenants are very poor, and require gratuitous education. 25585. – What was the rent of the schools. - £10 a year. I may mention also, that the town is in a very wretched condition, and the people being unable to pay much taxes, I endeavoured to make a little improvement in the way of street crossings in the town. There was a memorial addressed to the Board, also in reference to this matter. The expense would not be very much, but they refused. I have their answer here. I only mention that to show what I think to be the fact, namely: that they are not dealing very liberally with their property. Those crossings were small things, but the refusal to have them done showed a disinclination to improve the town. 25586. – Is the town belonging to the college? – Almost. 25587. – Is there any other thing you wish to mention? – I would rather in a general way refer to the mismanagement of the college. 245

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25588. – What other proof of mismanagement would you wish to put forward beyond their refusal to lay down the crossings? – Well, I think that a great deal could be done with the money that I am informed has been contributed by the college for the improvement of the estate, but of which I do not see any perceptible return. 25589. – You think the money has been badly laid out? – I think so. Their tenants are in a wretched condition; the town is in a miserable condition; and, I think there has been anything but a proper or a commensurate benefit conferred on them by the moneys the college authorities say have been laid out. I think a great deal more could have been done with much less money. That is my opinion, and I am very strongly of that opinion. 25590. – You think a public body like Trinity College is not the best sort of landlord? – I think they are anything but that from my experience of their government of Iveragh. 25591. – Now with regards to Lord Lansdowne’s estate have you any observations to make? The rents are excessive, and I went to Lord Lansdowne, to his seat at Dereen, near Kenmare, at the tenants’ request, and I had a long interview with his lordship, which he graciously conceded to me, and also with Mr. Trench,10 his agent, on the general management of his Iveragh property, and more especially Caherciveen, with which I was acquainted. I begged of him to reduce the rents to at least one and a half the Government valuation, and at that figure I would try to get my own people to pay their rents, provided they would not be raised in the future. I think they average about seventy-five per cent. over the Griffith’s valuation, and I requested a reduction, therefore, of twenty-five per cent. His lordship did not choose to make that reduction. I requested that he would lay out money at his own expense in useful improvements in making farm roads absolutely necessary for the tenants, paying high and excessive rents, or drainage, or some other useful work, by which there would be something like consideration for the excess of twenty-five per cent. over the figure I stated. 25592. CHAIRMAN. When did you go on this deputation? Last August twelve months, my lord, when I saw famine and ruin were impending in the locality. I thought Lord Lansdowne would be the first to take that into consideration, and I went into various particulars with his lordship during the interview, and the only promise I got was that if the potatoes—which in my mind were then a lost crop if they were a lost crop that he would so something. As soon as I saw that the potatoes were lost, I wrote to his lordship, reminding him of his promise, and he wrote me a long letter in reply, in which he stated his intentions with regard to the Land Improvement Act—that is, that he would pay the interest of the loans that he would borrow for the improvement of the estates for three years. I don’t know if it is proper for me to go into other matters, but I know the tenants would have to pay five per cent. for the money thus obtained; and I asked was he to allow that to terminate at the expiration of the payment of the 246

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money borrowed, and he said no, that it would be permanent. I considered that a grievance, more especially from such a nobleman as Lord Lansdowne. 25593. Did he spend much in doing what you requested? – making roads and so forth? – Nothing. Formerly I heard that he offered to pay half if the county paid the rent, but the county there is too poor, and I could not undertake to make or encourage an application of the kind considering the very impoverished state of Iveragh, and the wretched condition of the tenants. There were large charities that had been entrusted to my personal and individual distribution, and I effected through them a great deal of improvements in the way of roads for the purpose of keeping the people alive. 25594. Did Lord Lansdowne lay out any money on the estate? – No; but in consideration of the payment by him of the interest for three years, the tenants took some of the money he borrowed, but up to that they refused entirely, believing that they could not possibly undertake the additional burden which would be imposed upon them thereby in the way of rent. 25595. When he made this announcement that he would allow them three years without any interest, was there much money spent? – There was a considerable share, but the people would have perished without it. There were expended in the district at that time large sums of money. I have returns here that would astonish you, and yet the people were barely kept alive during that period. 25596. Were the tenants on the Lansdowne estate badly off?—two-thirds of the people would have perished but for the timely relief he gave them in the drainage works, but they considered it a great hardship that they should be compelled to pay five per cent. for that, as it was expended in the improvement of the estate, and worse again that they should pay it forever. I believe that his Lordship got some of the money under the late Distress Act at a much less interest;11 but the tenants have got no promise, nor do they think there is any intention of giving them the benefit of that Act. 25597. Do you think the money laid out in that way will improve the lands more than five per cent., or up to five per cent.? – Well, that is a general question affecting all Ireland. 25598. What is your opinion? – Well, perhaps so. 25599. How was it laid out? – Chiefly on drainage and fences. I am very unwilling to say anything on this question, for I don’t like to speak of all Ireland. 25600. I only ask you whether you think the money as laid out will repay the whole of the interest? – I hesitate to say so, and I say it is wrong of Lord Lansdowne to impose it. 25601. Mr. SHAW.12 – You think he ought not to impose more than he pays? I am quite sure he ought not, and he should be ashamed to do so. 247

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25602. The O’CONOR DON. – Is there any other point that you would like to bring before us? – I would like to say something about the unmerciful harshness of the recovery or rent that has sometimes been employed in my district. 25603. – Could you give us any instances of that? – Requiring £2 10s. cost of Dublin ejectments, which could be done very well at home. I mean at the Sessions instead of in the Superior Courts. 25604. – Baron DOWSE.13 – You mean ejectments and actions for the recovery of rent? – Yes; and every shilling of those costs insisted upon. And in some cases they were increased to £3 and £4. I consider that oppression. I regret to have to use the word, but I look upon it as nothing else but oppression, as I knew people who had to pay those costs were famishing. 25605. – Mr. Shaw. – Were there ejectments brought against the people in those bad times? – Numbers, and up to this date. 25606. – The O’CONOR DON. – And brought into the Superior Courts? – Not I think recently as regards Lord Lansdowne. I protested rather strongly, and I must say to his lordship’s face, that if I had any more cases of oppression on his property, I would denounce him at Caherciveen. I am sorry to say I had to speak strongly at a public meeting in Caherciveen yesterday, but I could have said twenty times worse. 25607. Do you know any cases within the last year which were sent to the Superior Courts? – I am not aware, but there is a tenant here, and I would be glad you inquired into his case. I think this is a most important point. One would suppose that they should be the first to set a good example in that poor country, but I am sorry to say they have not done so. There are other bad landlords also, but I don’t like to name them, especially in this matter of law costs. 25608. I suppose you are aware that the solicitor always charges £2 10s. costs when the decree is entered? – I have no doubt of that. 25609. And you think that would be very excessive? Of course I do. Latterly, in consequence of the representations I made, home proceedings are resorted to on the Lansdowne estate. 25610. And what is the cost in those cases? – 30s., I think, as regards Lord Lansdowne. 25611. Ten shillings when the process is served?—I think it is if they pay the rent in ten days after the service. Those law costs frighten the poor people entirely, and they refused to come here to give evidence. 25612. Baron DEASE. – What you mean to say is that if the proceedings took place in an inferior court, the cost would be only a few shillings, whereas if they took place in the superior courts the cost would be more than £1 at all events. – Oh, more than that, sir. I have plenty of particulars here. 248

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25613. CHAIRMAN. – However small the holding is, you say the costs are £2 10s.?—That would be the sum if the writ was served in Dublin, but in the case of a local service they pay £1 1s. and £1 5s., and this in some instances where only a few acres of miserable land are held by the tenant. You would be horrified to hear described the condition of their houses and means of living, and yet they have to pay £1 1s. and £1 5s. costs in cases where the rent was not double that amount, and where the grass was actually poisonous along the sea coast. Any beasts that are reared there will not live, and the poor people have to import animals from outside; yet what I have told you is the case which I myself can testify. 25614. Well, is there any particular case you would like to bring before us of harsh treatment? – Oh, yes, I could give you plenty. What I said last was not of Lord Lansdowne, but another landlord. Of course I am entirely in your hands, and I will mention the names if you like. With regards to Lord Lansdowne I must say that there has been a good deal of harshness on his property; but when I told his Lordship that I would denounce him publicly for it, then there were no more cases of Dublin ejectment. 25615. Is there any other landlord you wish to speak of ? – I was referring to one a while ago. 25616. Would you mention the name? – Certainly; Edward Morragh Bernard, who lives at Sheheree, near Killarney.14 He has acted most unmercifully in cases. I don’t, as a priest, like to have anything denunciatory from me, even in a blue book.15 25617. It is denunciatory to state the facts that happened? – I have only quoted farms in which the condition of things was wretched. These people came to me to complain of the way they are treated, and here are their rents: Daniel Brennan, £2 12s. valuation – now I am quite sure that these returns are accurate; though I don’t vouch for them myself, I am quite sure the people would not tell an untruth, from my knowledge of them. There is Daniel Brennan, valuation £2 12s., rent £6; John Sullivan, valuation £1 15s., rent £4; Joseph Mannix, valuation £2 5s., rent £6; Michael Sullivan, valuation £4 5s., rent £12; John Maunsell, valuation £4, rent £9 10s., James Moriarty, valuation £3 5s., rent £7. 25618. Would that be a sample of the general rate at which lands are let in that part of the country? – Well, I think so. 25619. That is as a general rule that the rents are largely in excess of the Government valuation? Oh, yes. They average all over the barony, notwithstanding that some are let very reasonably, seventy-five per cent. over the Government valuation, and in a number of cases they are double and treble, and even four times the valuation. 25620. They are uncertain. In some cases they vary? – Yes, sir; but I put that as an average, taking in Mr. Hartopp’s property, whose tenants are most comfortable 249

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and happy. Well, now, there is the case of John Sullivan, who was processed for a gale’s rent, £2, and he was obliged to pay £1 1s. costs. Joseph Mannix, processed for £3, paid costs £1 4s., and in general the costs were £1 5s. where the gale rents were hardly double that sum. 25621. The O’CONOR DON. – Were these cases tried, or did the tenants pay before the trial? I suppose they all paid before the trial, because if they did not I suppose they would be put to more cost. 25622. Before you pass from the question of those rents, do you know when they were last charged? – I don’t precisely know the time. In this case they were not raised in that particular place by Mr. Bernard, but anybody knows that they are impossible rents. This place was purchased by a Catholic priest, I am sorry to say, but he was degraded and he ceased to officiate in the Church. 25623. Was it he who raised the rents after purchasing those lands? – Yes, it was, and they were kept up to this monstrous point by Mr. Bernard, and not only that, but insisted on by harsh measures. 25624. Baron DOWSE. – We heard a great deal about freedom of contract, and I would like to know why do those people agree to pay those rents? – Are they able to act freely in the matter at all? – No, sir. They have no alternative, for they would rather throw themselves in the sea than enter the workhouse. 25625. Is not freedom of contract, with reference to tenants of that kind, an absurdity to talk about? – Perfectly absurd. What could those creatures do? They were utterly naked, and it was I enabled them to pay the rents for them the last twelve months. 25626. Mr. SHAW. – By feeding them? – Yes, out of the charity funds. I have a return here of £3,600 that I distributed in the parish alone; besides another committee that expended £2,500. 25627. The O’CONOR DON. – And you think a good deal of that money went to pay the rent indirectly? – The rents would not have been paid but for the charity given to the people. They could not be paid. 25628. Baron Dowse. – Does this apply to Lord Lansdowne’s estate? – Of course the drainage money enabled his tenants to do something. 25629. But is he one of the landlords who got his rent in this way? – Well, I could not say that, except in some cases, because the tenants availed of the grants that were so timely obtained by Lord Lansdowne. The promise of the three years’ interest enabled them to do so. 25630. Mr. SHAW. – The rents were collected all through your district in the bad times? – Not by all. They could not, where we had to keep the people alive. I say that, considering the conduct of some of the landlords—especially Mr. Morrogh Bernard,16 and others who were hard enough, that the tenants 250

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never could have paid the rents only for the charity they got. This especially applies to Mr. Morrogh Bernard’s tenants, who would nearly all have perished but for it, and well he insisted the rents. 25631. CHAIRMAN. – You say that by Lord Lansdowne taking those loans the tenants were enabled to pay the rent. Did he employ the tenants on their own farms to work on the improvements effected? – They effected the improvements themselves, and he gave them the money. The money was laid out under the Board of Works. The tenants executed the improvements, and got the money. 25632. And the complaint is that he put the full interest of five per cent. upon the tenants? – Oh, yes, and that forever. 25633. Baron DOWSE. – But didn’t some of Lord Lansdowne’s tenants pay the rent by the relief they got? – The relief paid the rent indirectly. 25634. It is well to know that the people who subscribed to those funds paid Lord Lansdowne’s rent. Is not that the case? Certainly; about one-third of them got relief, and that enabled them to do so. 25635. I think if that is known, it will dry up the springs of charity considerably for the future? – In one parish of seven thousand inhabitants £7,000 was distributed, for food, seeds, &c. 25636. Did you ever get any grants from the Duchess of Marlborough’s Fund? – I did, thanks to her Grace. 25637. The O’CONOR DON. – You mention a case here in Mr. Morrogh Bernard’s estate, and perhaps you would like to say something about it? – That was the case where a poor man had not any cattle or substance whatever, and yet clung to the soil, having no other place to go. That poor man, in a way incomprehensible to myself, though I know a good deal about the people and their private dealings, managed to get all the rent that was demanded of them. But it was refused without enormous costs, and he was ejected. 25638. The O’CONOR DON. – And finally put out? – Put out with six or seven children all naked. It was a most horrible spectacle. I am sure if that man’s case alone went before the empire it would be sufficient to have a special land clause enacted for Iveragh and for other parts of Ireland like it. 25639. This was on Mr. Morrogh Bernard’s estate? – Yes. 25640. Who is the agent? – He has no agent. 25641. Where does he live? – At Sheheree near Killarney. There is a sort of driver on the property and I wish to say nothing of him, because he is an unfortunate creature. I only say that his class ruins the country, and perhaps the landlords would not be half as bad but for them. 251

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25642. CHAIRMAN. – Do you think if the tenants had been given reasonable time in the bad seasons that they would have done their best afterwards to pay the rent what was due by them? – I think the people are strictly honest and just, but when they were so impoverished and miserable in that part of the country, it was of course monstrous for the landlords to expect them to pay. I am sure they would make every effort, if they were taken kindly and considerately by the landlords, to pay the rent. 25643. Is there any other case you wish to mention? – In the way of complaint? CHAIRMAN. – Yes. 25644. Baron DOWSE. – If you can tell anything good about the landlords you may as well tell it also? – Certainly with the greatest pleasure. Mr. Blennerhassett sent me £10 towards the relief fund, but I did not get a shilling from any other landlord.17 25645. – Baron DOWSE. – Yes. He sent me £10, and I got nothing from the other landlords of the district, although £7,000 in every way came to the parish. 25646. Is he a landlord in the barony?- He is, and I may remark that there are some grievances complained of by his tenants, but when I spoke to him about it he said he would leave it all to my arrangements, so that I am happy to have to say that. I must also say that Mr. O’Connell of Derrynane is most kind and indulgent. Lord Lansdowne made no reductions. Some of the O’Connells have given reductions. 25647. Did Lord Lansdowne make any abatements in his rents? No. 25648. Are the rents high or lower than the average rents of the barony? – They are up to the average and a great many of them over the average. 25649. In excess of the rents of landlords who did make the reductions? – Yes, considerably in excess. 25650. CHAIRMAN. – In previous years has Lord Lansdowne laid out much money upon the property in improvements? – No. He offered to do improvements under the Board of Works, but the tenants would not undertake them immediately. They refused to accept the offer, and I was trying to induce them to consider it, but they said the rents were too high already and that they could not pay them. 25651. Was that after the last bad times begun? – At the beginning of the bad times. When I went to Kenmare he complained that his offer was not accepted, and I complained that the rents were already too high, and that the people could not pay them. In fact it was only fear of starvation that made them accept the loans the last time. 25652. So far as you know there has not been a large outlay on his property on improvements for the last twenty years? – No. I don’t think there has been 252

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anything at all except in reference to the building of houses, and I am happy to say that in some cases, especially in his predecessor’s time, there was some assistance given in the building of houses. His father did some kind things, but I may say, as was said elsewhere, that while some are scourged with rods others are scourged with scorpions. 25653. Now is there any other point you would wish to bring before us? – With regards to complaints, I could give you many more, but perhaps you have sufficient, and I would be glad now to make some suggestions for the amendment of the present law. I sent you a form, but I would like to alter the suggestions in it a little. 25654. What changes in the law would you recommend, for I think that will embrace the pith of your answers? – With all respect I think that as far as it could be done fairly by all parties concerned, peasant proprietors should be encouraged. 25655. – In what way would you propose to encourage them, would you make the sale of the landlord’s interest compulsory in every case? – No, not at all, unless a very bad case could not be brought to their senses otherwise. 25656. Then in what way would you encourage the creation of peasant proprietors? – By voluntary contract regulated upon honest principles. Of course the legislation should give such terms as the landlords, and tenants would accept. 25657. You would wish that the inducements should be held out to the landlords to sell and facilities given to the tenants to purchase? – Yes. 25658. And you believe that if such a thing were done that a great many landlords would voluntarily sell without any compulsion? – Well I must say from the spirit that is abroad in Iveragh, the most peaceable and oppressed part of Ireland, that unless something very substantial, comprehensive and remedial be done, that many of them would be very glad to get something for their properties. With regard to peasant proprietors, I think the Government would advance liberally to enable tenants to purchase. But at the same time I think there are other works that the Government may be called upon to undertake sooner. I don’t think that peasant proprietary would be a feasible undertaking on any large scale. I think that unless the Government advanced the whole of the money, and gave them time to pay it for a long term of years, so that they would not have to pay much yearly, that the people would be incapable of undertaking a system of peasant proprietary. I mean in Iveagh, to whom I address myself chiefly. 25659. You think that the majority of the people in that barony would be unable to furnish any considerable portion of the purchase-money? I do. I put this question, and was told that not six of them in the parish would be able to advance one-fifth of the money. The poor people are simply living. 253

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25660. Putting aside peasant proprietary, is there any other alteration you would suggest? – The reclamation of waste land by the Government, where possible. 25661. Is there much waste land that could be taken up and reclaimed on a large scale in that district? – Thousands of acres in Iveragh without any extravagant expense. 25662. Is it mountain land? – I don’t speak of deep bog at all, but what could be done at a reasonable cost; say mountain land, and say low marshy land, where drainage would be able to do a great deal of the work. I don’t include deep bogs which the people may yet want for fuel. 25663. Is not the greater part of that land in the occupation of the tenants? – Yes. 25664. And would they be willing to give it up? – With the reservation that a reasonable portion should be left them for dry cattle, and other necessary purposes; but there are thousands of acres outside that. 25665. How much would you leave to the tenants in proportion to the size of their holdings? – You must have some officers to determine that; but I would allow as much land in pasture, where it at present exists, as would be able to feed the dry stock that can be produced by the tenants on their present holdings, but that would not be a great deal. 25666. You think that outside that there are thousands of acres that might be taken and reclaimed? – Certainly. 25667. And on which reclamation works could be carried on a large scale profitably? – Profitably; and by which the Government would lose nothing. I think it is there the liberality of the Government might be exercised most usefully, whilst other things might be adjusted in other ways. No money the Government could lay out would be more usefully employed than in the reclamation of waste lands. 25668. Do you mean that they should take the land into their own hands, or make advances on moderate terms to landlords and tenants? – Well; I think that unless you could get the people to take up the lands and do it themselves, that the Government ought to do it; and where the holdings are too small, they could be increased in that way. 25669. Baron DOWSE. – What do you think about the three Fs as a remedy?18 – I think that it is the most noble basis to go on with without revolution or interfering with the rights of any body—either landlord or tenant. 25670. Do you think it would satisfy the people? – I think, although there is a bad spirit abroad, that the good sense and religious character of our people would be satisfied with fair play. 25671. The O’CONOR DON. – And do you think that would be fair play? – I think so, if carried out satisfactorily. 254

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25672. Baron DOWSE. – For instance, if the landlord and tenant could agree about the rent, well and good, if they would not agree let them arbitrate, and if they didn’t arbitrate would you have any objection to a competent Government arbitrator fixing the rent? – I will give you the idea I suggest. In this paper I am asked – Do you suggest any alteration or amendment in the existing law, regulating the relations between landlord and tenant? – Yes, a special Land Court, composed of competent Judges, with expert agriculturalists for assessors, vested with full power to deal with all grievances, of course I mean connected with land, and under a cheap legal machinery. Then of course there should be a code of rules laid down by the Government with regard to the three Fs, and the execution of the decrees of the court, leaving our legal friends to care of the civil and other laws. 15673. Baron Dowse. – Themselves included? – Everybody. I am happy to say that at my table, at Caherciveen, Professor Baldwin,19 came out fully in the terms of this answer I have now given, without my having expressed anything about it to him previously, and that confirmed me very much in my idea. Then I would say that those Judges, or course, would make a circuit of the country the same as other Judges, and that the assessors would take evidence on the spot where the complaint or grievance might exist, that the execution of decrees would be suspended for any amount over a fair rent, which would be the present Government Valuation, so as to act as a sort of as ad interim protection, for the tenant: and then, when the will of the legislature is known by the Land Act, as to the amount of rent, security of tenure, and everything connected with the due administration of that Land Act – when they would be known that all concerned, both landlords and tenants seeing the authority over them to deal summarily with their disputes, would agree among themselves, and if they did not, that this Court would make them do it, and that nothing should stand in the way of the action of this court, neither leases or anything else. I am sure the landlords would then take care of themselves. I, for one, would be very sorry to see the landlords out of the country. If I was building a church tomorrow I think I would have recourse to them with great benefit; and I have no church worth speaking about in Caherciveen, nor anything else; and that I am alive myself is a wonder. If the bad landlords cannot be made good, get rid of them; but where good, let them remain. 25674. The O’Conor Don. – Do you think that such landlords as the Trinity College ought to be expropriated? – I do, and I could tomorrow I would expropriate them. 25675. Baron DOWSE. – They come under the head of Corporations? Oh, certainly. 25676. CHAIRMAN. – I think you said some of your people are here to give evidence? There are four or five of them present. 255

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Notes 1 When the potato crop failed the clergy appealed to local landowners to provide their tenants with rent reductions. Many landlords refused to provide any assistance because of the Land League agitation. 2 The O’ Conor Don was a landowner in Co. Roscommon with an estate of 10,400 acres. He was a Home Rule MP for the county between 1874 and 1880. 3 The Trinity College Estate in Co. Kerry was 10,300 acres. See W.J. Lowe, ‘Landlord and tenant on the estate of Trinity College, Dublin’, in Hermathena, 120 (1976), pp. 45–53. 4 The Marquis of Lansdowne estate in the county was 94,983 acres. For an account of the management of the estate see, Gerard J. Lyne, The Lansdowne Estate in Kerry under W.S. Trench, 1849–72 (Dublin, 2001). 5 Rev. Maurice O’Connell had a 383 acre property in the county. 6 Daniel O’Connell’s estate was 17,394 acres. 7 Edward Hartopp’s estate covered 24,222 acres in Co. Kerry. 8 For an overview of the situation in Kerry at this period see, Donnacha Sean Lucey, Land, Popular Politics and Agrarian Violence in Ireland: The Case of County Kerry, 1871–86 (Dublin, 2011), pp. 69–84. 9 See Lowe, ‘Trinity Estate’. 10 William Steuart Trench (1808–72) became agent of the Lansdowne estate in 1849 and retained the position up to his death. He held similar positions for the Marquis of Bath in Co. Monaghan and Lord Digby in King’s Co. In 1868, his Realities of Irish Life (London, 1868) was published. 11 The Distress Act was passed in March 1880 and gave Poor Law Guardians permission to grant relief to people holding land. They made relatively little use of it. 12 William Shaw (1823–95) was elected MP for Bandon in 1874 and for Cork County in 1880. In 1879, he was elected chairman of the Home Rule Party in succession to Isaac Butt. 13 Richard Dowse (1824–1890) in 1868 was elected MP for Derry City and served as Attorney General and Solicitor General for Ireland in the Gladstone administration. In 1872, he was appointed a Baron. 14 Bernard had an estate of 7,136 acres in Co. Kerry. 15 The British Parliamentary Papers were popularly referred to as ‘blue books’, because they were bound in blue cloth or paper. 16 The Morrogh Bernard estate in Kerry extended to over 7,000 acres in the 1870s. It was owned by Edward Joseph Morrogh Bernard (1843–1903). 17 Not clear which Mr Blennerhassett is being referred to. Maybe Rowland Blennderhassett of Caherciveen who had an estate of 6,234 acres. 18 The three Fs were Free Sale, Fixity of Tenure and Fair Rent. These were the main aims of the Land League in the early stages of the agitation. 19 Professor Thomas Baldwin was Assistant Commissioner to the Richmond Commission and chief inspector of the agricultural schools and model farms in Ireland. See Paul Bew, Land and the National Question in Ireland, 1858–82 (Dublin, 1978), p. 17.

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29 BISHOP JOHN MCDONALD OF ABERDEEN TO ARCHBISHOP EDWARD MCCABE OF DUBLIN (DUBLIN DIOCESAN ARCHIVE, MCCABE PAPERS, RELIEF OF DISTRESS PAPERS, 26 FEBRUARY 1880) Bishop’s House, Queens Road, Aberdeen, 26 Febr. 1880. My dear Lord, The enclosed draft for £188-6-2 is the result of a collection which a short time ago I directed to be made over this diocese in aid of the prevailing distress in Ireland. My appeal was promptly attended to, and if the amount collected be not in itself large, Your Grace is probably aware, that in this territorially wide diocese of Aberdeen, our Catholics are numerically few (not exceeding 12,000 souls) and as a rule poor. Considering these circumstances, and also that the last harvest was by no means an abundant one, but almost a total failure in certain districts, lying within the limits of this northern diocese, the result indeed exceeded my expectation. I need no apology for asking your Grace to be the dispenser of this charity, nor will you, I feel sure, deem it a trouble to send the whole or parts thereof to the district or districts in Ireland, which your Grace must know far better than I to be at present most in need of assistance. I shall only add that one or two applications have been directly made to me from Ireland. The first was made to me through a Committee of which Bishop MacCormack was a member.1 The second by the Convent of Mercy, Oranmore.2 Should your Grace not forget either the Bishop or the Convent in the distribution, I should be

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well pleased, but if not, I am quite willing that your Grace dispose of the little whole as you many judge best. Please accept the assurance of my most respectful regard and esteem, and believe me, My dear Lord Your Grace’s faithful servant, + John McDonald,3 Bishop of Aberdeen. The Most Revd The Archbishop of Dublin.

Notes 1 Bishop Francis McCormack of Achonry. 2 Oranmore, Co. Galway. 3 John McDonald (1818–89) was Bishop of Aberdeen between 1879–1889.

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30 ‘SECOND REPORT OF MR. J. A. FOX,’ IN J. A. FOX, REPORTS ON THE CONDITION OF THE PEASANTRY OF THE COUNTY OF MAYO DURING THE FAMINE CRISIS OF 1880 (DUBLIN: BROWNE AND NOLAN, 1880), pp. 24–38 SECOND REPORT of Mr. J. A. Fox,1 On the Results of his Recent Inspection of Certain Districts in Mayo, submitted at the usual Meeting of the Committee held on the 22nd of July, 1880. I HAVE the honour to report that, in obedience to a further resolution of the Mansion House Committee, at their meeting of the 3rd inst, I lately proceeded to Mayo a second time, selecting a different part of the county, for the purpose of inquiry and inspection, from that which occupied my attention of my former visit.2 At Ballyhaunis I had the advantage of meeting the Catholic Bishop of Achonry, Dr. McCormack,3 to whose splendid gifts of seed I referred in my previous report, and also Mr. Henry Brett, formerly and for many years County Surveyor of Mayo, and still holding the same important office in Wicklow county. The Bishop, like every person of position whom I have yet met, expressed it as his firm conviction that, were if not for the merciful operations of the Relief Committees, many thousands of persons must have died of starvation in North Mayo alone during the past six months; and also that, perhaps, even now, we may not beyond the contingency of a great calamity, arising out of the various causes, such as the still possible failure of the potato crop, the general indebtedness of the small farmers to the landlords and the shopkeepers, even if the crop would prove to be a bountiful one, and the absence of useful or remunerative employment for the people during the winter months, to enable them to tide over their difficulties next year.4 Mr. Brett is of the opinion now, as in 1847, that public employment would take the form of the reclamation of waste lands, together with the encouragement of a better system of husbandry amongst the small farmers; and I understand it to be his intention to report to this effect to the Government, by whom he is employed on special service in Mayo at the present time. His facts and figures are of enormous 259

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importance just now, even since a Land Bill, fashioned upon the lines of the most pronounced reformers, could not bring any immediate accession of prosperity to a population wanting “elbow room,” so to speak, and suffering from chronic starvation in consequent of such want. Speaking of the waste lands, he observed, that there are at least four baronies in the West which might afford scope for an early experiment in reclamation, not only without pecuniary loss, but with infinite gain, to the State, viz.: Average value Per Acre. s. d. . . . 232,888 acres . . . . . . . . 1 1 Erris (Mayo) Boyagh (Donegal) . . . 158,517 ″ . . . . . . . . . . . 1 3 Ballynahinch (Galway) . . . 194,584 ″ . . . . . . . . . . . 1 4 Ross (Galway) . . . 98,000 ″ . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 5 Mr. Brett, whose land connection with Public Works in Ireland lends the weight of practical experience to his opinions, is clearly convinced that the whole of this enormous acreage, which includes neither deep bog nor mountain top, is capable of complete reclamation. And, moreover, he can point out, he says, “numerous instances in the Counties of Mayo and Sligo, as well as in Wicklow and Waterford, where the produce of the lands in two years defrayed the entire cost of the outlay.” As an elaborate proposal of the same character was submitted to Parliament by Lord John Russell when Premier in 1847 – (vide Hansard 25th January in that year) – and was only defeated through the selfishness of Sir Robert Peel, a similar scheme, having for its primary object the introduction of the “idle hands” upon the “idle lands,” can scarcely be deemed a thing beyond the domain of practical politics in 1880, more especially since it involves neither “confiscation” nor “spoliation.” There has been devastation and privation in the neighbourhoods of Ballyhaunis, Knock, and Claremorris, as elsewhere, but the squalor and misery are not so widespread as in the Swineford district. At Claremorris I visited the Workhouse, accompanied by the Medical Officer, who showed me over the entire place, including the Fever Hospital, in which I was glad to find no more than two patients, one of whom was convalescent, and both technically described as of “simple continued fever.” The Workhouse is well kept, and as the Guardians have supplied lime for white-washing purposes gratis throughout the Union, where required, it may be that this freedom from fever is due to such sanitary precautions. The Union is supplied with an ambulance, old-fashioned, but not uncomfortable, and the employment of nurses to attend the destitute fever patients in their own houses, where they are incapable of the fatigue of removal to the hospital, has been formally authorized when necessary. The Clerk of the Union favoured me with some statistics which will be of interest to the Committee. The number in the house is only 169, but the number on outdoor relief has increased from 192, as it stood last year, to 588 as it stood on the 260

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5th June last. The amount of relief given is, however, extremely small, varying from one and sixpence to three and sixpence weekly for each family. Again, in the single electoral division of Murneen, where our Local Committee is relieving 300 families, the guardians are only relieving four. Amongst the remaining statistics furnished me by the Clerk of the Union, I find what I anticipated in my previous Report, that there is the greatest disparity between the amounts applied for by way of public loan, and the amounts finally issued, whether as regards the landowners’ private purposes, or as regards the baronial works. In Claremorris Union, for instance, of the £10,970 applied for by the landowners, only £2,780 was actually issued up to the 5th of June, an amount not likely to be increased, since the low rate of interest offered by the Government is no longer available. And of the £2,409 applied for, for expenditure on baronial works, only £920 had been actually issued to the same date. From Claremorris I drove to the residence of Mr. Arthur Crean, J.P., Chairman of the Board, and a landowner, who received me with the same courtesy, and even cordiality, which I have experienced at the hands of all classes in Mayo in the course of my inquiries.5 Mr. Crean was not in the least reticent in furnishing me with fresh proof as to the terrible nature of the crisis through which we are passing. This gentleman frankly acknowledged that, though this Board had been steadily increasing the quantity of out-door relief since February last, thousands of persons must have died of starvation throughout the Union but for the help afforded by the Relief Committees, the Poor Law machinery being, in his opinion, incapable of dealing with any such widespread and exceptional destitution. The full weight of this testimony can only be estimated relatively, as regards the county generally, by recollecting my previous observation as to the fact that the squalor and misery around Claremorris were not so apparent to me as in other districts. Like the Bishop of Achonry, and for the same reasons, Mr. Crean cannot altogether free himself from gloomy forebodings as regards the immediate future, should nothing in the shape of public employment be found for the destitute population during the coming winter. At Claremorris, as at Ballaghaderreen and Swineford, something like vitality is maintained amongst the convent school children, by the indefatigable exertions of the Nuns in supplying them with food and clothing, in contrast with the sad appearance of those in the ordinary roadside schools, often greatly and unhealthily overcrowded, whose wan and pinched countenances betoken their half-starved condition. At Attymas I made house-to-house inspection, through a very wretched, mountainous district, where the destitution was in several cases so urgent, I had to relieve them then and there with my own hands.6 The Parish Priest, the Rev. Mr. O’Grady,7 showered blessings on the heads of Miss Hort, of the Duchess of Marlborough’s Committee, and Mr. Edmund Pery, a local landowner, and High Sheriff of the county, whose benevolence had passed into a proverb.8 This gentleman being a member of our local Committee, I felt it my duty to call upon him. His testimony was substantially that of others, with this gratifying addition, that 261

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having oftentimes investigated alleged abuses in the distribution of the Mansion House Fund, he could never find a single one verified. The condition of the people of Mayo, owing to a variety of causes, was always precarious, he said, and the first touch of misfortune placed them on the very verge of starvation. Last year, he went on to observe, that they were visited by a series of misfortunes, namely, a continued failure of their crops, including that of flax, and depreciation in the price of stock, together with a falling off in the supplies usually furnished by employment in England; and, lastly, an entire stoppage of credit on the part of the banks and shopkeepers. Of the misfortunes mentioned by Mr. Pery, it is instructive to point out that the depreciation in money-value of crops in Ireland in 1879 alone, as compared with 1878, is shown by the Registrar-General to amount to £10,014,788, of which the loss on potatoes is reckoned at £4,238,484 cwt., as against a ten year average of 60,000,000 cwt. However widely diffused, such a loss must have fallen with exceptional severity on Mayo. At Backs, the destitution partakes of much the same extreme character, whole families trying to eke out an existence on a single acre of wretched land, lying in patches amongst the boulders of various sizes, which often conceal the village hovels even at a short distance. Here, too, I found, on some of the smallest of small farms even for Mayo, unhappy cases requiring immediate relief, while the kind of sleeping accommodation available for young and innocent children, was too shocking to examine minutely. Everywhere around there is the loveliest scenery, and everywhere, also, alas! misery and wretchedness indescribable, and wholly out of sympathy with the beauties of a district singularly favoured by nature. At Castlebar I called on the Very Rev. Canon M’Ghee, P.P., and the Rev. Mr. de Burge Sidley, the Protestant clergyman, both of whom testified as to the fearful consequences which must have ensued but for the operations of the Relief Committees around the district.9 Mr. Sidley, like Mr. Brett, entertains strong convictions as to the advisability of reclaiming the waste lands, while Canon M’Ghee instanced the clamours of the people about him for employment, by relating how numbers of women even came with hammers to force themselves upon the baronial works. This gentleman, in conjunction with his fellow members, had taken the precaution, as far back as February last, to call in the services of the Relieving Officers of the Union for the purpose of preparing a tabular statement showing the number of cattle, sheep, pigs, &c., held by each individual within the area covered by the operations of our local Committee, with a view to enable the latter to exercise the utmost possible discrimination in distributing relief. The authentic information this obtained entirely surpassed their very worst anticipations. The small farmers around, it was shown, had been gradually compelled by their extreme poverty to part with everything in the shape of saleable stock with few exceptions. Here, too, I was introduced to Sir Charles Knox-Gore, Foreman of the Grand Jury, and a large landowner, who spoke to me in the frankest manner as to the perilous time over which we have passed.10 He, like Mr. Edmund Pery, volunteered the 262

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statement that every alleged abuse in the distribution of Relief Funds vanished into thin air on investigation. Sir Charles thinks a supreme effort should be made to keep the Funds going until the 15th of August, before which date the potatoes will be quite unfit for human food. At Castlebar, also, I called on Mr. James Daly, the proprietor of the Telegraph, an active member of our local Committee in that town, and much regretted not to have found him at home, as he is said to be in a position to supply valuable information as regards the condition of the people.11 Both Sir Charles Gore and Mr. Standish M’Dermott,12 ex-Chairman of the Swine­ ford Board of Guardians, invited me to call upon them for further conversation should I be remaining longer in the country, but the time at my disposal was limited, and caused me to lose this opportunity of acquiring additional information from gentlemen of that station. From Castlebar I proceeded to Crossmolina, where I again made a house-to-house inspection throughout a twenty-two mile drive. Everywhere I saw evidence of great destitution, though not so extreme as I had witnessed in some other districts. And this makes the evidence of the Parish Priest, the Rev. Dr. Costello, and that of Mr. Joseph Pratt, of Enniscoe,13 the heir to considerable estates in this and a neighbouring county, the more remarkable. I missed seeing the Protestant clergyman, upon whom I called, and who is working cordially with the Catholic priest, but, as Mr. Pratt is a Protestant gentleman, the evidence of two such independent witnesses may be considered sufficiently impartial and conclusive. It is to the effect that the scenes of 1847, well remembered by Mr. Costello, and also described to Mr. Pratt by his father, might have been repeated as early as February in the present year but for the Relief Committee, and Primarily here, as elsewhere, but for the Mansion Relief Committee. Sir Charles Gore, who, in his capacity of Chairman of the Board of Guardians, is also Chairman of the Duchess of Marlborough’s Committee in Ballina, advised me, at parting, to trust implicitly to Mr. Pratt, who is himself a Grand Juror of the county, a Poor Law Guardian, and an active member of the same Committee. The Catholic Bishop of Killala, Dr. Conway (Chairman of our Local Committee),14 upon whom I called to pay my respects, also, like Sir Charles Gore, spoke in the most flattering terms of Mr. Pratt, on account of the representations made to him from time to time by his priests. The testimony of such a man is, then, as important as any country gentleman’s testimony can well be, and the entire purport and substance of Mr. Pratt’s lengthened conversations with me was as strong, if not stronger, than that of any Catholic priest or Protestant clergyman with whom I came in contact throughout my travels in Mayo. He is most fully in accord with the Rev. Dr. Costello as to the awful crisis through which the country has been passing, and he, with much feeling, expressed it as his firm conviction that deaths from starvation may have occurred, and probably did occur at Crossmolina shortly after Christmas, in spite of all their precautions. Of one such death at least he was “quite sure” – another proof that the operations of the Mansion House Committee did not commence a day too soon. Mr. Pratt is further of the opinion that, however abundant the harvest may be, it will be necessary to provide the 263

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people with public employment during the winter months, to avoid the recurrence of the crisis next year; and he also suggested that we should not break up our Committee even when our funds fail, but that we should maintain our organization in Dublin for the purpose of influencing the Government while any cause for anxiety continues, as at present, to exist. The last district of which I have to speak of is Foxford, where I received every possible assistance in my inquiries from the Protestant vicar, the Rev. Mr. Eames, as well as from Major Ruttledge Fair, a local landowner, both of whom are acting in cordial co-operation with the Parish Priest, the Rev. Mr. O’Donnell,15 who was unfortunately absent during the period of my visit. In his absence, I was accompanied in my house-to-house inspection by another member of our Committee, Mr. Shiel, the local Registrar, for whose services I feel myself extremely indebted. We visited more than thirty hovels of the poor, principally in the townlands of Culmore and Cashel, in which I beheld scenes of wretchedness and misery wholly indescribable. In some of these hovels evicted families had lately taken refuge, so that the overcrowding added to the other horrors of the situation. In one hovel, in the townland of Cashel, we found a little child, three years old, one of a family of six, apparently very ill, with no person more competent to watch it than an idiot sister of eighteen; while the mother was absent begging committee relief, the father being in England. In another aged mother, also very ill, lying alone, with nothing to eat save long-cooked Indian meal, which she was unable to swallow. In another, in the townland of Culmore, there were four young children, one of whom was in a desperate condition for want of its natural food—milk—without which it was no longer capable of eating the Indian meal stirabout, or even retaining anything whatever on its stomach. I took off my glove to feel its emaciated little face, calm and livid as in death, which I found to be stone cold. My companion gently stirred its limbs, and after a while it opened its eyes, though only for a moment, again relapsing into a state of coma, apparently. It lay on a wallet of dirty straw, with shreds and tatters of sacking and other things covering it. The mother was in Foxford begging for relief, the father being in England in this case also. It is but right to add, that the mother of one of the evicted families, whose husband was in England, acknowledged with much gratitude some assistance she had received from the funds of the Land League. And, speaking of evictions generally, they are everywhere frankly acknowledged to be the work, not of the old hereditary landowners, but more commonly of those newcomers who, having purchased land in the Encumbered Estates Court as an investment, are devoid of any sentiment save that of a desire for a profitable return for their money; though of course there are exceptions, and even notable ones, amongst both classes. Meeting Captain Spaight, Poor Law Inspector, at Foxford, on my return, he begged it as a personal favour that I would report to him what I might see wrong in any travels through the country. I at once gave him the contents of my note book; but with the distinct intimation that I should here publicly charge the Poor Law system with culpable negligence, and a clear evasion of the Act of Parliament, in not making proper provision for the prolonged absence of the Dispensary Doctor 264

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at Foxford. I say “proper provision,” because the calling in of another medical man, from a remote Dispensary district ten miles off, alone probably too large and too populous to receive sufficient attention at his hands, does not constitute any such provision. Captain Spaight, who appears to be very earnest in his attempt to discharge his duties, offered to send milk to the village next morning; but as I had already secured these cases temporary relief at my own hands, I intimated further to him that medical attention, rather than milk, was now urgently required, though not to be had. The Registrar of Foxford informed me that the number of persons actually in, or recovering from fever in the neighbourhood, is at present thirtyfive, yet not the slightest effort has been made, up to the present, to whitewash or otherwise disinfect, the tainted houses. Emigration is proceeding rapidly in Mayo, especially amongst the class of single young women. From the parish of Charlestown alone more than eighty had gone, up to the middle of June, while from Backs more than a hundred have left to the present date. Persons in America, who had not been heard of for many years, are now moved by reports of the famine to send money for their friends to enable them to emigrate. And here the question arises, is there no benevolent organization in existence for the protection of this defenceless class of young people at Liverpool and elsewhere, on their journey to their new and distant home? Surely the good work done by Mrs. Caroline Chisholm in a past generation should now inspire some amongst her own sex, if not others, to emulate her fame as the “Emigrant’s Friend.”16 Fortunately, the crops have not been seriously affected by the heavy rains, though the blight is apparent in many places sown by the old seed-potatoes. I had some dug for inspection at Crossmolina, and cutting through the root with my penknife, found the disease distinctly marked. But there is much confidence that the Champions will escape, for even the stalks resist those strong winds to which those of the other seeds succumb. Elsewhere, as at Crossmolina, the affected potatoes were described as “Pink Eyes,” but it is greatly feared that White Rocks, so called, have been imposed upon the peasantry as Champions in many cases. Passing on the subject of relief works, I  have everywhere found them fitful, wholly insufficient, and otherwise unsatisfactory, as explained in my previous Report. Having a few hours to spare at Athlone on Sunday, I visited the ViceChairman of one of our Local Committees, St. Peter’s and Drum, who told me that in his district the contractors could not get their works “certified,” and so the unfortunate labourers employed upon them were without their wages, while the works were themselves stopped. Yet it is only just to the Government to say, that they are sending many additional officers through the country, to try and facilitate matters, but there is apparently no fixed plan in their operations; while the local bodies are everywhere confused and undecided, or unwilling, in voting additional funds for expenditure. Meanwhile there is unlimited scope for road-making in Mayo, for nowhere else, perhaps, are the public highways so dangerous to life and limb. Yet at best, even this can scarcely be described as work of a reproductive character, or of permanent utility. Indeed, many of the baronial works which I saw 265

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in operation, in the shape of bog road fences, would scarcely withstand a sharp rain-storm, which would speedily reduce them to their original elements of peat and mud. On the other hand, what might be done in the way of reclaiming waste lands is often visible to the eye as well as to the imagination. In many districts through which I travelled I saw patches of meadow and smiling cornfields, where only a few years ago there was nothing but savage bog and moor land. The greatest evil of the times in Mayo is not the question of rent, but rather the circumstances that the holdings of the small farmers are deficient in quantity as well as quality.17 This it is that necessitates the annual flight to England, an evil in itself, to enable them to eke out even a miserable existence on their return.18 If it could be remedied without injustice to “vested interests,” you might have a prosperous and contented peasantry, instead of one whose present condition is a scandal to the Empire. To render that condition less degraded meanwhile, some modification of the existing Poor Law System is obviously necessary. The adoption of the principle of Union Rating, as in England, would have a most beneficial effect, inasmuch as it would tend to promote an extension of that out-door relief so sorely needed, yet so much more restricted in Ireland. And if a number of the local clergy were admitted to seats at the Board of Guardians, in virtue of their office, their presence could scarcely fail to diffuse amongst that important body somewhat more of kindly consideration for the sad misfortunes of the destitute and deserving poor. The smallness of the amount of Poor Law relief distributed in Ireland as compared with England is not generally known. In 1878, 85,000 persons only were relieved in Ireland, as at cost of £990,000, while in England 748,000 persons were relieved, during the same period, at a total cost of £7,688,000. Taking the population of Ireland at one-fourth of that of England, it will be seen that the Poor Law relief distributed in Ireland, the poorer country, is not one-half what it is in England, the richer country. In conclusion, I have to report that I have everywhere found the books of the local Committees kept with scrupulous exactness, and the utmost possible discrimination used in the distribution of relief. I was only once called on to investigate a complaint, which was made to me by a shopkeeper in Swineford, to the effect that the Catholic and Protestant clergy had thought fit to employ a paid secretary, at wages of 15s. a week. Believing the complainant’s intention to be one of pure benevolence, conceived in the interests of the poor, I proposed to call a meeting of the Committee at once, dismiss the paid official, and appoint the shopkeeper himself honorary secretary on the spot. The proposition alarmed him; he excused himself, and I was suffered to go in peace. I may say that the destitute population of Swineford is enormous; that the Catholic priests and Protestant rector are rivals in one respect only; and that even the appointment of a paid secretary, which was indispensable, was conferred upon the present holder of the laborious office as a matter of business in which charity had some part. I am much indebted to the Rev. Mr. Conmey of Backs, the Rev. Mr. O’Donohue, C.C., of Ballyhaunis, and, in an especial manner, to the Very Rev. Canon Bourke, 266

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P.P., of Claremorris,19 for assistance and useful information. On this occasion I have not found it necessary to trouble the police with my inquiries; but I have ascertained from the clergy and magistrates that the peace of North Mayo continues unbroken, while the honesty of the starving peasantry is the theme of every tongue. I now invite members of the Committee to question me upon any point of interest in my Report, so as to afford me an opportunity of verifying my statements by referring to the authority upon which they are made. _____________________________________ The Lord Mayor (Mr. Edmund Dwyer Grey, M.P.),20 said the Committee must feel very much indebted to Mr. Fox for his very able report. It showed a most lamentable state of things in the County Mayo, but it also showed that the local Committees were in excellent working order. He considered it a most valuable report, and it would be well, too, as in the case of the other reports, to forward copies to the Chief Secretary. As to the absence of a medical officer from Foxford, would it not be right to pass a resolution on the subject? Mr. Lane-Joynt asked how far had the present doctor to travel to visit Foxford, and what Union it was in?21 Mr. Fox – Swineford; the doctor has to come over ten miles. Mr. Joynt considered that ten miles was too far; the sick people might be dead before the doctor might arrive. The Lord Mayor – Shall we pass a resolution about Foxford? Mr. Adye Curran – We sent a grant the other day to Foxford. Sir John Barrington – What can we do for Foxford?22 Mr. Curran – Rather, what will the Government do for it? The Lord Mayor moved a resolution, thanking Mr. Fox for his report, and directing copies of it to be sent to the Chief Secretary and the Vice-President of the Local Government Board, calling their particular attention to the lamentable state of affairs in Foxford. The resolution was passed.

Notes 1 J.A. Fox was a member of the Mansion House Relief Committee. On their behalf, in July 1880, he travelled to County Mayo. He sent two reports to the committee dated, 3 July and 22 July. 2 In January 1880, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Sir Edward Gray, established the Mansion House Relief Committee which sought contributions throughout the world to ward off the impending famine. To highlight the crisis, the committee sent J.A. Fox to report on the extent of the crisis in one of the worst affected parts of the country. 3 Francis McCormack (1833–1909) was Bishop of Achonry from 1875 to 1887. He had been born in Ballintober in Co. Mayo.

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4 The Mansion House Relief Committee distributed funds to sixty-four local committees in Mayo. 5 Arthur Crean of Ballinavilla, Claremoris had an estate of 731 acres in Co. Mayo. 6 The parish of Attymas lies six miles south of Ballina town. 7 Rev. John O’Grady became Parish Priest of Attymas in 1875. 8 Rev. Domnick O’Grady. Edmund Perry lived at Belleek Castle, Ballina and had an estate of 5,100 acres. 9 Canon James Magee, the Catholic Administrator of Castlebar parish. 10 Sir Charles Knox Gore of Beeleek Manor in Ballina was Chairman of the Mayo Grand Jury and had an estate of 17,608 acres in County Mayo. 11 James Daly was the editor of the Connaught Telegraph, which was based in Castlebar. He was one of the leading members of the early Land League agitation in the west of Ireland. See Moran, ‘James Daly and the rise and Fall of the Land League in the West of Ireland, 1879–82’, pp. 189–207. 12 Standish O’Grady McDermott of Clongee House, Foxford had an estate of 693 acres. 13 The Pratt estate covered nearly 18,000 acres in Mayo. 14 Bishop Hugh Conway (1819–1892), was Bishop of Killala from 1873 to 1893. 15 Rev. James O’Donnell, Parish Priest of Templemore, Foxford. 16 Caroline Chisholm was a philanthropist involved with the welfare of female immigrants in Australia. She died in 1877. See Carole Walker, A Saviour 0f Living Cargo: The Life and Works of Caroline Chisholm (Melbourne, 2009). 17 The Bessborough Commission recommended that a holding of under fifteen acres could not support a family. Bessborough Commission, HC 1881 (2779), CVIII, p. 652. 18 The official number of seasonal migrants from Mayo in 1880 was 10,198 of whom 4,862 came from the Swineford Poor Law Union. See Moran, ‘A passage to Britain’, p. 27. 19 Canon Ulick Bourke (1820–1887), Parish Priest of Claremorris. He was born in Co. Galway and educated at St Jarleth’s College in Tuam. He wrote a number of books on the Irish language. 20 Edmund Dwyer Gray (1845–1888) was proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal and was an M.P. for the Home Rule Party between 1875 and 1888 being elected for Kilkenny City, C. Carlow and St Stephen’s Green Dublin. 21 William Lane-Joynt was a member of the Mansion House Relief Committee and elected Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1867. 22 Sir John Barrington was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1879.

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31 REPORT FROM SWINEFORD, CO. MAYO FROM REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MANSION HOUSE RELIEF COMMITTEE, JULY 1880. REPORT OF DR. GEORGE SIGERSON AND DR. KENNY ON THE FEVER IN THE WESTERN DISTRICTS 1 (DUBLIN CITY ARCHIVES, MANSION HOUSE RELIEF COMMITTEE PAPERS, CH1/4/P. 34, JULY 1880) FOURTH REPORT OF DR. SIGERSON AND DR. KENNY. On the fever in the Western Districts. LORD MAYOR and GENTLEMAN, If disrespect for sanitary precepts suffices of itself to cause the production of maculated typhus, that disease would be endemic in Faheens. This hamlet, which is within a few miles of the town of Swineford, is unique of its kind. No road nor lane leads to it, nor any street to be found within it. On leaving the highway we had to get over two or three fences, follow the course of a stream, traverse a field path, and finally (under a heavy shower) we crossed the wall of a mire pit, trod along its margin, and were at once in the centre of an irregular group of cabins. Each cabin has its midden stead or manure pit, the narrow borders serve as paths. There are about forty habitations, some huddled together, others straggling apart. Now, contrary to all pre-conceived theories this hamlet has been remarkably free from fever for a number of years. Testimony to this effect is borne by the energetic clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Conlan, who, during the four years of his mission here, knew of but one case, and that in the vicinity of Faheens. Mauric C., himself a convalescent, recalled this case, marks it out as an exception in his long experience as a resident in the village. The professional knowledge of Dr. O’Grady 269

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(fortunately recovering from an attack of typhus caught in the zealous discharge of his duty) confirms this evidence, during a decade of years. Though to some it may appear strange that such a thing should be, it will not surprise those who have read the account given of a very similar hamlet in the pages of Stokes, and who recalled the pointed admonition to sanitarians by that illustrious authority, warning them against permitting theories to take precedence of facts. What, then, has been the cause of the outbreak of maculated typhus in Faheens, since sanitary disrespect did not produce it. Not infection, we find; for the person in whom the disease first appeared, Mary C------, and who died of it, was noted for her homestaying disposition; whilst the village, on account of its secluded position and poverty, has little intercourse with other parts. The adult males (here as elsewhere in Mayo) being generally away, labouring in England, do not of course go forth and return daily. Owing to their absence the women and children (when not at school) are engaged either about their houses or in the field and bog work in the vicinity of their homes. There is but one element discoverable making this season to differ from preceding seasons, and that element is the pressure of exceptional distress. The victims of the disease here, as in other places, were those whom want had compelled to appeal to the local relief Committee. On the dole grants them, and on that alone, the family subsisted in which the fever manifested itself. The Committee, owing to the great demands of a large parish, was unable to give this family of five persons more than two stones weekly of Indian meal, and they themselves could not procure milk. Of the five, four fell sick, and two of these four died. It is superfluous to add that such results must be attributed to the very deficient alimentation. Once a focus of fever has been created it is, of course, likely to spread by infection, and thus the disease extended through several families in Faheens, whose names were amongst the first on the relief lists. At Cullaun, likewise, where the fever appeared early, the family had been forced by misfortune on the relief list at the very beginning of the year. Now, as a counter test, we may refer to certain habitations in the town of Swineford. There are some cabins here whose unsanitary conditions rival, if they do not exceed, those of the houses at Faheens. Some are sunken under the level of the street, green and grimy externally; dark, dirty and smoky within; whilst a few feet from their doors stretched a decomposing dung heap. There has been no fever in these. Neither has there been fever in others, small, overcrowded, and foul to look at, which are to be observed in another direction. The inmates, though poor, of these two cabins have not had to suffer the extreme privations of their rural compeers, and have thus escaped the inroads of the fever, although the unsanitary conditions of the cabins were equal in all. Having procured lists of the admissions, ages, and deaths of fever patients admitted to Swineford for the past month, we have carefully tabulated them, taken percentages, and compared the results with those recorded by Murchion. Children generally escape – a circumstance familiar to Irish physicians – but we regret to be forced to the conclusion that, for patients of more advanced years, these takes show a greater mortality than the standard named. This is manifestly the case if we compare the results which concern ages above 270

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twenty, and very markedly evident if, eliminating ages above sixty, we compare facts relating to ages from twenty to sixty. As we cannot doubt that due care was bestowed on the patients in hospital, we must infer that their constitutions, even in the prime of life, were so enfeebled by lack of sufficient food as to diminish their chances of recovery. Swineford, a prosperous town, is well nigh free of fever. The cases which we have seen in its environs are convalescent. In the Foxford district we have seen several convalescent cases, and some still suffering. Before leaving the latter locality the discovery of certain other case of typhus fever was reported to us. It should be added that disorders other than typhus fever may result from insufficient nutrition. Gastric troubles of various kinds may first show themselves; these we found numerous in the Charlestown district. Then, at a more intense degree, some dysentery, diarrhoea, and typhoid, of, which we found several examples in the Swineford and Foxford districts. The history of the cases unfortunately showed that the sufferers, children in most instances, had been compelled to subsist for a long time on Indian meal porridge, without milk. It gives us pleasure to bear our testimony to the courtesy, goodwill and humanity of the vice-guardians, and the medical and lay inspectors of the Local Government Board.2 The reforms now made fulfil to a certain extent the desires already expressed in our reports, and some suggestions which we took the liberty to offer have been promptly acted on. Disinfectants have been sent over in quantity to Charlestown, and an improved diet has been ordered for the sick and convalescent. On our arrival at Swineford we found that the dietary of the distressed had been judiciously varied by the allocation of one-third oatmeal to two-thirds Indian meal. At Faheens, however, the inhabitants informed us that they had, up to the day of our arrival, received nothing but Indian meal, insufficient in quantity, from the relief officer. The vice-guardians have ordered that this be rectified. We are, indeed, happy to state that, whatever theories may be afloat, the authorities here act upon the principle that a variation of the dietary and more and better food are the best remedies against the increase and extension of the destitution diseases. This is the principle we have advocated; as the same time we desire to see a more common use of disinfectants, to prevent the spread of disease by infection, and we trust that the houses at Faheens and elsewhere will be promptly disinfected. For that purpose we would again recommend that the services of the police should be availed of. From whatever cause, whether from over-work, want of system, or want of good will, the relieving officers do not (in certain instances) appear to carry out efficaciously the task laid upon them. In some cases we have found families fairly relieved and duly grateful, in other instances families have apparently been overlooked. Nor is it becoming that crowds of women from rural places should remain all day, and late into the night, beseeching aid in the town. All who merit assistance should be promptly relieved in the forenoon, and all others dismissed at once. We have the honour to remain. Your obedient Servants, 271

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GEORGE SIGERSON, M. D., Ch. M. J. E. KENNY, L.R.C.S.E. Ballina, July 16th, 1880. P.S. – We regret to state that the death has been reported to us of the poor mother whose exclamation in reference to the strange disease coming to them on the wild moor we noted in our last. Before dying, at all events, she had something better than bog-water to moisten her parched lips.

Notes 1 Dr George Sigerson (1836–1925) was born in Strabane, Co. Tyrone, and was an Irish physician, scientist, writer, politician, poet who was also in the 1890s in the Irish Literary Revival movement. Dr Joseph Edward Kenny (1845–1900) was born in Dublin and was a Dublin physician, employed by the North Dublin Union, who played a role in the Plan of Campaign and, in 1885, was elected MP for the Irish Parliamentary Party for South Cork. 2 In 1880, the elected guardians were replaced by paid vice-guardians because Swineford Union was in severe financial difficulties.

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32 ‘OUTBREAK OF FEVER’, CONNAUGHT TELEGRAPH, 26 JUNE 1880

Charlestown, Tubbercurry, Tuesday. In this neighbourhood, in the county of Mayo, and in Swineford Union fever is raging. I heard that twenty persons were removed to Swineford Workhouse from Charlestown suffering from what is called famine fever. It is also raging at Bellaghy, in the county Sligo, separated only by a stream from Charlestown. A report from the constabulary was received by the Tubbercurry guardians in the county Sligo on Monday, describing the spread of fever in Bellaghy, and the medical officers of health were ordered to visit the locality at once and report. Charlestown is in the Swineford Union, near Tubbercurry, and within a short distance of the railway station of Kilfee. Tubbercurry, Wednesday Morning. At the present moment there are fourteen families stricken down with it—families, not individuals, in the words of the parish priest. They have been living in an atmosphere of fever for the last two weeks. Besides the fourteen at present suffering, seven other families were stricken who are partially recovering. Three deaths have already occurred. Whether the fever had its origins in destitution it is impossible as yet to say, but it is a remarkable fact that of the twenty-one families afflicted, seventeen are on the relief lists. The districts of Culmore and Swineford have also been visited by the same form of fever and the schools there have had to be closed. The dispensary doctor at Swinford (Dr. O’Grady) is himself dangerously ill of the fever. Father Loftus,1 the parish priest of Charlestown, was about to close the schools there, but he did not, for fear of losing for the pupils the bread which the New York Herald Fund distributes to them.2 The whole district is in a state of great alarm.

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Notes 1 Rev. Thomas Loftus, the Parish Priest of Charlestown. 2 The New York Herald Relief Fund was established by its proprietor, James Gordon Bennett, to distribute relief from funds collected in the United States. Bennett initiated the fund by providing $100,000. Its Dublin Committee comprised William Shaw, MP (chairman); E.R. King Harman, MP; Prof. Thomas Baldwin, Revd George H. Hepworth and Albert C. Ives (secretary).

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33 REPORT FROM CAPTAIN DIGBY MORANT ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF RELIEF ON THE WEST COAST OF IRELAND. 1 REPORT AUGUST 1880 FROM CAPTAIN D. MORANT, IN REFERENCE TO RELIEF OF DISTRESSED POPULATION ON THE WEST COAST OF IRELAND, H.C. 1880 LXII (195), pp. 1–5 Sir,

H.M.S. “Valorous”, Galway, 4 August 1880.

In compliance with their Lordships’ Memorial M., dated 10th July 1880, forwarded by you on the 12th of the same month, I beg to enclose a general summary of the relief stores supplied to this squadron by the several Relief Committees formed at the end of last year for the relief of distress in Ireland; this return also includes stores brought to this country from the United States of America in their frigate “Constellation,” and which stores were conveyed to the Western Islands and coast population by the several vessels forming the Relief Squadron, under the command of Rear-Admiral His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh.2 The first of Her Majesty’s ships, detailed for relief service was H.M. gunboat “Goshawk,” and she commenced her relief service on the 3rd of February last, followed by the “Orwell,” “Bruiser,” “Hawk,” “Imogene,” and this ship. These vessels were detailed by the senior naval officer at Queenstown to carry out the direction of the Committees:- The “Goshawk,” “Orwell,” “Bruiser,” and “Imogene,” for the service of the Mansion House Committee; the “Valorous,” and “Hawk” for the service of Her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough’s Committee. This arrangement continued until the arrival of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, in H.M.S. “Lively,” when he took command of the whole of the squadron, which has worked as the several Committees required, on application to him for a ship or ships, and has been continued on the same principal, since his departure of His Highness, under me. 275

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It will be seen, on reference to the return, that since the commencement of this service by His Majesty’s ships 856½ tons of meal, 453 tons of seed potatoes, 30 tons of oats and barley, and 110 bales of clothing, and a considerable quantity of loose clothing issued by H.M.S. “Lively” and “Valorous” have been conveyed to the several islands and those portions of the coat difficult to access, and that the population of the places so relieved amounts to the number, approximately, of 36,841. I believe that all these places have been relieved by the several Committees and other charitable organizations, in money and some stores, otherwise than through the Relief Squadron, especially by the Canadian Relief Committee, who have either supplied or are now supplying fishing gear and nets to the coast population, or at least to that portion who have registered fishing boats, as well as grants of money in aid of building fishery piers.3 The “New York Herald ” Committee have also sent money, fishing gear, or stores, jointly with other Committees, some of which stores have been conveyed by Her Majesty’s ships. The Boards of Guardians have also availed themselves occasionally of the services of the Relief Squadron to convey seed, &c., to the islands; but, generally speaking, with the exception of the cargo of the “Constellation,” the Relief Squadron have almost entirely been employed in conveying the stores of seed, food, and clothing supplied by the Duchess of Marlborough Committee and the Dublin Mansion House Committee. I would now wish to offer a few remarks in accordance with their Lordships directions, as given in the before-mentioned Memorandum. From my own observations, also from letters I have seen, and conversations I have had, not only from officers commanding the several vessels employed on this service, but from others who live in the districts affected, I have not the slightest hesitation in stating that had it not been for the exertions of the charitable organisations during the early part of this year, some of the inhabitants of these western districts and outlying islands would have died from starvation; and I myself observed cases of extreme destitution in the spring of this year of the islands and portions of the coast of Connemara my former reports will show; distress did not appear to have come suddenly from the failure of last year’s harvest, but apparently had been getting worse as the people each year had been getting poorer and poorer, until the crisis arrived last winter, when all credit had been stopped by the shopkeepers, and the potatoes that had been saved from last harvest having been eaten, the poorest were on the verge of starvation; it was then the Relief Committees came to these poor people’s rescue in time to avert starvation. From what I have seen and heard since I have been employed on this service, also from some little knowledge that I had picked up a few years ago on this coast, there are several causes which this recent distress may be attributed to, beyond the failure of last year’s crop. The principle, I am of opinion, is the enormous population on the islands and certain portions of the coast; the land is very poor in some places, and from its proximity to the Atlantic the climate is exceedingly wet, and the crops raised are generally very indifferent; the holdings are also very small. I believe that 276

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this overplus of population is to be attributed not only to the large families which are generally to be found on this coast, owing to the very youthful age, 19 and 20, which it is customary for the people to marry at, but also to the large sums realized by the collection and burning of seaweed into kelp,4 which induces numbers of people to settle on the islands and seacoast where the weed grew; and this industry was carried on for a number of years, until three years ago or so, when some other compound was discovered in South America, and reduced both the demand and price of this article; doubtless this has been one great cause of the recent distress on the coast. As an instance of how this industry has fallen off, I may mention that on Tory Island, county Donegal, a few years ago, a population of about 300 people used to burn 250 tons of kelp a year, and receive for this money to the amount of 7l. per ton. This summer, on the same island, they burnt enough to raise 150l. receiving only 2l. per ton. In Connemara, in the Kilkieran district, up to four or five years ago, a sum of 15,000l. a year was paid for kelp; the last two or three years only 2,000l. to 3,000l. has been paid a year for this article in the same district: and the whole coast is affected more or less in the same way. In Donegal, Sligo, and Mayo the coast population are more or less relieved in ordinary years by labourers going to England and Scotland to work for about three months in the year; but this is not the case in Connemara, where, from some case, it is not the custom; probably it may be from the want of money to take them over. Certainly, of all the people I have visited this year, those living in Connemara appear the most destitute. The kelp industry almost being at an end, and not likely to return to its former prosperity, there is nothing at present left for this large coast population to do except till the land, and fish; and as the land is not capable of producing sustenance for the people, there is only the fishing for them to live. In Donegal there are some bona fide fishermen, and these have largely been supplied with fishing gear by the Canadian Committee (as have a certain proportion of all the coast population); but, as rule, they have only open boats to meet the heavy weather that it to be met with for two thirds of the year on that stormy coast; therefore the fishing is and always must be to them uncertain, and a precarious means of support. In most cases they are too poor to procure large boats, and in some place, such as Tory Island, and similar spots they have no harbour, nor would it be possible there, at all events, to make one; the boats, therefore, have to be hauled on shore in bad weather. On the coast of Galway as a rule (with the exception of the Claddagh people)5 the fishing is now only a secondary industry, as most boat owners have a holding of land, and will not leave off their agricultural work at seed time and harvest for fishing, and they employ their boats for carrying turf and seaweed as a trade; besides they have no boats sufficiently well found to go and look for fish and enable them to keep the sea. 277

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Their habits are, when the herrings or mackerel come into their immediate vicinity, to catch them, if they have nets (when in many places they have not). Of late years, that is to say, within the last two or three, it is stated these fish have not come close to the bays and islands in any quantity. There are a certain number of people who catch lobsters and fish with lines, and doubtless earn money by it, as in the north steamers call at certain points to collect lobsters, turbot, &c., and on the Connemara coast there are fair markets at Westport, Clifden, and Galway for fish. Why the fishing has fallen off of late years I have been informed is partly to be attributed to the profits made in the kelp manufacture, thereby inducing the people to collect seaweed. As Roundstone I heard that previous to the famine of 1847 a large herring fishery was there established, and a certain number of schooners used to bring salt from English and Scotch ports for curing purposes, and return laden with cured fish; in fact the town of Roundstone owes its existence to this trade, but the fishing population were dispersed during the famine time, the nets either sold or rotted, and when times became settled again, through the introduction of kelp burning, the herring fishing was neglected. At present there are few fishermen in the district. I have little doubt that if capital was found a profitable fishery might be established on the coast, provided proper boats and gear were used, and that it was made a regular business of, which at present it generally speaking is not, as it is on the south coast, for I myself have seen some two or three years ago, off Blacksod Bay, the sea alive with herrings, and the boats of the Inishkea islanders (off which islands the fish were) were filled with herrings in a very short time, and this year herrings have been seen in Cusheen Bay by the islanders, but they have no needs at the time to take them.6 The crops this year on the whole are most promising, but yet, not withstanding this, without something is done in the way of either reducing the number of the population now entirely dependent on the land, or some other means devised by which they can earn money, a renewal of the distress amongst the coastal population is to be feared, especially if at any time the uncertain potato crop should fail. I have endeavoured on my recent visits at several parts of the coast to ascertain if there was any actual distress yet existing, but happily the reply has been in the negative, the Relief Committees having been enabled to give food or money up to this time; and now the new potatoes are generally matured and fit for food. Before closing this report I would mention the relief work that has been carried out by the Duchess of Marlborough’s Committee, in the Kilkieran district, for the last six weeks; 2,200 men and women have been employed under the supervision of Major Gaskell7 (the representative of that Committee) on road making and small boat piers. For this work the people employed have been paid at the rate of one stone of meal per man per diem for five working days; and having seen a great portion of the work, I am of the opinion that it has been of great benefit to the people, having enabled them to leave their potatoes in the ground until they were matured, and also that many of the works are of a useful and permanent character.

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R eport from C aptain D igby M orant

Some, however, I fear have not been finished, owing to the time fixed for stopping the relief works, viz., the 1st August, having arrived before they were completed. I have now returned from the last tour of relief service required of me by the several Committees, having, with the remaining ships of the Relief Squadron, distributed to the islands between Tory Island, on the coast of Donegal, and Baltimore, coast of Cork, inclusive, a donation of meal and a large quantity of clothing provided by the Dublin Mansion House Committee, and issued under the personal superintendence of Mr. Lane-Joynt, the representative of that Committee, who accompanied me in this ship.8 I would, in conclusion, beg to bring to your notice the zealous manner in which all the officers and men serving in this squadron have forwarded the work they have been employed on since the squadron has been under my orders; especially would I mention Lieutenant Suckling, the Commander of H.M. gunboat “Goshawk,” whose zeal and energy were untiring, and who has been carrying out these duties from the commencement, and in doing so had to encounter severe weather in very intricate and narrow waters. Also. Lieutenant Oldham, the Senior Lieutenant of this ship, who throughout displayed his usual energy and zeal. Lieutenant Maxwell, commanding H.M. gunboat “Bruiser;” Mr. Evan Williams and Mr. Hughes, commanding respectively H.M. cruisers “Hawk”, and “Imogene,” did all in their power to further the service they were employed on. I beg to enclose with the summary of cargo carried, list of names of places, with the population of the island and coast relieved by the Relief Squadron, from Tory Island to Baltimore inclusive. I have, &c., Rear-Admiral R.V. Hamilton,

C.B., GEO. DIGBY MORANY,

Senior Naval Officer, Queenstown.

Captain and Senior Naval



Officer, Galway.

NAMES and POPULATION of the Islands relieved by the RELIEF SQUADRON from TORY ISLAND to BALTIMORE, inclusive. Name

Families

People

Tory Island Inishboffin Gola and neighbouring islands Owey and Crute Aranmore Malinbeg, mainland Teelin Bay, mainland Inish Murray

 66 About 24 –  40 200 – 200  10

   330    120    125    220 1.140 – 1,200           50

Remarks.

(Continued)

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(Continued) Name

Families

People

Lachin Polocheeny Inishglora Inishkea, North Inishkea, South Devillaunmore Achill Clare Island Turk (Mayo) Inish Boffin Inish Shark Inishbarra, Tigaiaun & Rowelaun & Inishdegalmore Omey Turbot Turk Inishdugga Bunowen, mainland

– – 3 25 42 6 – 117 25 198 46

– – 32 132 180 24 5,000 585 129 969 213

13 40 35 25 1 –

83 205 164 89 (?) 800

Remarks.

POPULATION of the Islands from TORY ISLAND to CAPE CLEAR Name

Families

People

Roundstone, mainland, Including islands Inishlacken Inishnee Blue Island Cashel, mainland Carna, mainland Deer Island Muskerry Birmore Fynish Meenish Russmuck Russmuck, Island Inishtrevan Anaghvaan Lettermore Eragh Inishbarragh Gorumna Mettermullen Crappagh

400

2,000

39 83 5 400 835 1 1 2 29 85 400 22 24 32 162 2 26 319 121 5

173 450 25 2,000 4,175 7 3 8 141 523 2,000 110 150 160 887 19 176 1,806 611 34

280

Remark.

R eport from C aptain D igby M orant

Name Shirk Furnish Dynish Carraroe, mainland, not Including island Part of Cashla, mainland Inishmore, Inishmann & Inisheer Valentia Island Islands in Kenmare River Dursey Island Bean Island Whidog Island Long Island, Cape Clear Island & Sherkin Island

Families

People

7 31 15

56 156 76

600 97

3,000 437

700 – – – – –

3,500 None 7 30 760 None

–

1,000

Remark.

six or seven in each family.

GEO. DIGBY MORANT, H.M.S. “Valorous” Officer,

Captain and Senior Naval

4th August 1880

Galway

Notes 1 The west coast of Ireland was severely affected by the famine of 1879–81 and the Naval Service was used to distribute relief to the more inaccessible areas of the country. Cpt. Digby Morant of the Naval Service provided a number of reports on the conditions he witnessed. 2 In April 1880 the ‘Constellation’, under the command of Captain Potter, arrived in Queenstown (Cobh) carrying potatoes, flour, meat and clothing which had been subscribed by private donors and the New York Herald Relief Fund. See Bernadette Whelan, American Government in Ireland, 1790–1913: A History of the US Consular Service (Manchester, 2010), p. 220; N.D. Palmer, The Irish Land League Crisis (New York, 1978), pp. 99–100. 3 The Canadian government provided $100,000 for relief purposes which was used to build harbours along the west coast which would benefit the fishing industry. Funds were also forwarded by the authorities in Ontario ($20,000) and Newfoundland. 4 In the Connemara coastal area, it was estimated that in the early 1870s the kelp industry was worth between £10,000 and £12,000, but by 1879 this had declined to as little as £1,500. See Gerard Moran, Sending Out Ireland’s Poor: Assisted Emigration to North America in the Nineteenth Century (Dublin, 2004), p. 162. 5 The Claddagh area is situated on the outskirts of Galway town and was heavily involved in the fishing industry. The Claddagh fishermen started fishing on 15 August each year. See John Cunningham, ‘A Town Tormented by the Sea’: Galway, 1790–1914 (Dublin, 2004).

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6 For an account on life on the Inishkea Islands, situated off Erris, Co. Mayo, see Brian Dornan, Mayo’s Lost Islands: the Inishkeas (Dublin, 2000). 7 Major W.P. Gaskell worked as an agent for the Duchess of Marlborough Relief Committee in the West of Ireland and later worked on the emigration schemes of James Hack Tuke in Connemara and Co. Mayo. 8 William Lane-Joynt (1824–1895), originally a barrister in Limerick, served as Mayor of both that city (1862) and of Dublin (1867). He served on the O’Connell Memorial Committee. Although offered a knighthood, he refused it. He, together with Alderman Hugh Tarpey, ensured that the residue of the Mansion House Fund was applied to develop fisheries in the west of Ireland.

282

34 REPORT ON HOW THE MONEY DONATED BY THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT IN 1880 FOR THE RELIEF OF DISTRESS IN IRELAND WAS SPENT. REPORT OF THE JOINT COMMITTEE, SELECTED FROM THE COMMITTEE OF THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH RELIEF FUND AND THE DUBLIN MANSION HOUSE FUND FOR THE RELIEF OF DISTRESS IN IRELAND, TO BE ADMINISTERED THE SUM OF 100,000 DOLLARS, VOTED BY THE PARLIAMENT OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA, TOWARDS THE RELIEF OF DISTRESS IN IRELAND, H.C. 1881 (326) LXXV, pp. 3–4 At the commencement of the year 1880, the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, with almost unexampled generosity, voted the sum of 100,000 dollars, or, in English currency, 20,547l. 18s. 10d. sterling, towards the relief of the then existing distress in Ireland. This munificent donation was wisely left unfettered by all stipulations save one, that it should not be so expended as to deprive its recipients of the franchise. The question, to whom should be entrusted the duty of administering in relief this large sum of money, as well as the manner and purposes of its application, being left to the decision of the Right Hon. Sir. M. E. Hicks Beach, Bart., the then Secretary to the Colonies, he, on the 13th of March 1880, in an identical letter addressed to the Duchess of Marlborough, as President of the Fund, inaugurated by Her Grace, and the Right Honourable, E. Dwyer Gray, M.P., the Lord Mayor 283

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of Dublin, as Chairman of the Mansion House Committee for the relief of distress in Ireland, suggested that a Special Committee, consisting of three Members, selected from the Marlborough and Mansion House Committees respectively, should be chosen, and act as a distinct Committee for the disbursement of the Fund voted by the Canadian Parliament. The following is the text of Sir M. E. Hicks-Beach’s letter:“Colonial Office, Downing-street, Madam, 

13 March, 1880.

“I have the honour to acquaint your Grace that the parliament of Canada has voted the sum of 100,000 dollars as a contribution towards the relief of distress in Ireland, and that the Government of the Dominion has requested me to decide in what manner this magnificent donation, amounting to 20,547l. sterling, should be applied, making only this stipulation, that the money shall not be expended as to deprive its recipients of the franchise. After much consideration, I am disposed to think that the benevolent intentions of the Dominion Parliament might be most effectively carried out and the greatest advantages secured to those whom it is desired to benefit, if a Special Committee could be appointed to undertake the distribution of this fund, subject to certain general rules, which their local experience would enable them to frame, and which they would doubtless be willing for my previous concurrence. Such a committee might, it appears to me, consist of six members; three selected from the Committee appointed by your Grace in the distribution of the fund over which you preside, and three from the Committee which co-operates with the Lord Mayor of Dublin in the disposal of the Mansion House Fund. I do not desire in any way to limit the proposals which, after full consideration of all the circumstances, a body constituted as I have suggested might be disposed to make; but I may observe generally that I think it would be satisfactory to Canada, as well as to Ireland if this money were so applied as not only to relieve the immediate necessities of the moment, but also to secure some lasting benefit to the people, by works of reproductive character. Assistance to fishermen for the purchase of boats and nets, grants towards providing the contributions required from the localities interested in order to secure the construction of fishing piers and harbours, or gifts of seed to distressed persons who may be unable to obtain it under the provisions of the recent Act, are instances of the mode in which it occurs to me that this donation might be expended, and which I mention for your Grace’s consideration. I have addressed a similar letter to the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and I should be obliged by your early reply, as the Canadian donation is now ready for expenditure. I have, &c., Her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough.

284

(signed) M. E. Hick’s-Beach.”

R eport on how C anadian money donated was spent

The subject was brought immediately by Her Grace and by the Lord Mayor before their respective Committees. The Marlborough Committee requested that Her Grace, and such two members of Her Committee as she should select should represent them, and the Lord Mayor was similarly appointed by the Mansion House Committee, and a like power of selection given to him. A Joint Committee, consisting of Her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough, Dr, Grimshaw,1 Register General, and Colonel Dease,2 on the part of the Marlborough Fund, and the Right Hon. The Lord Mayor, Mr. T. Pim, Jun. and Mr. V.B. Dillon,3 jun., on the part of the Mansion House Committee, was thus formed, and held their first meeting on the 7th of April, under the presidency of Her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough, and under the title of the Canadian Committee for the Relief of Distress in Ireland. The personal attention of Her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough did not long continue to be given to the Committee, owing to the change of ministry, and the consequent retirement from office of the Duke of Marlborough as Lord Lieutenant. At the last meeting at which Her Grace was present, held at the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, on the 17th of April, she appointed Viscount Monck4 as her successor, “believing that his long connection with Canada would make his appointment acceptable to the Canadian people.” The subsequent meetings of the Committee were held in the Mansion House, Dublin, under the presidency of the Lord Mayor, to whom the Committee are indebted for having allocated a room in the Mansion House for the use of the Assistant Secretary, and for meetings of the Committee. After full consideration, the Committee resolved that the Fund should, in accordance with the suggestion of Sir M. E. Hicks-Beach, be limited to the following objects:(1) (2) (3) (4)

The erection of Fishery Piers and Harbours in distressed districts.5 The provision of Boats and Fishing Gear for necessitous fishermen. Supply of Seed to distressed agriculturalists. Other reproductive works, such as drainage.

Of these four modes of application suggested by the Secretary to the Colonies the Canadian Committee ultimately abandoned the 3rd and 4th, knowing that with the sum at their disposal, it would be unwise to attempt to achieve so much. They were further influenced by the facts, that seed had already been supplied to many distressed agriculturalists by the other charitable funds, and that a “seeds Act” had been passed by Parliament, and working satisfactorily; while, with the exception of the very slight assistance to the necessitous fishermen, rendered by the “New York Herald” Fund, existing organisations had been unable to afford help to this class, though most deserving objects for relief. To the two objects, therefore, the erection of fishery piers and Harbours and the provision of gear and boats, the Committee determined to confine their assistance.

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r. Vere Foster, a philanthropist, advocated assisting young girls to emigrate as they would send back remittances to their families and help alleviate poverty.6

Notes 1 Dr Thomas W. Grimshaw (1839–1900), an Irish physician and surgeon became Registrar General for Ireland in 1879, and was a distinguished statistician. 2 Edmund Dease, the Liberal M.P. for Queen’s Co. 3 Valentine Blake Dillon was the nephew of the of Young Ireland leader, John Blake Dillon, and was a lawyer by profession. 4 Charles Monck was appointed Governor General of Canada in 1867 and played a major role in bringing about the confederation of Canada, and returned to Ireland in 1874, where the family had an estate in Co. Dublin and Co. Wicklow. 5 This provided partial funding for twenty-six harbours along the west coast. 6 Between 1880 and 1884 he provided vouches which enabled over 20,000 people to emigrate. See Harris, ‘Where the poor man is not crushed down to exalt the aristocrat’.

286

35 LETTER FROM THE PARISH PRIEST OF ENNISCRONE, CO. SLIGO ON THE GIRLS THAT WERE ASSISTED TO NORTH AMERICA UNDER THE VERE FOSTER SCHEME AND SUGGESTING HOW EMIGRATION SCHEMES SHOULD BE CARRIED OUT. SECOND REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS ON LAND LAW (IRELAND); TOGETHER WITH THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE, MINUTES OF EVIDENCE AND APPENDIX, HC 1882 (379) XI, p. 298 Enniscrone, 21 October 1881 Dear Sir, Upon close and individual enquiry I find all those poor girls have remitted within the past few months small sums of money varying from 2l. 10 s. to 5l., and all have promised to send more at Christmas. With regard to the first query, I may tell you I have some experience of American life, and how people generally succeed there. Individual members of families will still emigrate as before, and many of them may and will succeed here, there and everywhere through the States and elsewhere; but the way I would recommend emigration would be, let some one or more trustworthy persons go to America, and carefully look around, and select a settlement, get means to erect some shanties at least thereon, and with thus provided, bring out whole families or large numbers of families, and let them settle down in the several lots, build and rebuild, till and grow provisions for themselves for the coming year, and have so means doled out to such as need them whilst the 287

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first crop is growing. By this means they one and all be independent, and set an example to others to following do likewise, and thus escape poverty, idleness, and enforced privation at home. The Germans thus act; they squat down, build houses, cut out farms, till and improve them, and soon you’ll see church, school-house, and shops spread up, as if by magic, and peace and plenty reign around. Permitting the Irish to flock into the towns and cities of America, they soon find a distaste for rural life their natural, suitable, and most eligible course, and hence the failure of so many Irish to succeed, while other nationalities spread out, prosper and grow. (signed) P. Irwin, P.P.1

Note 1 Rev. Patrick Irwin was Parish Priest of Enniscrone and had previously been a curate in the parish of Kilmoremoy and chaplain to the workhouse in Ballina.

288

36 ILLUSTRATION OF THE VESSEL THE NESTORIAN WHICH CARRIED 650 OF THE TUKE EMIGRANTS AND HOW THE SCHEME WAS SEEN BY PEOPLE IN NORTH AMERICA. THE ILLUSTRATION INDICATES PAUPERS AND THE WORKHOUSE ON A  BOAT ARRIVING INTO BOSTON. DATED 1883 In 1882 James Hack Tuke introduced his assisted emigration schemes from Connemara and over an eight week period 1,290 people were sent from Galway to Boston and Quebec.1

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Note 1 These schemes continued throughout 1883 and 1883 and in total 9,500 had their passage paid. It led to certain opposition in North America. See Gerard Moran, ‘The benevolence of a stranger: James Hack Tuke ‘s assisted emigration schemes from the Clifden Poor Law Union, 1882–1884’ in Gerard Moran and Kathleen Villier’s Tuthill (eds), Mr Tuke’s Fund: Connemara Emigration in the 1880s (Clifden, 2014), pp. 19–23.

290

37 FANNY PARNELL’S, ‘HOLD THE HARVEST’ (1880) ‘THE HOVELS OF IRELAND’ (1880)

Frances Isabel Parnell—Fanny—was born in Avondale House in County Wicklow in 1848. Her father’s family were wealthy Anglican landowners, while her American-born mother, Delia, was the grand-daughter of Admiral Charles Stewart, naval hero of the 1812 War. Fanny was born into a world of privilege that typified the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. That world, however, had recently undergone a seismic shift caused by the Great Famine, which had not only removed over two million people through death or emigration, but had (largely due to the Encumbered Estates Acts) changed the structure of landowning. The Parnell family had survived the Famine but, following her father’s death, when Fanny was aged 11, accumulated debts that meant Avondale had to be rented out. It also meant that, during her teenage years, she lived an itinerant life-style. In 1874, she and her mother returned to the family home, ‘Ironsides’, in Bordentown, New Jersey. The expectation for women of Fanny’s upbringing was that she would marry somebody from her own class. To this end, in January 1866, she was presented with other debutantes at the vice-regal court in Dublin Castle, and, seven years later, at Buckingham Palace.1 This course would traditionally lead to marriage and children. Fanny chose a very different path, however, never marrying and rejecting the social values with which she had been reared.2 Fanny’s political involvement came early, even predating that of her more famous brother, Charles Stewart Parnell, she first publishing in the Fenian paper, the Irish People, in 1864 using the pen-name Aleria.3 In 1865, three of Aleria’s poems were used by Dublin Castle to convict the Fenian leaders of sedition.4 Fanny, however, like Charles, did not condone violence for political ends. In 1875, Charles was elected to the Westminster parliament. Fanny and her sister, Anna, attended and watched from the Ladies’ Gallery, which they referred to as the ‘ladies’ cage’.5 Like many, Fanny was radicalized and galvanized by the re-appearance of famine in Ireland in 1879 to 1882, using her pen, and her increasing celebrity, to challenge the British government through poetry and prose. Fanny also intervened in a more practical way. In September 1879, she published an appeal to Irish Americans to raise subscriptions for people in the west of Ireland, asking: ‘Will not the Irish here, who can afford it, give something from their conveniences to help our 291

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countrymen in their terrible need. I know that I do not appeal to hard hearts or closed hands’.6 Fanny’s actions were praised in Ireland. The Dublin-based Irishman referred to her as a ‘patriotic Irish lady’ whose ‘name will be received with affection’.7 Additionally, a number of Dublin newspapers offered to act as a conduit for receiving the relief thus raised.8 Hovels of Ireland was published in the U.S. but the pamphlet was also read and praised in Ireland.9 It was for her poetry, however, that Fanny was best known. Her output was prolific, she publishing in the region of 40 poems in less than three years.10 Fanny’s best-known poem of that period was ‘Hold the Harvest’, itself based on a Land League slogan urging the tenant farmers not to allow their crops to be used to pay rent while they were starving. It was first published in the Boston Pilot on 21 August 1880.11 Within two weeks, it was being published by the nationalist press in Ireland.12 For Michael Davitt, an admirer of Fanny’s writings, the poem represented ‘The Marseillaise of the Irish peasant’. Davitt took pride in the fact that the poem was used in evidence against the Land Leaguers by the Attorney General in 1881, and ‘every pulse in court beat faster and eyes glistened and hearts throbbed’ as he read it, ‘in the finest elocutionary manner’.13 In addition to writing, Fanny was developing a plan to establish a Ladies’ Land League in North America.14 Her justification was that the funds of the League were inadequate and the male leadership were about to be arrested. Shortly after, a similar Ladies’ League was established in Ireland, managed by Anna. Davitt later admitted that this suggestion was “laughed at” by the male leadership, including by Charles, ‘who feared we would invite public ridicule in appearing to put women forward in places of danger’.15 Davitt was adamant, however, that when the men were imprisoned ‘No better allies than women could be found’.16 On 20 July 1882, Fanny died at her home in Bordentown, possibly of a heart attack. She was aged 34. Her unexpected death was mourned on both sides of the Atlantic. Nationalists in America wanted her body to be returned to Ireland, as did her mother, but Charles issued a curt note saying: My brother, sisters and I desire my sister’s remains should rest in America, the country where she was best known, where she had friends, and where she lived and worked so many years.17 Fanny was buried in an unmarked grave at a family plot in Boston.18 In August 1882, Charles dissolved the Ladies’ Land Leagues. Anna never spoke to her brother again. It is probable that Fanny would have been similarly outraged. The poem and the pamphlet below are examples of Fanny at her most political, eloquent and polemical. They provide a vivid context for understanding the causes and consequences of the famine of 1879 to 1882. 292

F anny P arnell

Hold the Harvest (1880) Fanny Parnell Now are you men or cattle then, you tillers of the soil? Would you be free, or evermore in rich men’s service toil? The shadow of the dial hangs dark that points the fatal hour Now hold your own! Or, branded slaves, forever cringe and cower! The serpent’s curse upon you lies - you writhe within the dust You fill your mouths with beggars’ swill, you grovel for a crust Your masters set their blood-stained heels upon your shameful heads Yet they are kind—they leave you still their ditches for your beds! Oh by the God who made us all, the master and the serf Rise up and swear to hold this day your own green Irish turf! Rise up! And plant your feet as men where now you crawl as slaves And make your harvest fields your camps, or make of them your graves! But God is on the peasant’s side, the God that loves the poor, His angels stand with flaming swords on every mount and moor, They guard the poor man’s flocks and herds, they guard his ripening grain, The robber sinks beneath their curse beside his ill-got gain. ‘THE HOVELS OF IRELAND’ BY FANNY PARNELL, BORDENTOWN, NEW JERSEY. New York: THOMAS KELLY, 17 Barclay Street. PRICE, 25 CENTS. The net proceeds arising from the sale of this Publication will be sent to the Irish Land League for Relief. PREFACE. “Property is made for man, and not man for property.” It is on this axiom that we base our present movement, which is directed—not against property or its rights—but against the abuse of those rights. When Madame Roland said,19 as, passing to her doom, she looked up at the statue of Liberty, “Oh, Liberty, how many crimes have been committed in thy name!” it was not because she loved or revered liberty the less; it was against the abuses perpetrated under its ensign that she protested. So now do we protest against the system which has turned an institution that was founded for the well-being of the greater number, and of the most industrious classes, into a mere instrument for the benefit of the smallest number and of the idlest class in society. 293

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The idea that property is so sacred a thing in itself that its rights must not be infringed upon, even to prevent the decay and death of a nation, is not an idea that is to be found in law, or in jurisprudence, or in political economy, or in ethics, or in the Bible. The precise contrary of this idea is inculcated in all the leading works of political economy, from Adam Smith up,20 and also by the principal writers on law and jurisprudence. I need not say anything about the Bible, for one of the most notorious outcries of the freethinkers of the present day against the teachings of the Gospel is, that they are rank communism, and that our Lord was utterly ignorant of political economy in all its branches. The idea therefore of the divine rights of property has had its growth, not amongst educated minds, but amongst what I must call, for want of a better term, the “uneducated section” of the upper classes. These are some of them property holders. Some of them own no property except debts; but both kinds are alike ignorant. They have heard from babyhood up that the world exists but for them and the rest of fashionable society. They have heard that all the outside world is “rabble.” If they possess property, they believe it is their own innate superiority that has placed it in their hands. If they don’t possess it, why, they believe they will soon get it by a rich marriage, or by some lucky haul in Wall street, or by some legacy from an apoplectic uncle. In any case, property, once theirs, brings no duties with it, and may be used as seemeth good unto their eyes. When I say that this section of the upper classes is uneducated and ignorant, I do not mean to say that they do not know how to read or write, or that they have not, once upon a time, learned enough about history to know that there was once a man named George Washington,21 who ruined the country by separating it from England; but I mean that their minds are wholly undeveloped, that their powers of reasoning are in an embryo condition, that they have never had any intellectual training, and that they worship one God, and that God is their Class. Gentlemen and cads is their division of the world. For the million or so of ‘gentlemen,’ everything. For the fifty millions of cads, nothing. Such persons are always very rampant in opposition to all reforms. Their influence, however, is limited to a certain portion of the press, and to a portion of fashionable society. It is upheld for a time by the vaporings of the mighty army of toadies, who surround the charmed inclosure of high life, and leave no stone unturned to gain ever so slight a footing therein. In England, when a man has retired from some plebeian occupation, his first care is to get a hanging-on-place on the outer rail of high society. To do this he joins the Tories,22 and becomes more Tory than the Tories themselves. We see precisely the same thing under changed conditions here. A few ignorant or selfish persons belonging to the ‘upper crust,’ a few newspapers who are the toadies of these persons, and a great number of would-be aristocrats—such is the poor material of which the opposition to reforms in favor of the masses is usually composed. From such antagonists we have nothing to fear. 294

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We hold that there is no such thing as absolute property in land. Many people go farther, and say that there is no such thing as property in land at all—that land cannot be bought and sold, because no man has a right to anything in it except what he produces. Obviously, if we adopted this theory, we should not hold that landlords should be compensated for their land, nor that it should be made as easy to buy and sell a piece of land as if it were a bale of cotton, nor that a farmer’s proprietary should be established. We do, however, uphold these things, because we think they are the only practical notions for our present state of society, because the adoption of the communal system of land, whether it be in itself good or bad, could not be accomplished without the most tremendous revolution that has ever taken place in the world, and because, leaving opinions aside, a farmer’s proprietary has been found to work well— quite well enough for any country—and we think it is a good thing to leave well alone. I would suggest in connection with this that the Prussian system of issuing bonds to the landlords would be far better than paying them in cash,23 and that of course the credit of the English government being so good, it ought not to be necessary for the Irish peasant to pay nearly as much interest as the German peasant was obliged to do. Charles Stewart Parnell The Hovels of Ireland ‘Upon the question, What is the worst bread which is eaten? one answered, in the respect of the coarseness thereof, bread made of beans. Another said, bread made of acorns. But the third hit the truth and said, bread taken out of other men’s mouths, who are the proprietors thereof.’ It is a fact well known to everybody that for many years great misery has existed in a chronic form amongst the agricultural classes of Ireland. The laborer has been but a hair’s-breadth better off than the pig he feeds on the refuse he himself finds it impossible to eat, and the farmer has been but a hair’s-breadth better off than the laborer he employs. Hopeless, voiceless poverty, whose only care has been to save by every imaginable kind of stinting a few pennies to educate the children of the hovel, and to contribute to the support of the peasant’s only consolation—his religion—has been the lot for generations upon generations of the great mass of Ireland’s population. Until lately, however, this poverty, frightful as it is, has excited but little sympathy even amongst the most liberal nations, and amongst the people that rule Ireland, and are consequently responsible for her condition, it has met chiefly with contemptuous sneers, and the assertion, repeated so often and so loudly that England has induced almost every other country under the sun to believe it, that the whole root of the evil lay in the Irish character, in the natural inferiority of the Celt to the Anglo-Saxon, in the utter incapacity for progress, and the hopeless inability to help themselves, improve themselves, or govern themselves, inherent in this unfortunate race. 295

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Now it is an unhappy fact in human nature, that if any individual or people, who by a combination of certain qualities of hardness, toughness, selfishness, and thorough unscrupulousness, has achieved showy material successes, only insists positively enough, and blatantly enough, that the sky is black and not blue, and that the sun is the source of darkness and not of light, presently, one by one, every other individual or people begins to think that there must be something in it, or such a successful, and consequently superior, individual or people would not proclaim it so incessantly; and the calumniated sky and sun having only facts in their favor, and those counting for little against assertions when made by certain distinguished beings, it will soon become an article of universal belief that the sky is black, and that the sun does not give light, and a black cloud passing across the sky, or a spot in the sun, will be pointed to as incontestable proofs of the theory. Of similar nature has been the immeasurable twaddle talked about the causes of Irish poverty, the nature of the Irish character, the radical difference between Celt and Saxon—no doubt existing, but a difference of kind and not of degree—and finally the ineradicable tendencies of the Irish to crime and pauperism. In this enlightened country, where, however, the majority of the inhabitants are AngloSaxons, and therefore think and judge as Anglo-Saxons do, I have, with a few honorable exceptions, as from the lips of a man like Wendell Phillips,24 seldom heard an opinion expressed upon the condition of Ireland which could lead me to hope that a glimmer of the truth had entered the mind of the speaker; while in some cases, I regret to say, the opinion was conveyed in such language as showed that the speaker, from the prejudices of education, or perhaps from religious bigotry, did not even wish to know the real state of affairs, for fear of some of his pet theories on the subject of race or religion being thereby disturbed. But theories, instilled in our childhood by pastors and masters, have ever been, and ever will be, one of the great stumbling-blocks to progress, both individual and national. To many a man it would be like tearing body and soul asunder to force him to give up some fallacy, loved ‘not wisely, but too well, which, like the poison plant in Hawthorne’s wonderful tale, has grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength, till his whole being is impregnated with its poison, and he feels that he can no longer live without the companion that is cramping to his intellect and deadly to his sympathies. The influence of such a bosom upas-plant America has seen on a gigantic scale when many of her best and greatest men arrayed themselves in favor of slavery—when in the heart of Boston, the most liberal city in the world, Wendell Phillips was mobbed, and William Lloyd Garrison25 compelled to fly for his life from an aristocratic rabble headed by Edward Everett.26 An almost equally virulent influence is seen now at work, when many good people are wishing the evil days of Grantism back again, eager to see the sorely punished South crushed down once more under the slavery of military force and carpet-bagism. Mr. Herbert Spencer 27 has well illustrated the fatal effects of all the various 4 ‘biases’ we cherish and nourish, in his study of sociology, and he shows the root of all true liberal-mindedness in his ‘Illustrations of Universal Progress,’ when he 296

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pens these ever-memorable words: ‘To the true reformer no institution is sacred, no belief above criticism. Everything shall conform itself to equity and reason. Nothing shall be saved by its prestige.’ Any liberalism that professes less than this is spurious. You can no more have a “moderate” liberal than you can have a moderately honest man or a moderately virtuous woman. But, unhappily, it is in contest with this very moderate liberalism, or ‘conservative liberalism,’ as it loves to call itself, meaning thereby conservative of certain favorite lies, that the heart of the single-eyed truth-seeker grows sore. One timid soldier that is with us does more harm in demoralizing the courageous and creating confusion in the ranks than fifty enemies in front of us on the field. Justin McCarthy tells us,28 in his ‘History of our Own Times,’29 how much of the difficulty in the way of the Anti-Corn-Law men came from their Whig friends who wanted to be moderate. He tells us how Mr. Macaulay,30 who professed to think with Bright and Cobden,31 and who did really think with them as soon as it became evident that their cause was going to be successful, wrote to his constituents thus: ‘In my opinion you are all wrong—not because you think all protection bad, for I think so too; not even because you avow your opinion and attempt to propagate it, for I have always done the same, and shall do the same; but because, being in a situation where your only hope is in a compromise, you refuse to hear of compromise; because, being in a situation where every person who will go a step with you on the right road ought to be cordially welcomed, you drive from you those who are willing and desirous to go with you half way. To this policy I will be no party.’ So, too, during the long and hope-sickening struggle for Catholic Emancipation in Ireland,32 who were the people that contributed most to thwart the efforts and damp the ardor of the brave and true reformers. Who but the half-a-loaf-is-better-than-no-bread men, the men of compromise, the men of moderation. Had these had their weak-minded way, Ireland might still be writhing with one arm caught in the cleft of Catholic Disabilities, a prey to the twin wolves of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Irish greed, as she was before the days of O’Connell.33 Space would fail me if I were to point out one-thousandth part of the instances, of which history is full, of the evils of an inopportune spirit of compromise when great rights are at stake; but anyone who has been a foe to slavery in the days when it was rampant, will remember how abortive all efforts at compromise were, on that question, between North and South, and how each feeble attempt only opened the way yet wider for the disaster in the midst of which the seemingly irremovable iniquity was finally swept from the face of the earth. Coming back to the particular wrongs of which I wish to speak – first, the wrongs of English rule, as it exists in Ireland; secondly, the wrongs of landlord rule, as it exists in Ireland—I have found, as far as my own experience goes, that the most insidious and most discouraging opponents I have had to deal with in argument in this country have been those who have begun by announcing themselves as holders of liberal views on all subjects, but at the same time as standing on a higher plane than flighty Radicals like John Stuart Mill34 and Herbert Spencer. John 297

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Bright, in their secret opinion, though it may be an opinion of which they themselves are only dimly conscious, has atoned for being a Radical by having been once a member of the English cabinet. M. Gambetta35 finds his justification for his democratic career in the fact that he is now President of the Chamber of Deputies, and will one day probably be President of France, and also partly in the fact that he makes war against the Jesuits—action which always finds favor in the eyes of the class of Liberals of whom I speak, who are generally Protestants first, and Christians afterwards. But what is there to be said for the striving, fighting soldier in the ranks of the present day, the Radical who has not yet been successful, who has nothing but scars for the past, wounds and bruises for the present, vague hopes for the future to show—no decorations, nor badges, nor trophies for the man whose birth perhaps is low, whose family no-where, who has to earn his living in the few hours of leisure he can snatch from his labors for reform. Fie on the Plebeian, with his provincial dialect, or his Scotch or Irish brogue! What terrible things are not whispered about him? That he once worked as a mechanic, or perhaps even as a day-laborer! Does the world of fashion receive him? Do the gentry and aristocracy support his principles? ~No; then let him by all means be suppressed as quickly as possible; he is a danger to society. I remember well the time when no respectable person dared so much as mention the name of Gambetta in a respectable French salon. To mention it with any approach to praising or defending him would have entailed social ostracism. When Joseph Arch,36 the land reformer, began his agitation in England, bishops and squires vied with each other in writing to the newspapers, suggesting summary modes of punishment to be inflicted on this dangerous fellow, such as duckings in horse-ponds, and so forth. O’Connell and John Bright, in the days of the Anti-Corn-Law agitation, shared between them every epithet of opprobrium that liberal and conservative newspapers alike could find to hurl at their heads. So nowadays the land reformers who head the present agitation in Ireland are denounced as endeavoring to excite an agrarian rebellion, because one or two fools, in a crowd of twenty thousand farmers, cry out for shooting landlords. So the same old story is ever repeated; the same abusive language is showered on the head of every leader of every new reform; the same combination of stolid conservatives, timid liberalists and Laodicean ‘moderates,’ who like to be called reformers, but do not want to do anything or risk anything in support of their professed principles, is formed from age to age against the small phalanx of single-minded men, enthusiasts if you will, who have accomplished everything with any good in it, ever since the world began. Only a few weeks ago a gentleman, a lawyer of intelligence, said to me, apropos of the land question in Ireland: ‘Are any of your family land-owners?’ I replied in the affirmative. ‘Then,’ he said, with an air of astonishment, not to say suspicion, ‘why do you and your family support the radical view of the land question? ‘I said—the only thing I could say—‘Because we respect the laws of justice, and feel that it will be better for us in the end to follow them, though it may apparently be to our disadvantage now.’ The look of astonishment on his face deepened, and 298

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I said no more; but I might have answered him in the words of Montalembert in his ‘Monks of the West,’37 ‘We are often asked what is the disposition upon which every guaranty of order, of security, and of independence invented by political wisdom is founded? What is the virtue, without which all these guaranties are ridiculous? It is, undoubtedly, that moral energy which inspires men with the ability and the desire to oppose themselves to injustice, to protest against the abuse of power, even when this injustice and this abuse do not directly affect themselves.’ In America it is too often the case that it cannot be understood why a man should support a principle or advocate a reform based on abstract justice, unless he has himself an ‘axe to grind.’ The above is only one specimen amongst many of the species of minds in which the reformer meets his worst foes—minds unable to conceive of any motives higher than those of self-interest in some shape or other. They doubt either the sincerity or the common-sense of any one professing to be guided by disinterested considerations. ‘A man,’ said an acquaintance to me the other day, in allusion to one of our Irish members of Parliament, who spends his money freely for the Nationalist cause, ‘a man who spends one-fifth of his income on himself, and the other four-fifths on an idea, is a lunatic, and should be put in an asylum.’ Happily for the world there have been, from time to time, people in it who were not of this gentleman’s way of thinking, or we should still be savages burrowing each one in his own hole in the ground, and sallying forth each one only to club his neighbor, who might be trying to secure the biggest fruit on the tree, or the most succulent roots in the earth; but such principles, relics of our days of naked barbarism, yet survive under the respectable names of ‘practical sense,’ ‘every-day wisdom,’ and so forth, in the minds of myriads of estimable people. To return to my subject, however, it has been a matter of continual amazement to me to see how, on coming down to the concrete in Irish questions, the most puerile objections are invariably urged against arguments that have stood the brunt of thousands of years—ever since man had a history, in fact—and the most childish questions are asked, showing the densest ignorance, not only of Irish and English history, but of all history, by persons setting themselves up as judges on all points of conflict between England and Ireland, and delivering themselves of those questions with the air of having forever silenced their opponents thereby. One of the most stereotyped questions, the inevitable question, in fact, supposed to be unanswerable, is, ‘Why should not Ireland be as content to remain united with England as Scotland is?’ This question needs only a perusal of the leading facts of Irish history for its answer. It is about as reasonable a question as if one were to ask, ‘Since a black cat and a tabby cat can get on very well together, why should not a cat and mouse?’ It is not the aim of this pamphlet, however, to answer the question. Anyone who takes the trouble to study the impartial pages of Lecky, in his ‘England in the Eighteenth Century,’38 can find out for himself all the reasons for Scotland’s contentedness and Ireland’s discontentedness; but there is another 299

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stereotyped interrogatory, with which I propose to occupy myself now, and that one runs thus: ‘How is it that the farmers of Ireland are so miserable, while the farmers of England, with precisely the same system of land tenure, are so prosperous?’ The equally stereo-typed answer which the propounders of this question make to themselves, and one which no amount of reasoning or proof will drive out of their Protestant and Anglo-Saxon heads, is, ‘Because the Irish farmers are Celts and Roman Catholics, and therefore have all the vices; and the English farmers are Anglo-Saxons and Protestants, and therefore have all the virtues.’ The stern logic of recent events has now in a great measure answered this question, as history always answers every question if it is only given time enough. It has answered it, too, in a very different manner from what the above-mentioned reasoners would have expected. Distress has spread to England. The agricultural laborers have become paupers; the farmers are fast becoming so too. Many have given up their farms, unable to make a living off them; many have left the country to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Everywhere the standard of comfort has been lowered, till it threatens to approach that of the Irish peasant, and an emigration movement is on foot which may assume gigantic proportions during the next few years. A little competition from owners of free land, a couple of poor harvests, and the English land system has toppled over, and threatens to overwhelm country gentry, farmers, and laborers alike in its ruins. We have seen only the beginning of agricultural distress in England; as the farmers have been the last to feel the pressure of hard times, so they will be the last to recover; and while good harvests may operate as a check on the advancing distress, they will only operate as a drag does on a carriage going down hill. The bottom of the hill will be assuredly reached at last, and the future of the English farmer, and therefore of England itself, will then depend upon whether the English gentry, like their prototypes, the French Legitimists,39 will still remain unable to learn anything or to forget anything, or whether some new John Bright or Richard Cobden will be able to squeeze from their necessities what their sense of justice would never have yielded. It is amusing, or would be so, were it not for the frightful suffering entailed on the poor by such selfish blunders on the part of the legislating classes, to hear how the voices of the landed proprietors are being gradually raised again for protection, under the thin disguise of reciprocity. ‘Starve the people, but keep our pockets filled,’ is their cry, and such has been the cry of a landed aristocracy in every age and every part of the world, with everywhere the same results. Crime, fever, famine, degradation almost to the level of beasts, for the victims, the toiling masses,—then, when time was ripe, revolution, bloodshed, and destruction for the oppressors— they who had sowed the wind reaping the whirlwind at last,—and this I will ask, when Nemesis strikes, who shall blame overmuch the tools she uses, whether they be Bohemian peasants, or French Jacobins, or German Communists, or Russian Nihilists, or Irish Ribbonmen,40 or English Chartists? The last friend of the people is Sansculottism,41 the avenger. ‘Where-fore,’ says Carlyle, ‘let all men know what of depth and of height is still revealed in man; and, with fear and wonder, with 300

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just sympathy and just antipathy, with clear eye and open heart, contemplate it and appropriate it; and draw innumerable inferences from it. This inference, for example, among the first: That, ‘if the gods of this lower world will sit on their glittering thrones, indolent as Epicurus’ gods, with the living chaos of ignorance and hunger weltering uncared-for at their feet, and smooth parasites preaching, peace, peace, when there is no peace,’ then the dark chaos, it would seem, will rise—has risen— and O Heavens! has it not tanned their skins into breeches for itself? That there be no second Sansculottism in our earth for a thousand years, let us understand well what the first was; and let rich and poor of us go and do otherwise.’ It is not my intention here to dilate on English poverty and its consequences; what I wish to draw attention to, in speaking of the condition into which England is falling, is simply the fact that only since the English farmers began to lift up their voices and form tenant-right leagues, with, as yet, far less cause for doing so than the Irish farmers have had for two hundred years, has the world in general begun to admit the folly of the British land system, and tardily to acknowledge that character alone will not make a man rich and thriving, unless the laws of his land are such as leave him free to employ his faculties to the best advantage, and moreover secure to him the enjoyment of his profits after he has earned them. The land-laws have never done this either in England or in Ireland; but the reason the English farmer, as long as he was not subjected to any stress of competition, has suffered so much less hitherto than the Irish farmer, lies not in the superiority of his character, but in the political history of his country. I am not one of those who think it a wise thing that Ireland should be forever dwelling on past grievances—ever repeating the story of the persecutions she has undergone since the days of Queen Elizabeth;42 not because these grievances have not been of the most terrible nature it is possible for the mind of man to conceive; not because these persecutions have not almost cast in the shade all persecutions of Protestants by Roman Catholics; not because Ireland’s wrongs can ever be forgiven by Ireland, except on the sole condition of the full restoration of her national autonomy, but because it seems to me that there are enough grievances in the present to occupy our whole attention, and that to dwell on past injustices, to the exclusion of existing ones, is to give the world cause to imagine that the memory of the past forms Ireland’s whole stockin-trade for her complaints, and that the roseate present is only marred by a spiteful brooding over events that the present generation of her English rulers are not to blame for, and have, as indeed they loudly assert, done everything they could to remedy. Such a view I have found readily adopted everywhere, and it is time that our Irish public men should cease to dilate on the crimes England committed when she could plead semi-barbarism as her excuse, and should instead bring before the notice of the world those she commits now that she claims to be wholly civilized. It is true that the word crime may seem strong when applied to those features of English rule which are at present most notable for their injustice, such as, to mention a few, the discrimination between Catholics and Protestants in the matter of higher education; the inequality of the franchise between England and Ireland, 301

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whereby a large class of property holders who have votes in England are disfranchised in Ireland; the corrupt and demoralizing government of ‘the Castle;’43 the disproportionately heavy taxation of Ireland, comparing its collective wealth with that of England and Scotland; the immense military constabulary kept up all over the country, in addition to the garrisons of soldiers, so that last year there were three thousand more policemen in Ireland than there were criminals; the system of packing juries and trying political cases by judges in the pay of the Crown, thereby causing the scandals so frequent in election times; of members of Parliament, elected by immense majorities, being unseated on petition, in order to put in candidates supporting the Government; and lastly, that which has above all things wrought the most evil in Ireland, the steady, remorseless, all-pervading system of postponing Catholics to Protestants, Celts to Saxons, the great bulk of the nation to a few hundred thousand colonists from England, in order to keep up by artificial means the Protestant ascendency, which, left to the force of nature, would long ago have given up the ghost. This method of the English Government leavens the whole mass of society in Ireland; wherever it is possible to prefer a Protestant to a Catholic, the preference is given, quite irrespective of any other considerations. Irish Catholics, in their own country, suffer at this day a kind of ostracism—political, civil, and social—the higher classes as well as the lower, in favor of a small number of men, secure in the possession of confiscated estates, and spending the money they draw from these estates in England, on the Continent, in America, anywhere and on anything but for the benefit of Ireland. As I said before, it may seem strong language to call these things crimes, but the effects they have produced on the country are so terrible that a less harsh term would be inadequate to convey a sense of the reprobation which such abuses should excite—which they would excite, were they not persistently glossed over by English writers and speakers, the only authorities on Irish questions that most persons think it necessary to consult. Not only the poverty, however, but the demoralization of the whole Irish people is due to these abuses, and to the many others which the fears of the English have from time to time compelled them to remove. Yet, though these latter have happily become matters of history, the evil they have done lives after them, and it is certainly not wonderful that a nation which up to the time of Gladstone’s Land and Church Acts44 was nothing in the world but a nation of beggars starved by law, and of serfs enslaved by law, should not in nine years have developed all the characteristics of self-reliance and dignity which, amongst more fortunate nations, are the slow growth of centuries of independence. Of course I do not for an instant admit that there is truth in the calumnies hurled so recklessly at the heads of the Irish by people who are stirred up by political jealousy or by religious bigotry. With the statistics of our country*45 showing year by year that it is freer from serious crime than any other country in the world, we can afford to smile at the charge so frequently made that we Irish are noted for our criminal propensities. In America, while the Irish are certainly somewhat prominent in minor offenses, committed usually under the influence of drink, a careful study of the police-court records 302

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does not show that the majority of murders and burglaries are committed by the Irish. There is another nationality which holds a bad pre-eminence in America as regards all these graver offenses. The truth is, however, that when a crime is committed by an Irishman, special attention is at once drawn to it by all the newspaper organs of that party which does not happen to be supported by the Irish vote at the time, and the isolated offense is made the foundation of a sweeping indictment against the whole race. This is done, not so much out of real antipathy to the Irish, but in order to discredit the party which is sustained by their vote. The Irish are not without blame in the matter, however. As long as, deluded by the lavish promises of office which are given before an election, promises which, it stands to reason, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, cannot be fulfilled, they vote stolidly and solidly for one political party, like a huge herd of sheep, they must expect that the other party, hopeless of gaining their support, will take no trouble either to conciliate them or do them justice, and will content itself with the small revenge of calling them names, while the party they do vote for, sure of being able to hoodwink them with promises when the time comes, regards them with that contempt which we all feel for creatures that we think we have just under our thumbs. A little independence on the part of the Irish voter would do more to raise his status in this country than the most immaculate behavior in points of morals. One party would no longer venture to revile him; the other party could no longer afford to despise him. While saying thus much in defense of the Irish, against the wholesale accusations framed against them by Know-Nothings46 and by persons who take all their opinions from the newspapers—and I might say a great deal more, but this would not be the place for it—it is, unhappily, impossible to deny that the abnormal political system in Ireland has produced a deep demoralization of a kind from which a nation recovers far less easily than from a temporary epidemic of crime or immorality. England has at several periods passed through such epidemics, and has recovered from them; but in Ireland there is a national hebetude, a deadly stupor, pervading the whole country, which makes of every man a desponding Rip Van Winkle,47 and which, as in an individual, so in a nation, must at all hazards be put a stop to, or death will ensue. The absence of serious crime is attributable to the religious influences to which the people are subject, but this deeper evil religion does not touch. Only those who have lived a long time in Ireland, and seen much, not only of the peasants and workingmen, but of the tradesmen, the merchants, the professional men, the literary men, and even the landed gentry themselves, can have an idea of the utter hopelessness, the utter indifference toward the future, the rooted despair which under-lie all the reckless jollity of the Irish manner. From the highest to the lowest one hears the same tale. There is nothing to be done in Ireland, no money to be made there, no chance of bettering one’s self or anyone else. The Irish lawyer must needs go to the English bar to make money; the Irish artist must sell his works in London; the Irish capitalist invests his capital abroad, because 303

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there are no enterprises in Ireland to put it into; the Irish tradesman drags along a painful hand-to-mouth existence, on the verge of bankruptcy all the time; the Irish landlord spends his money everywhere except in his own country, because there is no society there brilliant enough for his tastes, and because he likes to get away as far as possible from the sight of the misery around him, which disturbs his nerves, though it does not disturb his conscience; the Irish farmer—well, we know what his condition is, and also what that of the day-laborer is, on a magnificent salary of from seven to ten shillings per week, and we know how the power of arbitrary rent-raising, in a community where the competition for land is altogether abnormal, and not subject to the same checks as it is in other communities, has rendered the land-tiller spiritless and despairing, with no standard of comfort, no ambition to better himself, no desire to render more productive the ground he cultivates, for that, in his case, would only mean increased rent as his reward. In judging of the effects of landlordism in Ireland there are two truths in political economy to be borne in mind. The first is, that the reason the evils of the land-lord system have not been felt acutely until recently in a country like England, is to be found in the fact that industry and enterprise of every sort, untrammeled by hostile legislation from aliens, have been so flourishing that no large class of the population has been at any time thrown on agriculture for its sole subsistence. There being numberless gates open for the labor, the brains, or the money of an individual, no one would rent land unless he was sure of obtaining from it a rate of remuneration similar to what he would obtain in any other employment for which he was fitted; and having rented land, no one would invest money in improving it unless he was sure of a rate of profit equal to the general rate of profits to be obtained in other industries. This, of course, always acted as a natural check on the raising of rents, for if the landlord attempted to raise his rent beyond what the price of produce and the cost of farming warranted, the tenant had but to throw up his farm and devote his labor or his capital to some other kind of business. Not, of course, that this was always easy, but it was always at least practicable, and the effect has been, as I have said, that until within the last few years the rents in England have been at no time exorbitantly high, and the farmer has therefore lived at peace with his landlord. Contrast with this the situation of the Irish farmer. A long series of iniquitous laws, which anyone who chooses may make himself acquainted with in any history of Ireland, have crushed out the industries and manufactures of the country, from its woolen and linen trades even down to its mining industries. It is true that most of the prohibitions placed on every branch of trade have been removed, but it will take many years of diligent fostering and liberal pecuniary aid from the Government, such as is bestowed freely on Scotch industries, but which Ireland unfortunately does not seem likely to get, to repair the mischief which has been done. Even now, Ireland suffers from certain unreasonable prohibitions made in the interest of English revenues. The cultivation of tobacco, to which her soil and climate are peculiarly adapted, is forbidden by law, and, though it is also forbidden in England, as tobacco would not grow under any circumstances in the 304

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latter country, this prohibition is no hard-ship to the English, while it cuts off a fruitful source of wealth in Ireland. The germinating of wheat is also forbidden to Irish farmers, and while the fear of illicit distilling is made the pretext, it is not forbidden to English and Scotch farmers, amongst whom illicit distilling also prevails, especially amongst the latter. The jealousy of English manufacturers is ever on the alert, just as much as it was seventy or eighty years ago, to nip in the bud all Irish enterprises. If a factory is started in Ireland, an English company at once steps in, buys it out, and then—quietly shuts it up. With the present small minority of Irish members in the House of Commons, systematically voted down by an immense majority of English and Scotch members leagued against them,48 there is always danger that the influence in Parliament would be sufficient to force through it some form of hostile legislation to crush any rising industry in Ireland that promised well and excited the fears of English manufacturers. Ireland will never be safe from such legislation till she has her own parliament, and till then, the risk attending the investment of capital in Irish enterprises, both from the natural discontent and rebellious feeling in a country that is governed against its will, and held down in the position of a mere province when it ought to be a nation, and from the danger of this unfriendly legislation, will be too great to allow money to be drawn out which can be invested elsewhere with so much greater safety. From these causes, therefore, it results that the Irish tenant farmer, if he gives up his land, has nowhere to turn for a living. He has had no means of acquiring a capital, and such few avenues of labor as exist are already choked up. Emigration and the poor-house are his alternatives; what wonder if he sometimes resorts to assassination as a third alternative. It is true, agrarian murders have been very rare for the past nine years, showing that even such slight amelioration in the condition of the peasant as was effected by Gladstone’s Land Act has made his patient nature still more patient and long-suffering. It is a fact, which every agrarian crime committed of late years proves, that, with the exception of some Ribbon outrages during the worst days of Ribbonism, the Irish peasant does not assassinate save when driven to the direst extremity. Murder, of course, is never defensible, but there are ‘extenuating circumstances’ in these agrarian murders which it is a duty to point out when they are made the basis of a sweeping attack on a whole people. I will quote here Professor Fawcett’s49 remarks on the subject of the Irish tenantry, or, as he justly calls them, cottiers, for the majority are only cottiers, adopting his definition of the word, tenants possessing no capital. I refer the reader to the chapter on Metayers50 and Cottiers and economic aspects of tenant-right, in the ‘Manual of Political Economy.’ Professor Fawcett’s object is to show how inferior the position of the Irish tenant is, both to that of the metayer tenant on the continent, and the rack-rent tenant in England. The cottier tenure, he says, ‘has existed on a far more extended scale in Ireland than in any other country, for before the famine of 1848 nearly the whole of the 305

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land in Ireland was cultivated by cottiers, and even at the present time they occupy a very considerable portion of it. The cottiers of Ireland may be described as peasant cultivators; for they rent the land directly from the landlord, and cultivate it by their own labor. The produce of the land is therefore, as in the case of the metayer tenure, entirely divided between the landlord and the cultivator; but there is a fundamental difference between the metayer and the cottier tenure. The rent which the metayer pays is definitely fixed by custom; on the other hand, the rent which the cottier pays is entirely regulated by competition. Custom also generally gives to the metayer fixity of tenure, but no such fixity of tenure can be claimed by cottiers; they compete against each other for the possession of a plot of land, and the landlord is only anxious to obtain those tenants who will give him the highest rents. Now the rack-rents, which are paid by the large capitalist farmers in England, are regulated by competition, and it may therefore be asked—can there be any essential difference between rack-rents and cottier rents? There is this essential and very important difference; a rack-rent is determined by the competition of capitalists, whereas a cottier-rent is determined by the competition of laborers. The consequences of this distinction we will proceed to explain. When farmers apply large capitals, as in England, to cultivate their farms, they expect to obtain the ordinary rate of profit for their capital, and a reasonable remuneration for their labor of superintendence; it is therefore quite impossible that the rent paid by English farmers could long continue so high as to prevent the ordinary rate of profit being received, for if this were so, capital would not continue to be invested in farming, but would inevitably be applied in other employments, where the ordinary rate of profit could be secured. Back-rents, therefore, are kept as it were in a position of stable equilibrium by the competition of capital, for competition of capital signifies that men are eagerly anxious to invest their capital to the greatest possible advantage; and consequently, a rack-rent is in this matter so adjusted that farming is neither much more nor much less profitable than any other occupation. In the case, however, of a cottier tenancy, it is population, and not capital, which competes for the land. The Irish cottiers, for instance, are miserably poor peasants, who possess no capital except one or two tools and the scanty furniture of their wretched hovels. When, therefore, they compete for a plot of land, it is absurd to suppose that they calculate the rent which they are willing to pay, by considering whether their capital would secure a higher rate of profit in some other investment; they are themselves fit for no other employment, and all the capital they possess would scarcely realize more than a nominal sum. “To a cottier the possession of a plot of land is not a question of profit, but of subsistence, and consequently, in any district, the more numerous is the peasantry the more actively will the land be competed for. The peasantry of Ireland were so long accustomed to poverty that they were satisfied if they could occupy a plot of ground, and obtain from it just sufficient food to provide a bare subsistence; they had no habitual standard of comfort; every adult peasant married, and a want of food, with its consequent diseases, was the only check upon population. Such 306

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being the condition of the Irish peasantry, it may be naturally supposed that cottier rents were forced up to their highest possible point; the cottier could only obtain just sufficient to live upon, and the whole remaining product was paid to the landlord as rent. The pecuniary amount of these cottier rents may be regarded as merely nominal; a peasant was so anxious to obtain a plot of ground that he cared not what rent he offered for it; he well knew that the landlord, whatever was the nominal amount of rent, must leave him sufficient to live upon. And thus we learn, from the evidence taken before Lord Devon’s Irish Poor Law Commission,51 that the nominal amount of many of these cottier rents exceeded the whole produce which the land yielded, even in the most favorable season. The cottier was consequently in constant arrears to his landlord; the landlord had, of course, a legal right to distrain for the rent, but such remedy was of no value, for the whole property of the cottier was scarcely worth seizing. Neither could the landlord gain much by resorting to eviction, for the evicted tenant would only be replaced by another tenant of the same character, whose arrears of rent would accumulate with similar rapidity. Although eviction was the legal right of the landlord, yet he was restrained from exercising this right by the powerful motive of personal safety. Assassination not unfrequently punished an evicting landlord. The economic condition of no other country has ever been so unsatisfactory as was the condition of Ireland under the cottier tenancy, for the cottiers, having taken the land at a rent which it was impossible for them to pay, had no motive whatever to be industrious. If by skill and labor the land was rendered more productive, the increased produce was absorbed in the rent of the landlord. The rents were, in fact, fixed so high that whether the seasons were favorable or not, whether the land was well or badly cultivated, the cottier tenants could never expect to obtain for themselves any more than a bare subsistence; hence it has been justly remarked, that the Irish cottiers were the only people in the world whose condition was so deplorable that they gained nothing by being industrious. No scheme could possibly be devised which would act more effectually to impoverish the people, and throw the land into the most wretched state of cultivation. The progress of Ireland cannot be marked by a surer sign than by the gradual abolition of the cottier tenure.’ In this, on the whole, lucid and accurate description of the state of the Irish tenantry, Professor Fawcett makes, however, one or two mistakes which bear rather importantly on the conclusions to be deduced from the account he gives. First, he speaks of all this as if a great deal of it belonged to the past alone; but the fact is, the combined influences of the famine, the emigration to America, and Gladstone’s Land Act have improved matters so little that everything is pretty much the same as it was before 1847, except that Ireland is now very much underpopulated, in itself a great evil in any country, and that vast areas of land, formerly under cultivation, have fallen out of cultivation. It is a curious fact, and one only to be explained by the continuance of bad laws and of a hated foreign government, with the political unrest which the latter naturally produces, that the immense diminution in the population since 1847 has neither had the effect of lessening to 307

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any appreciable extent the competition in land, nor of raising, except very slightly, the wages of the working classes. The industries of Ireland, never very flourishing, have grown less and less so since the famine; they have decreased with the decrease in the population, and, consequently, there being a diminished demand for labor, wages have not risen spite of the scarcity of laborers. The cottier tenure, moreover, exists still in all its worst features over by far the larger part of the country. The farmer is still, as a rule, one who cultivates the ground himself with the assistance of his family. Where the farms are larger in extent, he has, in the busy season, one or two miserably paid laborers under him, but the essential fact that makes him a cottier tenant remains undisturbed, viz., that he possesses little or no capital, and, as Fawcett shows so well above, never can possess it. Gladstone’s Land Act, it is true, provides compensation for unexhausted improvements when the tenant is evicted, provided they were made not more than twenty years previously, but as I shall show by some remarkable cases that took place in Ireland about two years ago, that compensation is often entirely inadequate and a mere mockery of the tenants; it provides compensation for disturbance, except in case of eviction for non-payment of rent, and thus puts a direct premium on the practice of arbitrary rent-raising, for as soon as the tenant, by dint of hard labor, is beginning to obtain more than a mere subsistence of the most frugal kind from his land, the landlord at once steps in and raises the rent, and the refusal or the inability to pay—the tenant having perhaps contracted debts, which he expected to pay off from the increased produce of his ground—puts the tenant outside the pale of compensation. Were the landlord deprived of the power of arbitrarily raising his rents, this provision in the Land Act would, of course, be perfectly just; as it is, it has caused more evictions than any amount of arrears of rents, and statistics unfortunately show that evictions have been steadily on the increase ever since the passing of the Land Act. Secondly, Mr. Fawcett makes an obvious error, natural perhaps to an Englishman, when he gives as one of the reasons why Irish peasants cannot resort to other means of obtaining a living, that ‘they are themselves fit for no other employment.’ The truth is that, owing to the dreadful condition of the country ever since the union, there has been no other employment for them. The simple spectacle of the enormous labors executed by the hands of these same peasants in America—labors by which they have built up the country, and extended and established civilization everywhere on this immense continent—gives the lie to this thoroughly English assertion. As pioneers, miners, masons, mechanics, artisans, engineers, trades-men, merchants, manufacturers, journalists, lawyers, physicians, orators, legislators, commanders of fleets and armies, governors of cities and states, and presidents, these despised Irish peasants and their offspring have shown for what employments they are fit, when they only ‘get a chance.’ Mr. Fawcett makes a third mistake when he says that the peasant ‘well knew that the landlord, whatever was the nominal amount of the rent, must leave him sufficient to live upon.’ Unhappily, what was and is too often left the tenant is just enough to die slowly on. Every year, numerous deaths, attributable to nothing but 308

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slow starvation and the ravages of diseases brought on by the want of food, clothing and fuel, attest the fact that the peasant frequently cannot get enough out of his land, after the rent is paid, even to live upon. The English and many of the American newspapers are shouting out communism! incendiarism! because a speaker at a tenant-right meeting in Ireland, a short time ago, advised the farmers to pay only to their landlords as rent, what was left after they had fed and clothed themselves. Surely, when one considers the kind of food and clothing the Irish farmer is satisfied with, this would seem the most reasonable of propositions. But no! unless the tenant submits to the pangs of slow starvation, in order to pay his landlord’s rent, he is a communist and a robber! Is not this poor political economy, as well as poor Christianity? How can a nation be prosperous, when seven-tenths of it are starving? The laws of political economy promote the acquisition of wealth—how can that be true political economy which promotes nothing but poverty? Professor Fawcett says also that the landlord could find no remedy for non-payment of rent either in distraint or eviction. These are the words of a man who has had little practical acquaintance with the ‘realities of Irish life.’ So far from the landlord getting no relief by eviction, it has always been his direct interest, if he finds his rents low, to raise them as quickly as possible to the point at which, as Fawcett says, ‘they exceeded the whole produce which the land yielded, even in the most favorable seasons.’ The tenant being then, of course, utterly unable to pay, even though he starved himself to death to do so, the landlord at once had his excuse for doing what he had been aiming at all along, namely, evicting his tenant, and turning the farm into a sheep or cattle-walk. This paid him a higher rate of interest than having tenants, before the competition of American beef became so severe, and allowed him to dispense with the necessity of employing laborers, as he would have had to do had he undertaken to farm his land him-self. After the famine this spectacle was seen on every side, and soon bore bloody fruit in the shape of Ribbonism. Then at last the fear of assassination caused the landlords to pause, but not till after three millions of people had been ‘exterminated,’ and their places filled with cattle. It is true, the thing still goes on, and of late years it has increased, owing to the fact that Ribbonism has completely died out, and agrarian outrages being very ‘few and far between,’ the landlords feel that they can evict with impunity. The wild spirit of revenge that blazed in the bosom of the Irish peasant in former less civilized days, has been quenched by advancing civilization and the extraordinarily rapid progress of education in Ireland during the last twenty years, but this check on evictions being removed, it is all the more necessary that every form of legal coercion should be used in its place. Political agitation carried to its utmost constitutional extent, and the most unwearied efforts to awaken public opinion and the public conscience, are now more than ever necessary, or, spite of civilization, we can expect nothing but a relapse into the old barbarous methods of punishment inflicted on barbarous landlords. It is certain that if a few thousand landlords are to be allowed to evict and expatriate several millions of farmers, there must be some great radical blunder underlying 309

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the system which permits it, for ‘the greatest good of the greatest number’ is one of the first principles of political economy, and here we have the law seeking, not the greatest good of the greatest number, but the greatest good of the smallest number, on true Conservative principles. ‘For empires or for individuals,’ says Carlyle, ‘there is but one class of men to be trembled at; and that is the stupid class, the class that cannot see, who, alas! are they mainly that will not see.’ And what if the stupid class be also the legislating class, the governing class, governing with regard alone for its own supposed interests, and a complete disregard for the good of the governed masses, with an ignorance that it does not care to correct, of what is necessary for that good, and with, to crown all, not merely an indifference, but a positive aversion toward those who are helpless under its rule, and who, in addition to being in a lower class in life, belong to a despised nationality, and hold fast to a detested religion ? The second truth in political economy, which it is essential to keep in view when dealing with the Irish land question, is this most important one, which I find, strange to say, almost universally overlooked by the professed followers of Adam Smith. It is quite true that competition in all branches of industry should be unrestricted by law, but only so long as free competition does not militate against the general good of the community. This principle is everywhere adopted by governments, and it is this which furnishes the excuse for protection—whether erroneously or not, it is not my object now to attempt to decide. Governments frequently conclude that it will be eventually for the benefit of the whole community if consumers are deprived for the time being of their undoubted right to buy in the cheapest markets. No one will deny that if protection be really a benefit to the general public, governments are quite justified in setting up counteracting influences to the freedom of competition. Whether Protection be so or not is of course another matter. In like manner the rights of private individuals are curtailed, and they are deprived of portions of their property, with compensations that may or may not be sufficient, in order that works may be prosecuted, such as railroads and canals, which are for the public good. When there is a famine in a country it is considered quite justifiable on the part of the government to forbid the exportation of grain; or when a war is contemplated which is supposed to be necessary, the exportation of ammunition and horses is forbidden. In innumerable cases are the rights of property-holders and traders thus set aside, and no cry is raised of communism or of spoliation. The same rule applies with much greater force to property in land. Unlike other articles of merchandise, which are practically susceptible of infinite reproduction, land cannot be reproduced—not one inch, not one hair’s-breadth can be added to it; like the air we breathe, it cannot be manufactured, and to claim unlimited rights of private property in it is even more absurd than if someone were to try and set up a monopoly of a portion of the atmosphere, on the plea that he had bought it with his money; for no matter how great the population of the world, the atmosphere is practically inexhaustible, and there will always be enough for everyone to 310

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breathe—in the present geological era at any rate—but not so with land. There is not enough land to entitle any individual to exercise unrestricted powers over any single piece of it. Every person who attempts to do so is nothing more or less than a robber. The land everywhere is common property, and the individuals who hold it, hold it only in trust for the public. There can no more exist property in land than there can exist property in human beings, and he who pays his money for land pays it simply for the privilege of holding it as a trust. To him belong absolutely the fruits of his labor and capital spent on the land, but nothing more, and if at any time it should be necessary, for the good of the community, to take his land from him, while paying him whatever compensation may be judged equitable, the government is not only justified in doing so, but is under an imperative obligation to do so, and if it does not, it is, in so far, a bad government. Of course any other kind of property may also be taken, but the arguments in favor of such a course are much more powerful in the case of land. M. de Laveleye, the celebrated Belgian economist,52 in elucidating his theory that every man has a natural right to possess property in land, and that, consequently, there can be no such thing as absolute property in land for any one, speaks thus:*53 “We occupy an island where we live on the fruits of our labor; a shipwrecked person is cast on it. What is his right? Can he say, invoking the unanimous opinion of writers on jurisprudence: ‘You have occupied the land in virtue of your title as human beings, because property is the condition of liberty and of culture, a necessity of existence, a natural right; but I, also, am a human being; I have also a natural right to maintain. I may therefore occupy, in virtue of the same title as you, a corner of this land, in order that I may live on it from my labor.’ If one does not admit that this claim is well founded, there is then nothing to do but to throw the shipwrecked man back into the sea, or, ‘in justice,’ says Malthus,54 ‘to leave to nature the task of ridding the earth of him, there having been no place laid for him on it.’ ‘Certainly, if he has not the right to live from the fruits of his labor, he has still less right to live from the fruits of the labor of others, in virtue of a pretended right to assistance. Doubtless we can help him or give him a salaried employment, but this is an act of benevolence, it is not a juridical solution. If he cannot demand a portion of productive capital to live from by his labor, he has no rights at all. He who lets him die of hunger does not violate justice. Is it necessary to say that this solution, which seems to be that of the official school of jurists and economists, is contrary to all innate sentiments of justice, to natural law, to the primitive legislation of all peoples, and even to the principles of those who adopt it?’ Thus far M. de Laveleye. And certainly it seems reasonable that if a man has no right to cultivate a portion of the earth that he may live—if this right can be arbitrarily taken away from him, that the land he cultivates may be turned into a sheepwalk or a grouse preserve—then neither has he any right to receive state charity, and the government that taxes property-holders for poor-rates is committing a 311

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most outrageous piece of robbery. As Laveleye says, our only duty to the shipwrecked man is to throw him back into the sea; but this would be returning to the state of barbarism in which we see wild beasts, for cattle, acting on the principle that those amongst them which cannot take care of them-selves are useless and noxious, will horn to death a sick or wounded cow, and wolves will fall on and devour any one of their number that is injured. To follow the rules of the official school of political economists, therefore, man must go back to his primeval state, when he was without sense of right or wrong, and without religious feeling. I am not sure that the Sermon on the Mount would not prove a better guide to the professed aim of political economy, the greatest good of the greatest number, than the doctrine that, as it is only the fittest who survive, people must prove their claim to being the fittest to live by leaving all who are weaker than themselves to perish. In Russia and Germany the principles formulated by Laveleye have been acted on, and in Russia the land has been partly, in Germany entirely, taken by the government from the great landed proprietors, and given to the tenants. In France the same process has been accomplished by a revolution, and the landed proprietors have received no compensation. The French revolution remains as a terrible example and warning to all landlords for ages to come. It is useless to talk contemptuously of the ignorant masses, of a brute majority, etc. The brute majority will always end by getting what it wants, and is therefore by no means to be despised by a helpless and equally ignorant aristocracy. If the brute majority cannot get what it wants by the suffrage, then it will get it by revolution- You may talk with indignation of the ‘low rabble’ demanding as a right, what in your opinion they should only entreat as a boon. Nevertheless, if you, the educated upper classes, do not meet the rabble at least half-way in their demands, preposterous as they may seem to you, the rabble will overwhelm you at last, and, strange to say, out of the ruins of your over-throw will rise up a new state of things, which succeeding generations may even consider a better one, just as the state of France, after the revolution, was in every respect superior to her state before the revolution. All through history, it is the mob (so called) that really ends by winning. In the warfare of plebeian against patrician, it is the plebeian that, though often crushed, invariably scores the final victory. The blind instinct of the multitude, pushing onward, and upward, often wrong, but much of tenant right, is one of the most powerful of God’s instruments of civilization for the world. It reminds the minority, which constitutes the upper classes, of what it would otherwise be only too glad to forget, that with the accidental privileges of greater education, greater intelligence, greater wealth, and so on, go stern duties,—that its wealth and its intelligence exist only in order to be employed for the good of those who are, accidentally also, less gifted with either one or the other ; finally, that if it neglects to perform its duties, if it begins to fancy that its gifts are to be used for its own good alone, the great threatening majority everywhere around it will inflict terrible punishment on it. Well has the mob been christened King Mob. It is truculent 312

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and violent, like a raging torrent that has burst its bounds. At first it sweeps away everything it meets, but after a time, when its violence subsides, the earth is made all the more fertile and smiling for it. When the great conservative influence, which we may not inaptly christen King Log, has long been called upon in vain to reform an abuse, then King Mob rises in his might, and sweeps both the abuse and King Log away, and out of what seems universal wreck comes progress. But the rough justice of King Mob is a last and terrible remedy; it is like the starvation cure in medicine, which reduces a man to death’s door in order to destroy as far as possible all the old diseased molecules of his body, and build him up a new and healthy body. Less tremendously radical ways of regenerating the political system should be tried first, and it is to be hoped that as liberal ideas become more extended, and the upper classes more enlightened, recourse to this remedy by a people will become less and less frequent. In Ireland, where the people are slow to rise, rebellion, like Ribbonism, will, we trust, be soon a thing of the past. But for this desirable end it is not the education of the lower classes that is needed in Ireland, but the education of the upper ones. Take two young men, both members of an Irish gentleman’s family, send one to be educated in an English upper-class college, the other in an Irish upper-class college. The one who is educated in England stands a fair chance of coming home with his mind full of liberal principles, while the one educated in the Irish college will almost certainly return imbued with the narrowest Toryism. To the ordinary hostility between rich and poor is added in Ireland the animosity produced by the upper classes being of different blood and different religion, and by the long record of persecution and oppression which marks the relations between patrician and plebeian there for centuries past. With this intense narrow-mindedness on the part of the upper classes, and an intense sense of wrong on the part of the lower classes, it may seem difficult to see how rebellion is to be avoided for the future. Indeed, it may yet be that the unnatural bond between England and Ireland is to be severed by the sword, but until the chances of success are very great, it would seem that it is the duty of every lover of Ireland to try and prevent abortive risings, which bring each time untold misery upon the country. Vigorous constitutional agitation against abuses is perhaps the best method that can be devised for keeping in check the fierce passions of the populace. Where this is interdicted, the smouldering fire of disaffection is always ready to leap into flames. In agitation it finds a safety-valve. The Irish are a patient race, and if their hopes can only be fully aroused that there is really a prospect of good to be obtained from constitutional action, they will be ready to give it a fair chance, and await results. Still, the words of O’Connor Power, member of Parliament for Mayo,55 were pregnant with meaning when he said, while addressing a monster tenant-right meeting, “It is better for the government to give way to the pressure of agitation, than to give way to the pressure of rebellion.” To one or other of these forms of pressure every government in the world has always had eventually to yield, for we know the familiar axiom, and especially in Ireland have we realized its truth, that every government will be as bad as it dares be. 313

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There is a story in the Scandinavian which tells how a certain king, named Frothi, once bade his two slaves grind him gold. They ground on and on for many years, giving him huge piles of treasure. At last they grew weary, and begged for rest. But the king was greedy, and bade them grind on. So, weary as they were, they continued to grind, till at last, instead of gold, an army of men poured out from the quern. These fell upon King Frothi and slew him.56 What I intended to show by some cases which took place not over two years ago, that the provision in Gladstone’s Land Act for compensation for unexhausted improvements made not more than twenty years previously, is frequently quite futile. I will proceed to cite, in proof of this assertion, certain proceedings in a famous suit for libel, brought against a Mr. Sarsfield Casey,57 for censures made by him on the conduct of an individual named Buckley,58 a land speculator, who had bought up from a land company a large property, called the Mitchelstown Estate, the greater part of which consisted of mountain and bog land, which had been entirely reclaimed by the tenants, without any assistance whatever from landlords. The work of reclamation had been a long and very difficult one, and had extended over several generations, during which the holdings had been handed down from father to son. The rents, as fixed by the last landlord who held the estate before it passed into the hands of the land company, were low, compared to what fertile land fetches in Ireland, but not at all low when compared to the real value of the land, which, spite of the fifty or sixty years’ labors of reclamation spent on it, was still very barren, and not susceptible of being made more productive. It was such land as in England a farmer would pay a merely nominal rent for, and the rents actually paid for which in Ireland only left the tenant the usual bare subsistence, with which the Irish farmer is compelled to be satisfied. Any higher rent meant starvation or the work-house. On entering into possession of this estate, Mr. Buckley, who had bought it cheap from the land company, determined to get twelve or fifteen per cent, interest for his money, and sent down a person already notorious in such congenial tasks, named Patten Bridge,59 a former henchman of the infamous bankrupt, James Sadleir, to revalue the land, with the assistance of another “bird of a feather,” named Walker. Patten Bridge’s instructions were to raise the rents as high as possible in every case, and in valuing the land, only to take into account in the tenant’ s favor such improvements as had been made inside of five years previously! All other improvements were to be made the basis of a rise in rents. Of course, this was pure confiscation, and so Mr. Sarsfield Casey said. Bridge and Walker succeeded entirely to their own satisfaction, and the rents of the Mitchelstown tenantry, already poor and miserable to a frightful degree, from the fact that their former rents, low as they were, left them nothing that they could save over for years of bad harvests, were raised all round from fifty to five hundred per cent. On the tenants declaring their inability to pay, notices to quit were served on them. Here it will be seen how Gladstone’s Land Act failed to compensate the tenants for the improvements which had been made both by them and their ancestors. To use the expression of the Dublin Nation, the land had 314

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virtually been created by the tenants; the improvements extended backward for nearly a century, and as they comprised the entire reclamation of the land, were still unexhausted, and never could be exhausted as long as the soil was kept under cultivation at all. The principle of compensation for unexhausted improvements made within twenty years before, was here clearly absurd. For the rest of the hardship and injustice attending this case, I will let some of the evidence given at the libel trial speak for itself. The report of the proceedings I have taken from the Dublin Nation of the 8th Dec, 1877, which, in its turn, quotes from the Daily Express, the Freeman’s Journal, the Irish Times, etc., papers of various shades of politics.60 Michael Regan, a comfortably clad man, but worn looking, in reply to Mr. Porter, deposed that he, and his father before him, had held 47 Irish acres of mountain land on the estate. They reclaimed it without help from the landlord. They had to blast rocks with gunpowder, and bury big stones, remove others, and get rid of the heather. There was a house on the holding which his father built, and rebuilt another. They got a little timber for one house from Mr. Brogden, who was formerly agent. When there was no road, limestone had to be carried up in panniers on the horse’s back. Some of the land was now fair enough, other parts of it were hard and rocky. Very bad black oats grew on the holding. His family consisted of himself, his wife, and ten children. They had potatoes, bad or good, stirabout,61* and “everything that came next to hand that they could get.” The old rent was £5 19s. 6d. It had been raised to £15 16s. 6d. He never agreed to pay it, because he was afraid he could not, and he told that to Mr. Bridge and to Mr. Buckley. He was under notice to quit now. Crossexamined by Mr. Heron.62—He had a quarter of an acre of turnips last year, and an acre of bad meadow. He had six cows and six yearling heifers, and three calves. The yearling heifers were very small and bad. Pat Kelly, examined by Mr. Roche, deposed—I have a farm at Kiltankan, containing 19 Irish acres. I have been on the farm since I was born, and I am 55 years of age. What sort of land was it when you first knew it.—A bad sort of land, as it is now. Half of it is in marsh, and the rest is poor, dry land. The nine acres or so are very wet. I have got oats out of the land, and potatoes we set, but we seldom have any potatoes. I only recollect twice in twenty years having had enough. I have three cows. The whole yield of butter is about four firkins.63 I have seven children. When Walker came I had a conversation with him. I brought him a letter from a neighboring parson, asking him to consider the poorness of the place, and not to raise the rent. What conversation had you with Mr. Walker?—Well, I said, I supposed it was to raise the rent he was there, inasmuch as he came without my sending for him. All he said was, why should it not be raised, because the times were better now than some former times. 315

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What did you say? – I said, sure it was easier for my father to pay the present rent than it was for me, and he asked me to show was it easier for my father to pay the rent in his day than it would be for me. I said the rise in labor now, and the want of fuel, and want of provisions, with me, were things that he had not to contend with at all, and that I had, and that was more than a match for the increase of a few firkins of butter. I said if he raised the rent, what would I do for the children. What did he say to that? – He said, “Why did we get them?” What did you say to that? – I said it was a question against nature. I am getting into debt every year. The Lord Chief-Justice. – You are getting worse and worse, Mr. Roche. Do you work hard? – I do, myself and the children. And yet you are getting into debt ? – I am. What was your old rent? – £12 8s. 6d. What is the new rent? – £20 10s. Is the farm worth the increased rent? – I am not sure to be able to pay the old rent at present prices and support my family. I cannot for the new rent and live on that farm. Have you been served with notice to quit? – I have, with three of them, at different times. I got the first two or three years ago, and the second some time after that. Has there been an ejectment on these notices to quit? – No. Did it expire in September just passed? – Yes, I would rather leave than pay the increase. Cross-examined by Sergeant Armstrong. – My rent was never £20 10s. 6d. I own part of a house at Mitchelstown, which I got through the death of a friend. I have laid out money on it, and I have given orders to an auctioneer to sell it, as I cannot keep it. I have a tenant in it; he is paying £16 a year. I laid money out lately on it to the extent of £30, but there is a mortgage on it. I have seven or eight hens, and some pigs. I get £3 4s. or £3 5s. per firkin for butter. I have four heifers, twenty bovines, no store pigs, three sows, 1 acre of oats, about two acres of potatoes, and five or six acres of meadowing. I never use fowls for myself, or anything else that is good. 316

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Re-examined. – I am hopelessly in debt, and I cannot get out of it. Denis Murphy, a tall, gaunt man, who gesticulated excitedly when giving his evidence, was next called and examined by Mr. Butt.64 Are you a tenant on Mr. Buckley’s estate? – I am. How much land do you hold? – Mr. Bridge told me I held 10 acres. What old rent did you pay? – At the time that the Land Company bought this property from the Right Hon. the Earl of Kingston, we were in unity and peace. What rent did you pay to the company? – The company’s agent, my lord, which was Mr. Langford Rea, Esquire, came in the year 1854, my lord, and gave me and my partner notices to quit. Well, that was a thunderbolt to me, because to the Right Hon. George, Earl of Kingston, I or my father never was one farthing in debt. Well, what rent did he make you pay? – Because I was not able to stand law with him I submitted, and said he might take my case into his sympathy and humanity. Just answer my questions, and then I will ask the Lord Chief Justice to let you say something for yourself. What did you pay to the Land Company? – £3 1s. 6d. per year. Has Mr. Bridge asked you to pay more? – Goodness me, sir, he broke my neck and my back. What rent is he asking from you? – £6 15s., double £3 7s. 6d, and must be paid, or the crowbar will be applied to the corner stone and level it, and leave me like a raven in the world. Have you paid the increased rent? – Ah sure, God help me, I have, and neglected myself in every form, through food and raiment. What effect has the payment of that increased rent had. You said something about your raiment and food? – I will tell you that. Tell it quietly. – That when this rent was doubled upon me I knew the result, and I pawned my body coat, a frieze coat,65 my lord, in order to be up to the rent, and there it went from that day until this from me, in the year 1874, and I never saw it since. 317

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You have never been able since to get your coat out of pawn? – No, sir; because when the term fixed by the pawn-office was passed, it was sold. Was it to pay the increased rent that you pawned your coat? – It was just as I told you; I am on my oath. Could you have paid that increased rent without pawning your coat? – I could not, unless I mortgaged the land. How many have you in family? – I have my wife, and I had nine children. There are three of my children in America. When they saw this charge made upon me, they said that when they were in their youthful bloom, they would never suffer such destitution, and they advised me to go to America. But after the hardships and destitution to myself and my brother and my father, who is in the grave, bringing the limestone in a basket on his back, I would not. And there is not a man, my lord, in the world that is able to describe mountain land like a man who toils on it, neither a Walker nor a Bridge, and it is a scrupulous thing, my lord, that any gentle-man of decent appearance should see hungry and naked creatures (with great energy) because, my lord, I am as healthy as any man in the court-house, and my visage can show I am starving for want of food. Since you agreed to pay that increased rent, have you yourself had sufficient food? – Upon my oath, I had nothing but Indian meal stirabout, and I would be very glad to subsist upon Swedish turnips, which it was never decreed by Almighty God a human creature should subsist on. After eating a bellyful of it, I would not be able to go ten perches66 through weakness. Have your family been living on the same? – In part they have, and not as much as I have, because many is the journey and the toil and the hardship that I should go; but still and all my food was insipid and weak. Do you mean to tell me that was the ordinary subsistence of your family for the last three years? – Indeed it was. Had you ever a meal of meat? – Musha,67 God help me and my meat! I did not; I did not eat it at the last festival; that was in September. It is a doleful thing to tell you, I did not taste a bit of meat, because I had not money to buy it. Has your wife been at service? – When I was put to this difficulty – surrounded, my lord – I said, “Well, after my father’s sweat and my own, God is good,” said I, “and now,” said I, “you may go for a year in service, in order that we may keep it, sooner than be turned away into the work-house, and while you are able

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to work, you can get better food there than in this farm.” She condescended, my lord, to my advice, and went into service. Is she at service now? – She is at home in her own cabin. What kind of a house have you? how many rooms? – None but the one. Is the roof a good one? – It is, but the thatch is wretched, and reed is too dear, and my land don’t grow corn.* 68 Is your land high up on the mountain? – Oh then, it is so high and the cliffs and glens getting into it, that if you stayed in it and looked down, “Niagara megrims”69 would come into your head, and you would fall down. You are a good way up the mountain? – Oh, I am too far up. You remember when your father took this land? – No. How long do you remember it? – I remember it since the year 1821. In what state was the land? – Oh, dear knows; with the exception of two fields he reclaimed, I saw heath that grew up to my knees. I suppose you heard from your father who reclaimed the two fields? – It was himself; there is not a house or a home there, only just as there is on Mount Ararat. Will you tell me how you reclaimed that land? – To go to the limestone quarry that was on the lowland, and to fill, my lord, a little donkey car; to fill about six crot;70 to drive on till we began to get against the steep hill; to unload a portion of it until we got to another cliff; to unload a portion again, and in the long run you would not know what color was the horse, only white, like the day he was foaled, with sweat; and upon my oath, there would not be more than one crot, when it reached the kiln, to reclaim this barren mountain. We had nothing but a spade and a pickaxe, and we had to get powder to blast the rocks. I would be willing to forfeit the ten acres and three quarters for the gentlemen of the jury to see the place I am living in. Are there stones there? – Upon my oath, man, there are – stones bigger than the bench the Chief Justice is sitting on. How did you do with the rocks? – A crowbar should raise them, and a stout man with an iron sledge in his hand, and the greatest bully of a man had enough to do to make quarters of three big rocks in a day, and indeed, my lord, it was not on Indian meal stirabout he could do it.

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After having removed the stones, what did you do with the heath? – To dig it with a spade and turn it into the ground, to come then with the quick-lime burnt in the kiln, and to shake a little dust of that on it. Well, then, with a quantity of little manure, by pulling some heath, and laying it opposite the door of the barn, and then spreading it over the ground, and so help me God, if you dug a sod of that stuff, and were strong enough to throw it over this great building, where it would fall it would be as stiff as when you cut it out of the farm. How long should you work? – Dear knows, from the rising of the sun till the going down. Did you get any assistance from the landlord? – No, no more than you did. Or from the company? – Ah, nonsense, no more than we got from God and our own industry. You were not able to give it as much lime as it required? – Yes, that is it. You say that your three children went to America? – Steered to America. Was that in consequence of your condition by being made to pay the increased rent? – Sure it was, unless they went about the country with their spades on their shoulders, and now I ask you, who would give them hire? Were you going to America yourself at the time? – No. Nor I am to-day. I would sooner die where I am today. If I had the courage of a man, it would be better for me; but now, when I am worn down, let me sink or swim. I have no chance now, while God leaves me the life. Eight tenants were next examined in succession. Johanna Fitzgerald, a poorlyclad woman with a child in her arms, swore she was not able to pay the old rent which had been raised from £2 14s. 4d. to £4 4s. She had no money to buy a drop of milk for her children, when leaving on the previous morning. Patrick Burke deposed that he had got only one frieze coat for fifteen years, and that he had to pawn for 4s.; he was not able to pay even the old rent, in consequence of which he ran into debt. Terence Murphy swore that he and his father reclaimed his holding; he was not able to pay the increased rent; he had always to buy food; he had often sown oats which did not ripen at all. He had got a “red” ticket for medical relief. Thomas Kearney said his potatoes were no potatoes at all, for “they would fly out of his hands when he came to peel them,” and he and his family had to live on yellow meal stirabout for nine months in the year. It was so cold on the mountain side that oats would

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not ripen, and was all chaff. He had not thrashed oats for twelve years; he had to cut it green and throw it to the cows. He could not pay his new rent, which was £17 10s., the old being £5 14s. 6d. John Duggan was working at the reclamation of the farm when he was not nine years old; drained his garden for seven years to prepare it for a crop; remembered the former agent of the property attempted to reclaim it and failed; had his rent raised from £2s. 8d. to £6 16s.; he could not pay the old rent but for his father, who was in a foreign country. Patrick Kearney said when long ago he tilled a streak of his farm, “there was a heap of stones the height of yourself, some of them three tons’ weight, large and small;” almost a bridge was made across the glen, such a heap of stones was thrown out; the potatoes were so bad this year they were hardly worth digging; goats in other places were as good as the cows we had; he could hardly pay his old rent, £1 8s., not to talk of the new rent, £3 3s. 6d. James Maguire swore he got his farm, wild mountain, covered with stones and heather. Darby Naish said his father broke his heart reclaiming his holding; he paid the new rent (having got 25s. reduction), rather than be thrown out or put into the work-house. The next witness was Mr. Rearden, President of the Cork Farmers’ Club.71 He was examined by Mr. Butt, Q. C. – I live about eight miles from the City of Cork, and have a good deal of land. I know a good deal about it. I am President of the Cork Farmers’ Club. I believe you were asked to visit the property of Mr. Buckley? – Yes, I did visit it. Were you accompanied by any other person? – Yes, by Mr. O’Flaherty of Limerick, Mr. Byrne of Wallstown Castle,72 and some other gentlemen. Where did you go to on Mr. Buckley’ s estate? – I went up to Skeheenarinka first, and took some notes of what I saw. The Lord Chief Justice. – Is that recently? Witness. – Not much more than a week ago. Could you form a judgment how far Skeheenarinka is above the sea? – I don’t know how many feet, but it is a rather high mountain. Some of Skeheenarinka is high up on the mountain, and some down below. I went up the hill first, and then right across. As to the general character of the land, say what it appeared to you to be? – A pure mountain, almost worthless in my estimation for any agricultural purposes, without expending an immense lot of money on it.

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Is it generally cultivated? – Attempts have been made at cultivating a considerable portion of it, and it is cultivated, some of it. What was the state of that cultivation, as you saw it? – There were patches of potato field and some stubble. Had you sufficient opportunity for judging of that soil? – Yes, we dug up some of it repeatedly. What was the nature of that soil generally where you saw the patches of cultivation? – The surface appeared a little dark, but down lower it was a wretchedly bad sub-soil, that required a good deal of time and care to bring it fit for growing any crop that would pay; it had been manured, of course. How deep was the upper soil? – About six inches in some places, and more in other places, and in other places hardly anything at all. And what was the subsoil generally? – Coarse sand, and in other places a tough marl. What value for the purpose of agriculture would you set on such as you saw there? – I would not set any value on it; I think 1s. an acre would be as much as it would be worth. I don’t mean the low portion or the foot of the mountain. The Lord Chief Justice. – What would you say was the value of that which had been reclaimed? – I would set very little value on that, although considerable capital had been expended on it in the way of labour, 2s. an acre would be quite enough for it, in my opinion. Mr. Butt. – Lower down, was the land a little better? – Yes. What kind of soil was there lower down? – It was not so stony, and better in every way. Did you inquire from the tenants what the old rents were? – I did. Assuming that they told you truly, was the old rent the value of it? – Quite enough in my estimate. Examination continued. – I inquired from about twenty tenants. I only saw four or five cattle there. I  never saw tenants that had less cattle, except one farm that had twelve cows on it, which we did not visit. I only saw six cows on our journey across Skeheenarinka, and they were miserable small things. The land would never feed good cattle. 322

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Did you observe the character of the houses of the people? – I did; they were the most miserable buildings I ever saw. They were hardly fit to call them even houses itself. I saw some built of mud, but whether of mud or of stone, they were of the same bad character. Will you give a description of the interior of any one house you examined? – The second house that I went into, the woman was examined on the table here yesterday – Johanna Fitzgerald. There was a wretched earthen floor on it, with water oozing down from the walls through the bad thatch, and a couple of beds at the end of a dark, dingy room, and there was not a single bit of a blanket, but some filthy canvas. You would go up to your ankles almost in the damp earthen floor. Were you in a house where you found a man ill of pleurisy? – Yes, that was on Barnahoun. There was a house of another widow there, and it was just as bad a house. The rain was coming down in twenty parts, and the walls quite black with the oozing of the rain from the rotten thatch. I went into fifteen or sixteen houses on Skeheenarinka. And generally they were all in as bad a condition as these two houses? – The most of them were all bad, but three or four particularly bad. If they were down in the neighborhood of Cork, where I live, the relieving officer or the sanitary officer would come there and immediately order the people to go out of them. I examined Mrs. Rock’s holding. Her husband died. She had three children, and she showed me some oats that grew there. They were no good. She had seven acres, and three acres of it tilled. 18s. was the old rent. The new rent, she told me, was £2 4s. Now as to Lawrence Carroll – I went into that house; he has live children. Himself and his son work for Mr. Bridge, and there was not a worse house in Skeheenarinka than that. Was that house fit for human habitation? – No. Was it fit for the habitation of a beast? – It was not. You would not put a beast into it. A cow would be just as well off outside. What state was it in? – Dropping rain down every-where; holes in the roof, and the floor of it muddy and filthy; sticks propping up the roof in every direction. Did you see any bedding in the house? – I did; an apology for clothing. It was old sacks and rags of every description. In fact, it was hard to tell what they were. 323

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Witness then referred to the house of Richard Leonard, who, he was told, was sick in bed. The door was shut. It was a little house about six feet high, without a single window in any part of it. Examined the farm of Thomas Leonard sufficiently to say that the old rent of £2 6s. 6d. was quite enough for it. He said the same of the farm of James O’Neil, whose rent was increased from 28s. to £2 16s.; Terence Murphy from £3 7s. 6d. to £6 15s 9d. Generally speaking, going over Skeheenarinka, where-ever you did ascertain the old rents, did you think that rent a fair one, as between landlord and tenant? – I did. Generally, from your observation of the tenants on Skeheenarinka, were they in a thriving and prosperous condition? – No, they were all very badly off. They had neither cows nor horses. In what condition did the tenants in Barnahoun appear to be? – Worse than at the other place; if possible the houses were worse. Tell me some of the houses that struck you most particularly. – There was the house of a farmer named J. Creagh. There were ten children in this house, and the father was ill of pleurisy; and I never saw any house yet (and I have seen bad houses of every type since the famine years) – I never saw anything to compare with this house. There were at least a dozen holes in the roof, and there were as many pools of water on the floor. The roof was, in fact, worse in the bedroom than in the kitchen. The father was sitting squatted over a few little clods of turf. Did you see a bed in the house? – I did; it was a hand-full of rags. (Witness recognized as a correct representation of the house a photograph that was handed in.) I suppose you don’t think that was a very good place for a man to recover from a pleurisy? – I think it was a shame and a disgrace to have people inside that house at all. I noticed also the house of David Hennessy, who had five children, and whose rent was raised from £2 to £4 5s. There were two rooms, one a small bedroom, which answered as a dairy and a bedroom. This room was about 11 feet by 9. Was that house fit for habitation? – It was better than other houses that I saw. I went to another house of a man named Carey, and as soon as I got inside I was near being thrown down. I stepped into a huge pool of water – it was so dark I did not see it. There was a dam made across inside to keep the water from extinguishing the fire. I observed the roof, and if it is not down since it must have been additionally propped. It was propped in every direction, and the chimney all cracked.

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How many were living in it? – I did not see father or mother; we met a bailiff there near the door. What was the bailiff doing? – He was dogging us all about that townland. We could not see some of the tenants to get any information from them. Do you see that man in court? – There he is (pointing to a bailiff who stood behind Mr. Brady). Did he go before you into some of these houses? – He did. And were you denied admittance to some of the houses where he had been before you? – We were not denied admittance, but the people would rather we would not come in, evidently. Was the appearance of the tenantry that of well-fed, prosperous people, or the contrary? – They had a starved emaciated appearance in almost every place that we went to. Did you see anybody that looked well fed? – I believe the bailiff was the best fed man I saw on the estate. Mr. O’Flaherty was examined, and his evidence corroborated that of the previous witness in every particular. Dr. W. F. Fenton, dispensary doctor at Clogheen,73 deposed that a good many of the tenants received from him medical relief. Edmund Dorney, a tenant, swore his wife died in the work-house, and that he had been there himself when he fell ill. He paid the new rent through fear of having to go there again. A statement to the same effect was made by Richard Condon, who also said that out of an acre of oats he got only a stoneweight of grain. James Phelan said he was twenty years building his house, “and,” said he, at the close of his examination, “if I was talking for a month I could not explain my hardship and my misery.” Mr. J. Byrne, J. P., President of the Mallow Farmers’ Club, corroborated the evidence of Messrs. O’ Flaherty and Rearden. We extract the following passages from his evidence as reported in the Freeman: You had an opportunity of seeing the unreclaimed land in its original state? I had. What value would you put upon expended in reclaiming that land? – £20 the Irish acre, at least.

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I ought to have asked you before, but I believe you are yourself an extensive farmer? – Yes; I hold 500 acres. If you were now to set about bringing that unreclaimed land into the state of the reclaimed, do you think it would cost you £20 an acre? – I do. Now as to the reclaimed land, taking it just as it is, if you were letting it fairly, as between landlord and tenant, in its present condition – I don’t want you to take tenant’s improvements into account – but if it were free of everything, what value would you put upon it? – From 5s. to 6s. an acre. Generally, now, on that townland, did you make any remark about the general appearance of the people living on it? – They seemed to be a very brokenhearted people, I heard nothing there but wails and lamentations. I was asking you about their personal appearance. – They were all a very wretched-looking lot of people, apparently very badly fed, and badly clothed and cared for. I believe that you went to a townland called Glennacurry, and saw Thomas Carey’s house there? – I did. He has one of the best-looking houses in that neighborhood. Did you come upon them while they were at dinner? – We did. They were preparing a lot of Indian meal stirabout for dinner. Did you see any turnips there? – I saw, on the newly reclaimed portion of the land, what they intended to be a crop of turnips, and I suppose a hundred acres of the turnips I saw would not be worth Od., I should fancy. I don’t know how to put any value at all upon them. They were a complete failure. They hardly budded out at all. What was the character of this land before it was reclaimed? – I saw portions of it in process of reclamation. A hundred loads of stones would have to be taken off each acre of land that was to be reclaimed – several hundred loads. I saw him reclaiming a portion of it. How thick were the stones? – So thick that you could see no soil between them, just like a regular heap of stones. What would it cost to reclaim an acre of that ground? – I should say £30. Did you, in any of these townlands, examine the depth of the soil? – Yes; we dug sods in several fields. In Cooladerry there were from eight to ten inches of soil. 326

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In Skeheenarinka what was the deepest? – In the unreclaimed portion there was nothing that I could call soil, only a desert; but in the reclaimed portion there were four or five inches of soil. Taking the pasture you saw there, if one head of cattle was put on the pasture, do you think it would improve £5 in the year? – I know well it would not. How much would it improve? – Perhaps the half of that. What cattle would each acre of that reclaimed pasture feed? – I should say it would take, six or seven acres to feed a dairy cow winter and summer. The Lord Chief-Justice. – Is that your evidence: six or seven acres of the reclaimed portion? Witness. – Yes, my lord. Mr. Butt. – I suppose it is not good pasture? – Very bad. Cross-examination failed to break down any of the evidence, which I have given somewhat in extensive detail (omitting, however, an immense deal of corroborative evidence). I close the pitiful details with a sense of relief. I have given them because most Americans read no Irish papers and few English ones, and their knowledge of Irish affairs is taken wholly from the frequently mendacious cables which are sent from London to the American newspapers. The state of things described at this trial is only a sample of what exists, more or less, all over Ireland, and of which I have myself frequently been an eye-witness. Brought up amongst Anglo-Irish Tories, as I had been, and with my mind filled with the bluest Tory principles, nothing less than the constant spectacle of tyranny and coldblooded heartlessness on one side, and of suffering and degradation on the other, to which it was impossible to blind myself, which would not be thrust aside for all my prejudices of education, would have sufficed to arouse me gradually to a true view of how the case stood between landlord and tenant, between rich and poor, between Protestant and Catholic, in Ireland. Many and many a time has my blood boiled with an indignation all the fiercer because it was impotent, at the wrongs I have seen done around me by educated gentlemen and ladies, who looked upon the peasants that had been delivered over helpless into their hands, as so many brute beasts, to be made slaves of or exterminated. A landlord could not indeed flog his tenants to death in Ireland (though I have myself seen brutal blows inflicted on some cowering, half-clad wretch, by the man who virtually owned him, body and soul), but, with this exception, our Irish peasantry have been no whit better off than the negro slaves in Cuba and America. The landlord belonged to the conquering race, and the laws of the country to which the conquering race belonged gave the landlord, and still give him, every power over his tenant short of direct murder, but short of indirect murder. Anyone who says that I exaggerate in thus writing, either has never lived in Ireland, or has allowed his 327

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eyes to be closed by class prejudice. It needs but to draw the contrast between the Irishman on American soil, standing up erect in an independence which sometimes becomes aggressive, and the Irishman at home, shivering with his hat off in a pouring rain, with downcast look and submissive speech before his tyrant, as I have seen him over and over again, till my heart has sickened at it, to see how the manhood has been crushed out of him by his long slavery to want. The ablest authorities have come to the conclusion that there is but one remedy for this special form of Ireland’s misery. It is the establishment of a peasant proprietary. Stein and Hardenberg considered that it was the only remedy for a similar state of things in Germany, and time has shown how right they were. When Gladstone’s Land Act was passed, it was thought that what are called the Bright clauses in it,74 providing for the extension of government aid to those tenants who wished to buy their land, would gradually lead to the establishment of a large body of peasant proprietors, similar to the English yeomanry of former times, all over the country. Unfortunately, these clauses have turned out a delusion and a snare. Landlords, following their old traditions, prefer selling their estates to one person, rather than to many. Some time ago, a large estate called the Harene estate,75 was put up for sale, and the tenants, who happened to be a little more comfortably off than usual, made a bid for it, exceeding by £15,000 any previous bid. Instead of accepting their bid, however, the trustee, for reasons best known to himself, handed over the estate to a land speculator, with whom he had made a private bargain, at a lower price than that offered by the tenants. The latter, thinking the law was on their side, and anxious to escape the danger threatened them by falling into the hands of a greedy speculator, who, they knew, would inevitably repeat in their case the performances of Mr. Buckley and Mr. Bridge on the Mitchelstown estate, brought a lawsuit to compel the trustee to give them the estate, as being the highest bidders. The case was at first decided in their favor; this decision was reversed by the Irish Court of Appeals, and the matter being finally carried before the House of Lords, the decision of the Court of Appeals was confirmed, and the tenantry, in addition, mulcted in heavy costs. It may seem strange that a man should go to so much trouble in order to get a smaller sum of money for a property than he could otherwise have done, but it shows just what the prejudice against splitting up an estate will do. In this case, however, the private bargain between the trustee and the speculator, the details of which did not appear, must be taken into consideration. It shows that, owing to one cause or another, the Bright clauses in the Land Act should have been made compulsory on the landlord or trustee, other things being equal, in order to do any good. As things stand, these clauses are altogether ineffectual, and some far more radical reformation in the land system will be the only one that the peasantry will now be satisfied with. Their determination is shown by the attitude of passive resistance that they have taken upon the rent question.

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It is in fact the only attitude they can take up with any hope of benefit to themselves, and one of its secondary good results will be, that there will be far less bloodshed produced by it than by any other methods the Irish peasantry have in their desperation adopted in former times of distress. Were the times more prosperous, or were the raising of cattle in Ireland still as lucrative as it used to be, the refusal of the tenants to pay exorbitant rents would of course be followed by whole-sale evictions. That method cannot now be adopted by the landlords. It no longer pays to raise cattle in Ireland, and the landlords will get more by accepting the reduced rents the tenants have offered to pay, than by depopulating their estates, as they did in the good old times. Evictions, therefore, the great source of blood-shed hitherto, will be fewer than they ever were, and the landlords, met by this stone wall of passive opposition, and being in a sense at the mercy of their tenants—relatively, that is, to other happier years for landlords will be forced to yield. But, as many of them have their estates so heavily encumbered by their own or their parents’ extravagance that they cannot pay the fixed charges on their property if they take the reduced rent, these landlords will be eager to sell. It will no longer be considered a desirable thing to be a landlord. And here comes in the first ray of light that points to the way to Ireland’s salvation. The landlord interest rules, and is likely to rule for many years yet, in the House of Commons. In a year or two the landlords will see that their best interest lies in selling their land to the Government. Once this truth has become firmly impressed on the land-lord brain, it will be but a short step to passing a bill through Parliament for raising a loan to buy up the land in Ireland. Such a loan could be raised with the greatest ease. The purchase of the whole of Ireland would cost but little more than two or three of those little wars which England so delights in. The money could be advanced to the tenants at four per cent., and interest and installments would be cheerfully paid, for though the greatest pinching and saving might be necessary for a few years, there is no pinching that would not seem easy and delightful to the peasant, spurred on by the hope of becoming a proprietor. I have not sketched too roseate a prospect. Some years ago some of the lands of the Irish Church were sold by the Government to the tenants occupying them, whereby four thousand farmers were made proprietors in future, and through the misery and hardship of the last three years, these tenants have all readily paid their interest and their installments. They have an object to pinch and suffer for. The tenant-at-will has none. Fixity of tenure, at fair rents settled by arbitration, was a favorite scheme with that able statesman, Dr. Isaac Butt, and a bill to that effect has been brought forward by the Irish members year after year in Parliament. It has this much to

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be said for it (and that is a great deal), that such a system, while by no means crushing the evil of land monopoly, or providing a radical remedy for the destitution in Ireland, might still enable an increased number of farmers to lay by something every year, and thus constitute the nucleus for a fund which might, after many years, put them in some sort of position to purchase their holdings. The very slow and gradual improvement it might cause, combined with the disgust of the landlords at finding their power so much curtailed, and their consequent increased willingness to part with their estates, would probably operate so as to bring about finally the establishment of a peasant proprietary; but the process would take too long. We need a remedy that works more quickly than this—need it not only because the tenants are miserable, though this is in itself a sufficient reason, for if one important section of a community is sick, the community itself cannot be in a healthy state, but because the condition of the whole nation imperatively requires it. Every single man, woman, and child in a country is vitally interested in the question as to whether the laws of that country are such as allow the soil to be cultivated in the most productive manner. The great game preserves and private parks of the aristocracy are directly injurious to every man, woman, and child in the land, for they cut off so much soil that should be used in producing food or raw material for manufactures. The immense quantity of waste lands are directly injurious for the same reason? and so long as the laws are such as to render it unprofitable to the farmer to reclaim these lands, by not securing to him the fruits of his industry, so long will those lands not be reclaimed, for the Irish landlords themselves make no attempts at reclamation. Again, so long as the highest incentive to industry, the magic influence of proprietorship, is withdrawn from the cultivator, so long will the ground not be cultivated in the best way, nor with the greatest painstaking; so long, therefore, will it be less productive than it ought to be. All these conditions are found in their most aggravated forms in Ireland, and as they keep the farming or laboring classes, the great buying classes, in poverty, so do they necessarily hurt and impoverish all the other producing classes. The farmer who can make no profits from his farm, and who has no standard of comfort, and the laborer to whom he pays starvation wages, are both unable to buy from the manufacturer, and manufactures of all kinds decline. There is no market for anything, prices fall, and we see what has been the scandal of the last few years, landlords raising their rents in the face of a continued fall in the price of agricultural produce. As, however, the tenants cannot go on paying these rents, the general poverty soon reacts on the landlords also, and hence the shrieks of the landlord class, now heard from one end to the other of Ireland. All, therefore, inevitably become poor together, and as there is no road to improvement open, the depression grows worse and worse, till some such crisis as a famine, by causing tremendous mortality and wholesale emigration, depopulates the country, and apparently makes things a little better for the survivors.

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Such a momentary gleam, however, is unreal, being founded on what can never be anything but a misfortune to any country, viz., depopulation. The politicoeconomical quacks of the present day prescribe emigration in much the same way as the medical quacks used to prescribe blood-letting. It is of course possible that there may be a plethora of population in a country, though China is about the only nation in which we see an apparent plethora, and that would seem to be chiefly the effect of the Chinese government’s refusal to develop the internal resources of the country; but in the whole history of Ireland there never has been any excess of population. 8,000,000 of inhabitants has been her highest total, while, if the land were properly cultivated, and if manufacturing industries were flourishing, she could support with ease from 15,000,000 to 20,000,000. Meanwhile emigration, like blood-letting, produces an apparent temporary improvement, soon followed by a worse state of things than ever. The nation, as its life-blood oozes slowly away from it, becomes exhausted and despairing. Only one thing remains alive forever, and that is the spirit of hatred and rebellion. Nevertheless, the prospect before Ireland, though dark, is not hopeless. The remedies for her ills are well known; the first and most pressing one needed is the abolition of landlordism. On every side the indications point to a speedier attainment of this goal than is generally supposed. The landlords themselves know it, and while what they professed to dread is tenant-right, what they dread in their hearts is a far more sweeping change. This dread, however, will not always exist in their minds. The day will come when they will be only too glad to take a fair compensation for their lands, and go. If they quit the country on which they have lived—the majority of them—as parasites, the country will not miss them, but if they should decide to remain, it will be perforce as better citizens than before, for with the breaking up of the landlord power in Ireland, the ascendancy of the English colony there will also be broken up, and as a secondary, but necessary consequence, the greater part of the power of the English government for evil. The representation of Ireland in the Imperial Parliament may still continue inadequate, Ireland having now only 105 members in a Parliament of 658, though her population is one fifth that of England and Scotland; an immense number of property holders may still remain disfranchised, owing to the refusal of the English to concede to Ireland the household franchise they themselves enjoy; the Government may still withhold the endowments for education which it owes as a simple debt to the Catholics whom England so long kept by law in ignorance and poverty. Home Rule may still be a work for years of painful labor to accomplish, but the corner stone of English sovereignty in Ireland will have been removed, and, if the rest of the edifice follows in due time, it will certainly not involve Ireland in ruin. When that time comes, Ireland will be able to say to England, “I was once your dupe, your victim and your slave; you said we were united, but we were united as the prisoner is to the wall

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to which he is chained: I am now your equal, and therefore I can forgive past wrongs, and be your friend.” Till Ireland can say this, there is no friendship possible between her and England; no union by coercion between two nations can ever be anything but a delusion. One word before I finish I would say to America. I would ask her to remember the words of Benjamin Franklin: “I found the people of Ireland disposed to be friends of America, in which I endeavored to confirm them, with the expectation that our growing weight might in time be thrown into their scale, and justice be obtained for them likewise.” Franklin was wiser in his generation than the Know-Nothings and toadies of England of the present day. I have heard many Americans say, “Yes, we used to sympathize with Ireland, but since we have had a rebellion of our own, and suppressed it, we have no longer any sympathy with rebelliously inclined people.” It would seem almost superfluous to point out to any person of intelligence the radical difference between the rebellion of the South against the central government of the United States, and the rebellions of Ireland against England. Without entering at all into the question of the merits of America’s civil war, it should yet be remembered, that the South endeavored to secede from a Union into which it had voluntarily entered, and to shake off an authority which it had itself helped to establish, and which it had always, up to that time, recognized. At no period of her history, on the other hand, did Ireland voluntarily unite herself with England. She was conquered by force of arms, and the English power is to this day kept up by a large military garrison. The consent of the people themselves was never asked to any union, and to this day the members returned by Ireland to the Imperial Parliament are out-voted in everything, and can only obtain the most trifling concessions by a system of the most determined obstruction. It is thus evident that there is no analogy whatever between the Southern rebel and the Irish one. The Southerners fought against their own government as the Puritans did in the time of Charles the First, and as the American colonists did in 1776; the Irish fought against a foreign government, imposed on them by force. The real fact is, however, that America is now so far away from her own days of suffering and feebleness, her own bitter struggle against oppression has become so much a mere matter of ancient history with her, that she has forgotten how sweet sympathy seemed to her in those days. Not in those days did she scornfully reject friendly and sympathetic addresses from other nations, at the bidding of the English ambassador. Rebellion seemed righteous enough to her then, though it was against her own mother country. Then she was grateful for the boon of a few kind words. Irishmen led her armies to the field, fulminated against England in her legislative assemblies, and affixed their names to her Declaration of Independence. But the splendid republican heat of those days has cooled down. Patriotic Americans are not ashamed to wish out loud for a monarchy and an aristocracy. There is a class growing up, which if it could only constitute itself into a titled nobility, would throw overboard every republican principle that their forefathers have inscribed with their blood on the pages of 332

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American history. It may yet turn out that it is not hoodlums, greenbackers,76 or communists that will be the worst enemies of the republic, but those who ought to be its bulwarks—the respectable and monied classes. Not Butler, or Kearney, or Justus Schwab77 are the dangerous men to this republic, but the people who think themselves too good for a republic at all. The ever increasing sharpness of class distinctions, and the pretensions of the so-called “old families” in a country only two hundred years old, on the one hand, – with those of the wealthy shoddies on the other—these two classes, each trying to conjure themselves into an aristocracy, to the exclusion of the only people who should, in a republic, be entitled to pre-eminence of position—the people of the best conduct and highest intelligence—these things are signs that America has entered on a new stage in the history of her development. She is passing through a period of involution instead of evolution. But such involution can only be temporary; progress is eternal, and in a great nation like this, the inevitable reaction against monarchical and oligarchical ideas will one day set in, and America will return to her first love. Communism and Feudalism, these two extremes that seem so opposed to each other, yet, in reality, call each other into existence, will die out together, as twin relics of barbarism. Meanwhile to the men and women who form the back-bone of this country— those who cling to the stern old political faith of Milton and Hampden, of Patrick Henry 78 and George Washington—I appeal for sympathy for my prostrate country. To them I look for right judgment and for cheering words to the men who are conducting our life and death struggle inside and outside the walls of Westminster. Words are but little to ask, but words from a power like America resound all over the world, and can plead, trumpet-tongued, for a down-trodden cause. Many a time when I have read churlish words of ridicule or abuse written against us by an American pen, I have said, And thou too, Brutus? England exults when she sees the nation, which from its history should be our greatest friend, stand in the ranks of those who rail at us. One of these days, however, our long agony will be ended. We shall be a free and prosperous nation, for on the road on which we have set our feet, we shall not turn back. Bloodlessly, we trust and believe, but in some way or other we mean to wrest our national autonomy from the grasp of the robber. Doubtless we shall then have sympathy and friendship “galore” extended to us, but our gratitude and our love will be to those who have spoken kindly things to us now, or who have even abstained from reviling us. It will be an opportunity for nobleness lost to the greatest nation that has ever existed, if it refuses us now the easy favor of a little charitable speech.

Notes 1 ‘Vice Regal Court’, Dublin Evening Mail, 1 February 1866: ‘The Queen’s drawing room’, London Daily News, 9 May 1873.

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2 Hovels, p.55. 3 ‘The Late Miss Fanny Parnell’, Montreal Daily Witness, 22 July 1882. 4 O. Rafferty, The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat 1861–75 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1999), pp. 39–40. 5 Barry O’Brien, Life of Parnell, p.136. 6 ‘INCIDENTS IN MISS PARNELL’S LIFE’: Obituary, in the New York Sun, 23 July, reprinted in Nation, 12 August 1882. 7 ‘American Help for the Farmers of the West of Ireland’, 20 September 1879, The Irishman (Dublin). 8 No title, Dublin Weekly Nation, 20 September 1879. 9 Dublin Weekly Nation, 28 February 1880. 10 Paula Bennett, Poets in the Public Sphere: The Emancipatory Project of American Women’s Poetry, 1800–1900 (Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 95. 11 ‘To the farmers of Ireland – Hold the harvest’, Boston Pilot, 21 August 1880. 12 Poem ‘To Irish farmers. Hold the harvest’, Dublin Weekly Nation, 4 September 1880. 13 Davitt, Fall of feudalism, pp 291–93. 14 Shortly after Fanny’s death Margaret Sullivan published an article about the origins of the LLL and claimed that Fanny had provided her with this information. Sullivan, in Dundalk Democrat, 2 September 1882. 15 Davitt, Fall of feudalism, p. 299. 16 Ibid. 17 Donoghue, vol. 8, p. 384. 18 ‘Obsequies of The Late Fanny Parnell’, Quebec Daily Telegraph, 20 October 1882. 19 Madame Roland (1754–1793), was a supporter of the French Revolution. During the ‘Reign of Terror’, she was found guilty of treason, imprisoned and guillotined. 20 Adam Smith (1723–1790) was a Scottish philosopher and political economist. His An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) was a pioneering work of economic thought, introducing the concept of the ‘invisible hand’ in the market place. 21 George Washington (1732–1799) was the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. On 30 April 1789, standing on the balcony on Wall Street in New York, he took his oath of office as the first President of the United States. 22 An alternative name for the Conservative Party. 23 The Stein-Hardenberg Reforms were passed in the wake of Prussia’s defeat by Napoleon in 1806, in an attempt to modernize the country. The reforms included the abolition of serfdom and permitting peasants to become landowners. 24 Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) was born in Boston and educated at Harvard University. He was a lawyer who was a prominent advocate of abolitionism and Native American rights. In 1875, he spoke at the centenary commemoration of Daniel O’Connell in Boston, see, Christine Kinealy, Daniel O’Connell and the Anti-Slavery Movement. The Saddest People the Son Sees (London: Routledge, 2015). 25 William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879) was a leading American abolitionist and journalist who also supported women’s rights. He was editor of the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, which frequently included speeches by Daniel O’Connell on abolition. 26 Edward Everett (1794–1865) was an American politician and pastor from Massachusetts. As a young man, he appeared to endorse slavery. 27 Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was an English philosopher.

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28 Justin McCarthy (1830–1912) was an historian, novelist and politician. He served in the British Parliament from 1879 to 1900, as a member of the Home Rule Party. Following Charles Stewart Parnell’s divorce scandal, McCarthy chaired the Anti-Parnellite Group. 29 A short history of our own times, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the general election of 1880 (Harper Brothers, 1880). 30 Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) was an English historian and essayist. He was also a Whig politician the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, and the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848. 31 Richard Cobden (1804–1865) and John Bright (1811–1889) were founders of the AntiCorn Law League, in 1838. The League wanted to abolish the Corn Laws, which kept the price of grains artificially high. Sir Robert Peel repealed the Corn Laws in 1846, but by doing so, he split his Conservative Party. 32 Catholic Emancipation, which gave Catholics in the United Kingdom the right to sit in the Westminster Parliament, had been granted in 1829. 33 Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847), also referred to as the Liberator, was an Irish nationalist politician, who spear-headed the movement for Catholic Emancipation. A decade later, he founded the Repeal Association, for an overturn of the 1800 Act of Union. Despite his fiery rhetoric, he was committed to using peaceful means to achieve his political ends. 34 John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was an influential English philosopher and political economist. He served as a Liberal MP from 1865 to 1868. In parliament, he was a radical on issues such as women’s suffrage and he proposed Ireland should be better treated. In 1868, he published, England and Ireland. 35 Léon Gambetta (1838–1882) was a French politician who was a critic of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. He was regarded as a champion of working men. 36 Joseph Arch was an English self-educated agricultural worker and Methodist preacher who helped to organize and unionize agricultural workers. He was the first President of the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, which he had helped to found in 1872. In the 1885 General Election, he was returned as a Liberal MP, making him the first agricultural labourer to sit in Parliament. 37 Comte de Charles Forbes R. Montalembert’s, The monks of the West from St. Benedict to St. Bernard, was published in 1867. He had started writing it in the 1840s, but delayed publication due to the revolution in 1848 and the turmoil that followed. 38 William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838–1903) was an Irish historian who had initially trained to become a priest in the Church of Ireland. His much-praised A History of England during the Eighteenth Century initially appeared as seven volumes, the first two of which were published in 1878, and final one in 1890. 39 Royalists in France who believed that the Bourbon dynasty (which had been overthrown in the 1830 Revolution) were the rightful rulers of the country. 40 A secret agrarian society, overwhelmingly Catholic, that defended tenants against landlords and their agents. 41 Sans-culottes (literally, without knee breeches) were radicals during the first French Revolution of 1789. 42 Elizabeth I (1533–1603) reigned as Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 until her death. The final years of her reign were occupied with fighting a rebellion led by Hugh O’Neill, the Earl of Tyrone. His defeat in 1603 marked the end of the chieftain system, associated with Gaelic Ireland, and this paved the way for the Plantation of Ulster. 43 Dublin Castle, where the Lord Lieutenant and Irish administration were based.

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44 William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) was a British Liberal (although initially a Tory) politician who served as Prime Minister on four separate occasions. He was responsible for Church Disestablishment in Ireland in 1869 and the Second Land Act of 1881. His support for Home Rule led to him working with Charles Parnell, but the relationship ended following the divorce scandal. 45 Author’s note: * See Dr. Hancock’s Criminal Statistics for Great Britain. 46 The Native American Party – more usually referred to as the Know Nothings – was founded in 1845, in response to the large influx of immigrants arriving in the 1840s, particularly from Germany and Ireland. They were vehemently anti-Catholic. 47 Rip Van Winkle was the eponymous hero of a short story written by Washington Irving and published in 1819. It is the story of a lazy, but likeable, man, who falls asleep for at least twenty years. 48 Of the total of 652 members of the British parliament, only 105 represented Ireland. In the 1880 General Election, 63 Home Rule MPs were elected. 49 Henry Fawcett (1833–1884) was an economist who was appointed professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University. In 1863, he published the Manual of Political Economy. Fawcett served as a Liberal MP from 1865 to 1884. He was viewed as a radical, supporting women’s suffrage. Fawcett had been blinded by a shooting accident when aged 25. 50 A system of land cultivation in which the person who cultivates the land on behalf of a proprietor receives a proportion of the produce. 51 Here, Fanny is repeating a mistake made by Fawcett on p. 236 of his Manual. Lord Devon’s Commission was on the Occupation of Land in Ireland, and it sat between 1843 and 1845. The Poor Inquiry was chaired by Archbishop Richard Whatley and it sat between 1833 and 1836. 52 Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye (1822–1892) a Belgian economist. His articles were frequently reprinted in the British press. 53 Author’s Note: *La Theorie de la Propriete. Chapitre XXVI. 54 Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) was an English cleric and political economist. His book, An Essay on the Principle of Population, which was first published anonymously in 1798, was influential in debates regarding population growth and the Poor Laws. Malthus argued that unless population growth amongst the poorer classes was controlled, the outcome would be famine and starvation. 55 John O’Connor Power (1846–1919) was a supporter of Home Rule who served as an MP in the House of Commons, representing Mayo, from 1874 to 1885. 56 In Scandinavian legend, Frothi, king of the Northland, owned magic millstones. 57 John Sarsfield Casey (1846–1896), born in Mitchelstown, had been deported to Australia in 1867 for his Fenian activities, but allowed to return to Ireland in 1870. He wrote under the nom-de-plume, ‘The Galtee Boy’. 58 Nathaniel Buckley (1821–1892) was a wealthy English landowner and cotton mill owner. He was elected to parliament as a Liberal MP in 1871. in 1873, he purchased the indebted Galtee estate of the Earl of Kingston, near Mitchelstown in Co. Cork. 59 Patten Smith Bridge (1811–1905) was agent for Buckley. As a consequence of implementing exorbitant rent increases, there were two attempts on his life. Bridge sued Casey for writing inflammatory articles about him in the national press. Isaac Butt successfully defended Casey. See, Full and revised report of the eight days’ trial in the Court of Queen’s Bench on a criminal information against John Sarsfield Casey at the prosecution of Patten Smith Bridge, from November 27th to December 5, 1877 (Dublin: Central Tenants’ Defence Committee, 1877).

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60 The Galtee Story, by attracting so much press attention, became a public symbol of the rottenness of the Irish agricultural system and the inadequacy of the existing Land Acts. 61 Author’s Note: *Equivalent to mush, made of an inferior kind of oatmeal, or of yellow Indian meal. 62 Denis Caulfield Heron QC (1824–1881) was an Irish Catholic lawyer and Liberal politician. He stood in the 1869 by-election in Tipperary against Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, and lost. But because Rossa was a convicted felon, there was a re-election, in which he was successful. 63 A cask for holding butter or cheese and equivalent to 56 pounds or 25 kilograms. 64 Isaac Butt QC (1813–79) was an Irish barrister, political economist and politician. Initially a Conservative and Orangemen, he moved to a nationalist, federalist position, founding the Irish Home Government Association in 1870. The experience of the Great Famine greatly affected his political outlook, he defending the leaders of Young Ireland and later, the Fenians. 65 Frieze was a coarse, heavy cloth. It was generally manufactured in England for the Irish market. See, Samuel Jubb, The History of the Shoddy-trade: Its Rise, Progress, and Present Position (London, 1860) pp. 44–45. 66 The perch, or rod, is equal to five and a half yards. 67 From the Irish, Muise, and used at the start of the sentence, but no real meaning. 68 Author’s Note: *By “corn” is meant wheat. 69 Vertigo or dizziness. 70 Crot—an archaic word for a small amount. 71 Reardon was a supporter of Charles Parnell. 72 Probably James Byrne, J.P. of Wallstown Castle in Castletownroche in Cork, who was also a supporter of Parnell. 73 William Francis Fenton, who qualified in the University of Edinburgh. 74 Clauses inserted by John Bright MP. Bright referred to The Irish Parliamentary Party as ‘the rebel party’, having little sympathy with their aims, regarding Home Rule as a betrayal of the Protestants in Ireland. Despite personal appeals from Gladstone, he voted against the 1886 Home Rule Bill and opposed further land reforms. 75 The Harene Estate was in Co. Kerry. Fifty-seven tenants had applied to purchase it. See, The Law Reports (Ireland), vol. 1 (Dublin: W. Green, 1879), p. 244. 76 Supporters of the Greenback Party in America, which stood in the elections of 1876, 1880 and 1884 on an anti-monopoly ticket. The name is derived from the non-gold backed paper money that was used during the Civil War. 77 Justus Schwab (1847–1900) was a German-American anarchist who owned a saloon in New York that was a centre for radical thinkers. 78 Patrick Henry (1736–1799) was an American, politician, painter and orator, associated with the phrase, “Give me liberty or give me death!”.

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Part IX THE CRISES OF THE 1880s AND 1890s While ‘the Forgotten Famine’ of 1879–82’ was the last national subsistence crisis, local and regional crop failures continued throughout the 1880s and 1890s. A combination of factors such as the decline in earnings from seasonal migration, the manufacture of kelp and lower prices for agricultural produce contributed to the problem, but the main cause was the continuing reliance on the potato as the main source of food for many communities along the western seaboard. It was frequently stated in 1885–1886 that the position of the people was worse than in 1879–1882 in most of the coastal areas. The Baseline reports, conducted by the Congested District Board in the 1890s, providing a breakdown of income and expenditure of families in the poorest parts of the country showed that many families lived on a knife edge and the slightest change in their financial circumstances led to starvation and destitution. These accounts indicated that families were dependent on remittances from families and friends in North America and the earnings from seasonal migration to survive as their farms were too poor and unviable to provide them with a livelihood. There were failures with the potato in 1883, 1885–1886, 1889, 1890–1891, 1894 and 1898, in parts of Donegal, Mayo, Galway and Kerry and the people were only sustained through private relief. During the 1885–1886 crisis, eighty per cent of the families on Achill Island were relieved by private charity, and the government gave grants of £4,017 to the Oughterard Poor Law Unions and £4,422 to Clifden.1 The vulnerable position of these communities would have been prolonged if seed potatoes had not been distributed as the families had consumed all their stock they had for seeding. The constant crop failures in the post 1879 period resulted in a new approach and remedial long-term measures being advocated to help the populations in the poorest parts of the country: it being felt that the provision of relief when the crops failed was not the most effective way of dealing with the issues of famine and destitution. While Gladstone’s 1881 Land Act had established land courts which set judicial rents resulting in major reductions for most tenant farmers, the impact for most farmers along the western seaboard was minimal as the holdings were uneconomical and the produce did not meet the rent payments. Observers like the English philanthropist, James Hack Tuke, advocated state intervention

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in the economic development of the western region, calling in particular for the establishment of a light rail system which would encourage tourism and allow fishermen greater access to markets. It was not until 1889 that the Irish Chief Secretary, Sir Arthur Balfour, saw the merits of such intervention which resulted in the establishment of the Congested Districts Board in 1889. It was also part of the Conservative government’s policy of ‘Killing Home Rule with Kindness’. The Congested Districts Board catered for communities along the western seaboard from north Donegal to south-west Cork and among the measures it put in place was the development of local industries and fisheries, the provision of better livestock for breeding, the transfer of families to more economic holdings and the establishment of a light railway system in places like Connemara and west Mayo. While the formation of the Congested Districts Board did not eradicate famine and subsistence crises completely, evident from the problems in 1894 and 1898, it acknowledged the special position of those marginal areas along the western seaboard where poverty, want and famine were a recurring theme throughout the nineteenth century. The Congested Districts Board was the first direct government intervention since the Act of Union in 1801 to improve the economic position of those communities who lived perpetually on the edge of want. The threat of famine and chronic destitution in the 1880s and 1890s saw a more immediate response than previously as the general public became more aware of what was happening from newspapers and correspondents who reported from those areas. The plight of the people was also highlighted by the writers of the Irish Literary Revival Movement who through their works in places like the Aran Islands and the Mullet highlighted the issues of poverty, want and starvation. In early 1883 the Catholic bishops in the West of Ireland wrote of an impending crisis in their dioceses because of the severe weather conditions.

Note 1 Timothy P. O’Neill, ‘Minor famines and relief in Galway, 1815–1925’ in Gerard Moran and Raymond Gillespie (eds), Galway: History and Society (Dublin: Geography Publications, 1996), pp. 468–470.

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38 MEMORANDA OF STATEMENT MADE TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND BY THE CATHOLIC PRELATES OF CONNAUGHT, RELATIVE TO THE DESTITUTION IN THEIR RESPECTIVE DIOCESES (9 JANUARY 1883) 1. In all the parishes of our dioceses there exists already a considerable amount of distress; and, week after week during the last six months, this distress, if not adequately and promptly relieved, is sure to increase and extend. It will affect, on average, from one-third to one-fifth of the population, and a still larger proportion in most of our towns. 2. The people who suffer from this distress are in no way accountable for it; it comes entirely, under God’s providence, from the inclement seasons with which our country has been visited. 3. About one-half the potato crop has been lost, and from one-half to one-third of the oats crop, and what remains of both crops is generally of inferior quality. Continuous rains and floods have prevented the saving of turf. There is already in many districts a great dearth of fuel. The price of potatoes, and of turf, is now more than double what it was this time last year. 4. The destitute have no means of relieving themselves. They have neither money nor stock. What they had some months ago had passed to the landlords in payment of rent and arrears of rent. They have no employment worth taking into account. They are still in debt to shopkeepers, and will get no credit from them; neither will the landlords, with few exceptions, give them help.1 5. It is, therefore, evident that to save the health and lives of the destitute the Government must interfere and provide adequate means of relief. 6. The relief measures generally put forward are the following. We beg leave to express our views on each: (a.) Relief within the workhouse. We are fully convinced that this form of relief, so revolting to the feeling of our people, will be generally rejected by householders, even at the risk of starvation. We believe that 341

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its enforcement by the refusal of every other form of acceptable relief would be attended with the gravest consequences. (b.) Outdoor-relief to householders and small landholders. We believe that in the absence of remunerative employment in the destitute districts relief in this form would be authorized and enforced by the Government; but, owing to its many evil effects as regards both recipients and ratepayers, we would deplore its necessity. (c.) Employment on public works. This also would be demoralizing, and, as a general system of relief it would be found totally inadequate. It could not be made promptly and generally available, so as to afford immediate relief when and where required. (d.) Employment of destitute landholders on their own lands, with advance of Government loans in consideration of, and in proportion to, improvements made there on.

Note 1 There was a feeling that with the passing of the 1881 Land Act and the establishment of the Land Courts, which resulted in rents being arbitrated that landlords were no longer prepared to grant their tenants rent abatements.

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39 REPORT FROM DECEMBER 1885 ON HOW IRISH SERVANT GIRLS IN BOSTON REMIT MONEY BACK TO IRELAND TO HELP THEIR FAMILIES (BOSTON DAILY GLOBE, 14 DECEMBER 1885) 1 Money for Ireland: Christmas Gifts Sent Home by Servant Girls, Sons and Daughters of Erin lead the World in Generosity. Drafts that will Please Many a Parent in the Old Country. The Irish emigrant girls of Boston and vicinity have this month been showing quietly and without ostentation, a degree of filial love and unselfish economy, that may well excite the envy of women of every other nationality, and will surely astonish those who carelessly condemn them as ignorant and wasteful. These girls since December 1 have sent thousands and thousands of dollars, saved from their scanty earnings to fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends in the Emerald Isle. In one day last week the Cunard people took $11,000 over their counters in exchange for drafts averaging two pounds more than they ever took before in a single day. At Patrick Donahoe’s office, on Boyston Street, 770 drafts were drawn on the 3rd of December, and from December 1 to December 11 there were 3500 drafts issued, amounting to the aggregate $43,000. This is a larger amount of money than was ever before sent in the same time by Mr Donahoe. He says of it: “This speaks well for the devotion of the children of Erin for the old folks at home. Nearly all of the money was sent by serving girls.2 What other class of girls could save so much money?”3 Charles V. Dasey says this rush began about the last of November and ended yesterday, and that in this time he sent abroad between $30,000 and $40,000. Almost the whole of these drafts are to be Christmas reminders to relatives and friends. The Scotch send them over for New Years, but not so many as do the Irish. No people on earth, Mr Dasey says, are in this respect so generous as the Irish. The Germans do not send over 1 percent as much as the Irish. These drafts are preferred to international money orders because there is so much red tape about the latter on the other side. Steamship drafts will be cashed by any banker in the United Kingdom: they will be taken by almost every shop-keeper 343

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in Ireland, and even the post office will cash them. The old folks at home may not understand the money order business, or they may have to go some distance to reach a money-order office, while the steamship drafts are easily understood, there is no red tape about cashing them, and all working people have the utmost confidence in their safety. Many of the senders ask for envelops with the name of the firm on them, for they believe that in these their drafts will be as safe as in a registered letter. Then no banker will give a draft as small as £1. Also many young men or women are going back to visit their old homes will take one of these steamship drafts to save the trouble of exchanging their money. The rate on small drafts is £1 for $5. As the pound is now worth $4.87, this makes a discount of only thirteen cents. The money order would cost ten cents. This is the rate for drafts up to £20. Above that the rate is lower. It was only four years ago that the Cunard company decided to issue more that £10 drafts. Since then their draft business has grown so that it has become very profitable. They sell drafts to the extent of nearly a million and a half dollars a year and Mr Edwards estimates that two-thirds of this goes to Ireland. The Irish drafts of the Cunard Company are on the Bank of Ireland, which has branches in all parts of the island, and which is so strong that the drafts are everywhere cashed at sight. The Scotch drafts are on the company itself. They will average a little over £1, while the Irish drafts average twice as much. Mr Dasey says his Irish drafts average between £3 and £4. Throughout the year there is a steady flow of money to Ireland from the servant girls and the young men, who wish to get the old folks over here or to help them along at home. Many a servant stints herself every day in order to send money home. Many a boy is working to get his brother or sister over here.4 Now that rents are a little lower and there is a prospect of home rule, emigration is falling off and has been for two or three years. There are almost as many going back on visits as are coming over to live.5 Over two-thirds of those who patronize the Cunard office are servant girls. Mr Edwards says there is no better class of person in the world to get along with if you understand them. They are like the French, impetuous and quick to take offense if they think they are ill-treated. It is hard for the counter clerk, now at the business, to understand the Irish names, and while a man of Mr Edward’s experience can make out two drafts a minute, it may take a new man ten minutes to do the same work. Last Thursday when the Cunard office beat its record, four counter clerks were kept steadily at work over six hours making out drafts. Thursday is the busiest day, because it is the servant girl’s afternoon out. Then they take their carefully heared savings and flock to the draft offices, happy in the thought of the pleasure their drafts will give in the old country. Women, and men too for that matter, are seen at their best when in the pursuit of generosity. The faces of these girls beam with happiness at the thought of the happiness to come in homes beyond the sea. They grudge not the money, yet to them the dollar bills mean more than do twenties to most of their employers and they could count out the money as carefully if they didn’t know to a cent how much they have saved from their $3 344

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a week. The bills are so small denominations, showing the time it has taken for them to accumulate, and it is slow work for hands more used to washing dishes or scrubbing clothes, to count it out. They usually have the money in a wad in an old pocketbook, and it must all be straightened out. Then the clerk must get the right name of the sender and the person sent to. Then the draft receipt and stub are quickly filled out, the paper-cutter tears through the still paper with the noise so suggestive of bonds and coupons and other playthings of millionaires, the draft quickly folder, is stuffed in an envelope and the happy girl departs to mail it at the post office. At the foreign window in the post office, it was learned that the Irish mails for the last few days have been twice as large as usual. Hundreds of small packages have been sent, containing useful presents or knickknacks for the old ones or the little ones at home.

Notes 1 It is estimated that Irish emigrants remitted upwards of £1 million annually to Ireland, and during times of crisis this increased to as much as £2 million. See Arnold Schrier, Ireland and American Emigration, 1850–1900 (rep. Chester Springs, PA, 1997), pp 106–8. 2 For the role of Irish domestic servants girls in the United States see, Janet Nolan, Ourselves Alone: Women’s Emigration from Ireland, 1885–1920 (Kentucky, 1989); Hasia Diner, Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore, 1983); Margaret Lynch-Brennan, The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840–1930 (Syracuse, 2009). 3 For an example of how individual girls remitted money back to relatives in Ireland see, Annie O’Donnell, Your Fondest Annie: Letters from Annie O’Donnell to James P. Phelan, 1901–1904 (Dublin, 2005). Annie O’Donnell was from Spiddle, Co. Galway and emigrated in 1898 to Pittsburgh where she worked as a children’s nurse in the home of W.L. Mellon. Between 1882–1889 it was estimated that those assisted to emigrate from Clifden, Co. Galway had remitted £10,000 to relatives in sums that ranged from £2 to £10. See Moran, Sending Out Ireland’s Poor, p. 189. 4 This is a reference to pre-paid passage tickets where the passage fare to those in Ireland was paid for by friends and relatives in North America. It is estimated that 40 per cent of the remittances to Ireland was in the form of passage tickets, Schrier, American Emigration, p. 111. 5 Level of return migration to Ireland was small compared to other European emigrants. Wyman puts the figure at 11 per cent, see Mark Wyman, Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880–1930 (Cornell, 1993).

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40 THE RECOLLECTIONS FROM HENRY ROBINSON OF THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS OF 1885–1886. HENRY ROBINSON, MEMORIES: WISE AND OTHERWISE (LONDON: CASSELL AND CO., 1923), pp. 78–85 When Gladstone’s Government came in, with the Aberdeens at the Viceregal Lodge and John Morley as Chief Secretary, the country was soon plunged into all the excitement of a Home Rule Bill,1 which occupied the entire thoughts of the nation to the exclusion of everything else, except in the distressful West, where once more the cry of famine was raised. A tourist I met at Mulrany was walking down the road with me and he stopped to talk to a man who was trenching his potatoes. “Will there be a famine this year, do you suppose?” he asked. The man looked rather surprised at the question. “Why not?” he said. He had good grounds for his optimism, with a Government pledged to govern according to Irish ideas and supposed and advised by the Irish members, who wanted to see English gold circulating in Ireland. Had they not also a sympathetic Chief Secretary and a partial failure of the potato crop, and the people “no better off than ever they were”. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and with such a prospect how could the most evil-disposed person succeed in depriving the farmers of their famine, which heretofore had always meant free grants for work, relief, and seed potatoes. Morley could not have stood out against the assurances of his political supporters to the effect that the resources of the Poor Law must be supplemented to meet distress, and the sum of £60,000 was accordingly voted for the purpose and an equal sum for the construction of fishery piers and harbours. How to apply the relief money was indeed a perplexing question. The Local Government Board were strongly of opinion that if it were given as outdoor relief, without any test of destitution, it would be difficult to keep it within reasonable limits. But Morley considered the board were out of date in their ideas, and he finally decided that the guardians were to be authorized by a temporary Distress Act to give outdoor relief to land-holders and that the £60,000 was to be applied in aid of the guardians’ expenditure under this head. 346

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This welcome intelligence led to a mad scramble for the money. Boards of Guardians, believing it was the case of first come first served, gave outdoor relief doubting for a moment that the friendly Government would increase the £60,000 to whatever sum was necessary to cover total expenditure. The Local Government Board warned them that they had no grounds for this supposition, but this assurance was taken to be nothing more than an indication of the board’s failure to understand the financial situation, and no attention whatever was paid to it. And then the blow fell. The Government went out on the Home Rule Bill and the new Government announced that they had not the least intention of increasing the grant. They believed there had been a great deal of abuse, and they appointed a commission to inquire into the administration of the Act by the guardians. The commissioners were Charles Reddington and myself. We found that the administration of the outdoor relief had been inordinately extravagant and careless. In two unions the returns of persons relieved actually exceeded the total populations of the unions, and the following extracts from my notes taken at one large union gives a fair idea of the casual way in which things were managed. One of the commissioners asked the following questions of a relieving officer who was examined: Q.  “I see

you struck 7,000 off the relief on the 25th of March; they were not put on the lists again till three weeks later. How is that?” Witness.  “Me uncle died that day.” Q.  “How did your uncle’s death diminish the poverty for so long a period, and enable you to stop supplies to 7,000 people?” Witness.  “It was the way I hadn’t time to attend to them.” Q.  “Were they destitute when you put them on the relief lists?” Witness.  “Troth they were, entirely.” Q.  “Did any harm come to them when you stopped the three weeks?” Witness.  “Sorra harm then, nothing only a disappointment.” The disclosures of the commission were such that the Government declared that they felt precluded from asking Parliament to intervene, and it was accordingly intimated to these unions that they might spread the cost of relief, over and above their share of the grant, over a term of years but the Treasury would not contribute one penny for the purpose of relieving the burden. It took these unions many years to wipe off the debt, but it was a very wholesome lesson of what may follow corrupt administrations. A very tragic event happened about this time in the Westport Union.2 A hooker crammed with migratory labourers from Achill, men and women, was running up before the wind through the channel between Inisyre and Westport. In one of the deep pools outside Westport the Glasgow steamer, which was to take the migrants to Scotland, was lying at anchor waiting for the flood time to enable her to get alongside the quay, and as the hooker passed the steamer the whole crowd on board stepped across to the other side to take a look at her. The boom jibbed 347

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over and she capsized, imprisoning all, the passengers under the mainsail, and although the ballast dropped out and the boat did not sink, she lay on her side and with very few exceptions, the poor were drowned. A large fund was collected for the survivors, and the saddest job ever I had was that of proceeding to their homes and preparing lists of the families bereaved, for the purpose of finding out whether the people drowned were the heads of the families—the chief breadwinners, in fact—or were dependents, it being the intention that the grants for the breadwinners were to be substantially larger than those of the sons and daughters who had been lost. I arrived in the island on the eve of the funerals, and the bodies were all laid out in the little cabins with the people crying and keening round them. It showed the curious mentality of the people that they all seemed to think that the relatives of those who were in the accident but whose lives were saved had just as good a claim for the benevolent grant as the relatives of those who were lost. When I said that it was very doubtful if this would be agreed to, much commiseration was expressed for the survivors who, it was said, should not be penalized in this way because they had managed to save their lives. I remember going into one cabin where a widow was weeping piteously over her only son, whose body was lying under a sheet on the bed. He was her sole support, she said, and I took all particulars and assured her that I would recommend the maximum grant. Before leaving the cabin I went to the bed and gently lifted the corner of the sheet to look at the dead face. I was much taken aback when a bright blue eye met mine and regarded me with an expression of the deepest anxiety. I didn’t grasp what this meant at first, and shouted joyfully to the mother that the boy had come to. To my surprise she began to cry, and seizing a stick fell upon him and began to beat him unmercifully. “You lazy, idle ragamuffin,” she said; “isn’t that a nice way to be serving your poor old mother?” Finally he lept off the bed and sped down the village and she after him. But the point was that the people quite took her part. “It’s a bad thing for her surely,” they said seriously. “She’s a hardworking, poor, industrious woman, and the boy was in the water for nearly an hour and ought to get the grant.” There was one phase of distress in the West which admitted of no description, and which was always a source of considerable anxiety to the Local Government Board. This was the typhus fever. It was generally concealed by the people in whose houses it broke out, as they were shunned by their neighbours, their children were not allowed into the schools, shops or churches, and the patients themselves were desperately afraid of being moved to hospital, as they had a superstition that if they left their homes with the disease they would never return alive. On the mainland we were able to take measures for the proper treatment of the sufferers, and for the prevention of the spread of the disease, but the islands were a real trouble. We had one bad outbreak in the Inishkea Islands which ran like wildfire through the whole population. Not a house escaped and the mortality was dreadful. The

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doctor and the nurse we sent out there died, and the difficulty in transporting medicines, provisions and necessaries was almost insuperable until the Admiralty lent us H.M.S. Albacore for the purpose. Although the people were in a state of abject terror as death after death occurred, it was impossible to make them understand the risks of infection. Our medical inspector brought a supply of woven wire mattresses and then ordered the old straw beds, on which people had lain with the typhus, to be taken out and thrown into a pit and buried; but when we returned a few days afterwards, he found that the people had dug up the old disease-sodden beds, had brought them back to their houses, and continued to use them. They had a firm idea that ill luck would be fall the house if the family beds were thrown aside. After much argument they agreed to allow the beds to be taken out and disinfected. These were, therefore, all brought to a field at the back of the village, and the inspector produced his disinfectant in the shape of a barrel of paraffin, with which he saturated the pile. Then, unobserved by the people, he threw in a lighted match which sent up the whole in a roar of flame which speedily reduced them to ashes, while the people stood around dismayed, weeping and wailing and beating their breasts with wild lamentations. “It’s gone, it’s gone, the bed me ould man brought me to on me wedding night, the bed where Shamus and Nora were born to me, the bed where my father and mother slept and died. What’ll I do at all, at all?” and so forth. They would not be consoled; nothing our staff had done for them at the risk of their lives could wipe out this reckless destruction of their beds, which they declared would call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the perpetrators of the outrage. Even when the outbreak was under control, and the houses whitewashed and fumigated, and new beds and bedding provided, and our inspector, Dr. Edgar Flinn, and the nurses who had snatched them from the jaws of death were taking their departure, the episode of the beds was not forgotten, and it was a sullen crown that stood around to see them embark. Dr. Flinn bade them good-bye with a few sympathetic words about the losses they had sustained, and with a warning note as to sanitary precautions for the future. All the reply he got from the chief man of the islands was: “You and your gang, you think you know everything, but I tell you you do not.” Times have improved with these islanders. When I last visited them a flourishing whale fishery had been established on the South Island which was providing employment at high wages for all. The Norwegian who was running it told me he found the people very hard to manage. He instanced the fact that if any of the workers took sick, he paid them full wages till they recovered, but on one occasion when an unusually large number of fish had been towed in, he had to keep as many men working overtime as were willing to work late hours, whereupon all the sick men sat up in bed and shouted for overtime payments also.

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Notes 1 This was Gladstone’s first Home Rule Bill of 1886 which was defeated in the House of Commons and led to the Conservative Party coming to power under Lord Salisbury. 2 In 1885 the Newport union had been amalgamated with that of Westport and included Achill Island.

350

41 EVIDENCE OF REV. T. FLANNERY OF CLIFDEN TO THE POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) INQUIRY 1 ON THE 13 DECEMBER 1886, OUTLINING THE LEVEL OF DISTRESS IN HIS PARISH AND THE PUBLIC WORKS THAT WERE PUT IN PLACE TO COUNTERACT THE DESTITUTION. POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) INQUIRY COMMISSION: REPORT AND EVIDENCE, AND APPENDICES, H.C. 1887 (C-5403), pp. 145–146 6913. Mr Reddington2 – In what state was your parish before these works were established? – Previous to these works, I felt it my duty as parish priest to call the attention of the Government to the great distress that prevailed universally over the whole parish. 6914. What are the three electoral divisions you refer to? – Skannive, Knockboy, and Owengowla. These are the three divisions immediately under my charge. After my calling the attention of the Government to the matter, a Local Government Inspector was sent down – Mr. Bourke – to investigate the distress. He came down and investigated into the distress, and went into a number of houses in the divisions of Skannive and Knockboy, and certainly the distress there is visible and manifest, and only for Mr. Bourke, I have no hesitation in swearing as my conviction, that hundreds of families would have died in the parish. 6915. When was this? – I think three weeks are a fortnight before the works were started. Then I came in before the board one day, knowing Mr. Bourke was here, and I asked the guardians to allow the work in each of the divisions to be started in

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order that the distressed people would be taken on, and we would be in advance of the distress which I anticipated would be appalling, but the guardians outvoted me, and there was obstruction manifested then and afterwards against giving anything to Carna. There was a vote taken on the matter, and I was defeated, and the Local Government Inspector there and then authorized me to start these works and save the people from starving, and I took it upon myself on the authority of the inspector, and these cases were immediately brought before the Board next day. We intended to have a road in each division, and there was a resolution come to by the Board that roads should be started in each place as convenient to the people as possible, and the people put out on the roads to work. The people were taken up then and the work generally given to them. 6916. When was the work commenced? – About the 3rd May. I don’t know the exact day, but it was about that time. 6917. The board meeting was on the 27th April? – Yes. 6918. What day does the board meet? – Oh Wednesday. 6919. Was it a month afterwards? Yes, on the Monday afterwards. I think I began the works on Thursday. 6920. That is the next day? Yes, at all events we started the works on Saturday. The people could get no credit. The spring came unusually severe. The people who had means, and who under ordinary circumstances would not have required assistance; those who had means, such as potatoes, oats, and barley, which they would keep for their own use, were obliged to part with them and give them to the cattle on the mountain because the spring continued severe, and they had exhausted all they had at their disposal. Scores of cattle died and were found dead on the mountain. The cattle were reduced to such a state that they would not be worth anything. A man might part with four head of cattle and not get four bags of meal for them. That is the exact state of the case. 6921. You started the works? – Yes. 6921A. Was it on the verbal or written authority of the inspector? – On the verbal authority. The party of action was disgusted with the action of the Guardians in trying to hound down the locality that asked relief because they themselves did not require relief. 6922. Did you select the people who were to go on the works? – Yes.

352

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6923. Did the relieving officer go with you? – he came immediately; in some cases he was with me and in some cases he was in advance of me; but in the generality of cases we started three roads before he was able to attend. 6924. Was the guardian of the division with you? – Yes; the three guardians acted in conjunction with me. 6925 – Then at the end of the week the tickets were issued by the relieving officer? – Yes. 6926. – Were these cases brought before the board? – Yes; they were brought in by the relieving officer. 6927. – Were you present? – Yes; I was present at nearly every meeting. It was known that objections would be raised here, and frivolous objections were made by some of the guardians and the books could not be ruled. Time was spent in worthless arguments and worthless obstruction. 6928. – But all the cases you put on by your own authority and that the guardian accompanied you? – were they discussed at the next meeting of the board? – Yes; but perhaps it would be a fortnight before they could reach them. 6929. – And in the meantime, as far as you know, relief was given by the relieving officer? – Yes. 6930. – Mr. Robinson.3 – When you speak of Mr. Arthur Bourke authorizing the work, did he authorize you to commence them or did he authorize the relieving officer to commence them? – He authorized me to save the people; to start the work and the people would be paid. 6931. Mr. Redington. – The clerk said the first payment was made on the 15th May, and I understand you to say that the works began shortly after the 27th April? – Yes. 6932. – When were they paid? – They were paid actually when they began the work. There was an opinion then that every little shopkeeper would be able to supply meal and get paid. 6933. When were they paid? – Immediately before the week was up. 6934. Where did they get the tickets? – The shopkeepers gave them meal waiting until the people got tickets.

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6935. When did they get the tickets? – About a fortnight afterwards; but in the meantime the people were relieved, because when a man was put on the road, and worked on the road, then the shopkeeper advanced him meal, and then when the ticket was issued he handed in the ticket; he had more meal, and sometimes three times as much meal borrowed, as the ticket would sanction. Then the contractors were confined to two or three by the Local Government Board, and they could not get meal in advance from these shopkeepers. 6936. What happened the shopkeepers who had given meal in advance? – They had to depend on the people until the harvest time, until they dispose of their stock, for these people are very honest and very charitable. Some of them have divided a quarter stone of meal with each other, waiting until the orders came. 6937. Mr. Robinson. – Do I understand that there was so much frivolous controversy that the books could not be ruled? – Yes. 6938. Was it about the cases? – No; it was obstruction such as you have often seen yourself. 6939. If the guardians had discussed only the matters before them they could have ruled the books? Yes; and the people might have been put on two or three weeks before they were put on. 6940. Mr. Redington. – You have the question that I asked about the great reductions which took place suddenly? – Yes. 6941. What happened to the people during that time? – When they got a ticket issued today they got a week’s credit. And there was an order made by the board that it was only the works that were suspended and not the relief. And in the next payment the people got all for the fortnight, and the result was the same. 6942. But fewer people were on at the end of the fortnight than before? – They got relief from the contractor. But the order extended over the week that was going on, and the people were paid for all they had done before. 6943. When was the order for the stopping of the relief? – Mr. Burke, clerk. The 2nd of June. 6944. Mr. Robinson. – do you think any risk was run when these works were stopped suddenly in this way? – Immense risk. I think the people were reduced to actual starvation. They were for three days confined to one meal a day.4

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6946. Did you represent the risks to the guardians? – Of course I protested strongly, and always did, as the guardians know. 6947. Did they consider it no risk? – They said as there is no distress in this district, therefore the people hundreds of miles away do not require it. 6948. Mr. Redington. – The order was that the works be carried out until Saturday, the 2nd of June, and that they be stopped for one week, and that anyone who was already destitute, or in actual want, be relieved by the relieving officer in the usual way. Once the 5th of June came the relief stopped, and they got tickets you say, which carried them on the 10th? Yes, and it kept them living for the week to come. 6949. – They got the tickets for a week which kept them living for a fortnight? – They had to go on starvation allowance in the last degree. 6950. – On the 12th of June they got nothing? – No. 6951. – What kept them going from that? – The order they got on the 10th. 6952. – They were not paid in advance? – It was a week only after the work that they were paid. The work was in advance of the payment. 6953. Mr. Robinson. – Was it a fact that the work was really in advance of the payment? – It was what they got on the 5th that kept them to the 10th, and they borrowed and begged from each other, and it was regular starvation. 6954. – Mr. Redington. – don’t you think it rather points to the fact that they had too many people on the relief when they were able to stop it for a week without any serious loss? No; not one should have been taken off; it was great mismanagement. 6955. – But that occurred three times – how did you manage then? – When you come to June, after the fair in Roundstone, some people had disposed of cattle, and there was an odd ton of hemp, and some fish turned up. 6956. – But when you say that 1,358 people were on the relief in one week, and only fifty-four the next week in receipt of relief, does that not point to the fact that there were too many people for relief ? – There was a sudden cessation of the work, but not any meal advanced. When the ticket was issued the meal perhaps could not come from Galway, and the contractor could not have for them, and they had to wait. 6957. – Did they run into debt? – They did.

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6957A. – Besides the relief they got from the guardians did they get meal and food, for which they will have to pay later on? – They did, certainly. 6958. – You are satisfied that the works were good works? – They were excellent works; and as far as I can see, the work was very well done, and we are very thankful to the gentlemen who were appointed by the Government for the work they gave. But for them there would not be as much work in the locality. 6959. – In your district were the depots convenient? – Yes, in my district they were very convenient. There might be questions about Hynes, the contractor, and I wish to allude to the question. There was a large security given by Hynes, and I was very much interested in the poor people having the relief in the proper locality. Mr M’Donagh, of Galway, 5 supplied the meal, and his nephew, Mr. Hynes; and only for these things having been done, perhaps have fever and frightful disease amongst the people. 6960. – Mr. Robinson. – How are the people off this season as to crops? – They are pretty fair. 6961. – Is the potato crop good? – It would have been better but for the severity of the spring, and the harvest time was very bad. If the crop have been saved it would have been very good. 6962. – Did Mr. Tuke give any relief at all? – No, except in seed potatoes, which have done exceedingly well in the majority of cases. 6963. – Mr. Redington. – The question was raised as to certain people who did not appear to be quite destitute, and who were appointed as gangers. Do you approve of that system? – I do, because if you do not put intelligent men over the works they will not be carried out properly, and the poor people, perhaps, will not come in time. 6964. – You don’t think, therefore, that any of the people in receipt of relief, except the gangers, were not fit cases? – No. 6965. – Do you know Owen Donel? – I do. 6966. – Do you think he was a person who was a fit recipient? He was equally fit as any man in the parish who got it almost. He has his farm. I don’t want to interfere at all. Captain Thompson is a very intelligent landlord, but I think it will come out afterwards. 6967. – Do you think he is a poor man? – Unless he had got credit he could not have lived. 356

E vidence of R ev. T . F lannery of C lifden

6968. Mr. Robinson. – Did the guardians take a good deal of interest in the administration of relief? – The guardians did in my district. They attended here every day. 6969. – Why did they not take the same interest in it in the boardroom? – If business is obstructed in this way how can you blame men. They were disgusted. 6970. – Mr. King.6 – Would not you think it is a very queer thing that Owen Donel should pay £6 grand jury cess, and at the same time be receiving relief? – I don’t know. 6971. – Do you think he would do such a thing if Captain Thompson had been there as manager over the farm, and allow his name to be on the rate book? – Is Owen Donel’s name on the rate book? I know the shopkeepers could not make a decree on him as he is reduced to absolute poverty. 6972. – Did not you hear Mr. Mongan say he paid him £6 cess? Yes. 6973 – Do you believe he would allow his name to go on the rate book and on the grand jury book if he were not employed on a road? – You know the world pretty well, and you know the chicanery of the world, and you know how to get out of a law suit too. 6974. – Do you consider it a strange thing that the money should be paid by him? – I do not. 6975. – What is your explanation? – My explanation is that it is in his name and Pat Donel’s and in Captain Thompson’s name, and that the grazing of cattle is taken off that land for so many months of the year, and then when the public cess collector comes on the land he will make a seizure and take poor men’s cattle, and Owen Donel must go and get the money from whoever is interested in the grazing of the land. 6976. – In your opinion he is a very poor man? – Yes.

Notes 1 The inquiry took evidence from witnesses from the seven most distressed unions, Ballina, Belmullet, Clifden, Galway, Oughterard, Swineford, Westport. 2 Charles Redington was a landowner with an estate at Clarenbridge in Co. Galway. 3 Henry Robinson was the Local Government Inspector for the region who had a detailed knowledge of the west from the time of the crisis of 1879–81. See his autobiography for the distress in the west of Ireland, Sir Henry Robinson, Memories: Wise or Otherwise

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(London, 1923). See also Brendan O’Donoghue, Activities Wise and Otherwise: The Career of Sir Henry Augustus Robinson, 1898–1922 (Dublin, 2015). 4 For the crisis in Co. Galway in the 1885–6 period see O’Neill, ‘Minor famines and relief in Galway, 1815–1925’, pp 468–70. 5 Mairtin McDonagh was one of the largest marchants in Galway town. 6 Cornelius King was a Poor Law Guardian for the Clifden Union.

358

42 REPORT OF THE DISTRESS AND PROBLEMS WITH THE POTATO CROP IN THE PARTRY AREA OF CO. MAYO FROM THE MEETING OF THE BALLINROBE BOARD OF GUARDIANS BALLINROBE UNION. The usual meeting of the Board of Guardians of the above Union was held on Thursday last. Guardians attending _Colonel Blake, chairman, presiding; Shanhope Kenny, P. O’Boyle, Redmond Mellett, Thos. Flood. The Clerk read the minutes of the preceding meeting and produced establishment books for examination and signature. DISTRESS IN MOUNT PARTRY, The following letter, on the distress prevailing in the mountain district of the union was read:Tourmakeady, 7th April, 1886. To the Board of Guardians, Ballinarobe. Gentlemen I wish to bring under your notice the dreadful condition of this portion of the union as regards the destitution in which it is placed. During my travels through the villages I find numbers and numbers of families on the verge of starvation, and those not chronic cases, but ones which have arisen as results of the causes which have brought on distress throughout the West; they have no seed potatoes nor seed oats; those of them who have seed will not have anything to eat while awaiting the harvest; they cannot sell the stock, and the shops are refusing credit. One village alone (Glenmask) is quite without seed; there are 25 houses there and they have been living on credit (Indian meal) for the last twelve months. Things are equally as bad in Glensaul, where number of families, owing to the fever last year, were unable to sow any seed; so also in Ballybanin, Drimcoggy, Lettrineen, Shrah, Deressa, and other villages. 359

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It is estimated that the Cappaghduff rate alone will be 10s. in the £ this year, which shows the pinch of distress. Every day I have numbers of persons asking me to get them relief, Mt. Partry having enjoyed the luxury of being a mendicant in the public market when Achill and other places were clothed in purple and fine linen. I would ask you to call on the Government to do something for this place. What the people want is employment, not charity. You ought to press it strongly on the authorities to direct their attention at once to this district. Being so far removed from the ordinary highways, neither Mr. Tuke nor Mr. Brady,1 nor any other Mr. can visit it; and even if they had come they could only visit many of the villages at the risk of their lives, so fearful is the approach to them. Indeed the only representatives of the outside world who go there are the priest, the doctor, and the process server. I enclose the copy of the memorial which Father Corbett 2 and I have forwarded to the Chief Secretary on behalf of the district. I trust you will take instant action on behalf of this poverty-stricken region. I remain, gentlemen, Your obedient servant, J. V. MacDONNELL, C. C.

Notes 1 Mr Brady was the fishing inspector for the region. 2 Rev James Corbett was Parish Priest of Partry. He was appointed in 1883.

360

43 MEMORIAL TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE CHIEF SECRETARY, FROM THE MT. PARTRY AND MAUMTRASNA DISTRICTS, CALLING FOR RELIEF WORKS Sir – We, the inhabitants of Mount Partry and Maumtrasna districts, beg respectfully to lay before you this our Memorial, calling on you to establish public works in these districts which will give us employment and rescue us from the state of destitution in which the great majority of us are plunged. This year has been exceptionally trying for us. There has been no sale for the few mountain stock which many of us used to keep. We walked to numbers of fairs and were not asked where we were going. Those of us who were fortunate enough to sell did so at a ruinous sacrifice. We are up to our eyes in debt with shopkeepers, and see no prospect of being able to pay it. It is almost impossible to get credit. The potatoes, which have been our only article of food, will be exhausted as soon as the seed is sown. A large number of us have already eaten our seed potatoes. We are in such a state, that if assistance does not come from some quarter, we tremble at the prospect that lies before us. We don’t want charity; we want employment, which won’t rob us of our independence. There is plenty of material for employment; from the want of roads as these districts are locked out from the ordinary haunts of civilization. There are numbers which could be built; others which might be repaired – one especially which connects this place with Westport, and would give great employment if it were repaired; another which if built would connect two county roads and open up the whole Maumtrasna district to the world;1 only half a mile of a road requires to be built to effect this. Earl Spencer 2 knows well the place referred to, as do Messrs. Harrington,3 Healy,4 and Wm O’Brien,5 M.P.s. We would remind you of Mr. Healy saying after he visited our homes—‘people ought to be paid for living here’—it was a true estimate of our condition. Sir, we are encouraged by your past record to cherish the hope that our memorial will not be in vain. Dr. Blake, medical officer, Cappaghduff, in reply to the Chairman, also detailed some cases coming under his notice, in evidence of the desperate state of destitution among the people of Glenmask and other villages. 361

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In reference to the foregoing the following resolution (proposed by Colonel Blake) was unanimously adopted:Resolved – That the Board begs to represent to the Local Government Board the exceptional distress existing in the electoral divisions of Ballinchalla, Ballyover, Cappaghduff, and Owenbrinn, where the people of the remote villages of the said electoral divisions are at present without food or seed to sow their holdings. That the Local Government Board be requested to urge upon the Government the necessity to procure seed potatoes and seed oats for them, and to afford work and employment to them for the coming months by opening up new roads and repairing old ones – works of this nature being much required in the above districts, as they would prove a source of permanent improvement in the wants of the people. Connaught Telegraph, 17 April 1886. The crisis of 1886 was averted by James Hack Tuke who organized a subscription among his friends for the purchase and distribution of seed potatoes among the areas most severely affected in the west of Ireland. The following is his report into the distribution of the potatoes.

Notes 1 The Maamtrasna area became famous because of the murder of the Joyce family in August 1882, see Jarlath Waldron, Maamtrasna: The Murders and the Mystery (Dublin, 1992). 2 Earl Spencer was Irish Lord Lieutenant between 1882 and 1885. 3 Tim Harringtom was born in Castletownbere, Co. Cork in 1851, and founded ‘The Kerry Sentinel’ in 1877. In 1880, he was elected MP for Co. Kerry, and in 1883 became M.P. for Co. Westmeath. 4 Tim Healy was born in Bantry, Co. Cork in 1855. In 1870s, he worked as a journalist for The Nation. In 1883, he was elected M.P. for Co. Monaghan. 5 William O’Brien was M.P. for Mallow.

362

44 ACHILL AND WEST OF IRELAND SEED POTATO FUND 1

‘Achill and West of ireland Seed-Fund’ in J.H. Tuke, Reports and Papers relating to the Proceedings of the Committee of ‘Mr. Tuke’s Fund,’ For assisting emigration from Ireland, during the years 1882, 1883, and 1884. Also Report on Distribution of Seed Potatoes in Achill and West of Ireland, in 1886, with suggestions for Permanent Relief; and Letters from Donegal and reports of Success of Emigrants, 1889 (London, 1889), pp. 1–15. It seems right that the subscribers who have so liberally assisted, the fund for distributing seed potatoes in the Islands and on the mainland of the Western Coast of Ireland should be presented as soon as possible with a statement of accounts and a report of the carryout of the work. The detailed accounts . . . show that five thousand two hundred and seven pounds have been received from subscribers and five thousand and seventeen pounds expended. The small balance remaining will be used, by permission of the donors, in giving employment, &c., in special cases of need. The total number of families supplied with the seed has exceeded 6,000, representing a population of 30,000 or 40,000 persons. As will be seen in the following, the most gratifying accounts have been received of the successful growth and prospects of the crops, from the various Islands and parishes assisted. To the numerous friends and acquaintance, as well as the many unknown contributors, who have permitted me to confer this benefit, I  desire to express my grateful acknowledgements. This brief summary may suffice for those who have not the time or inclination to study the fuller details which follow. GENERAL REPORT. Towards the close of 1885 I was made aware of the serious injury caused to the potato crop in the previous autumn by the severe storms which swept over the Islands and the West Coast of Ireland. In February of the present year, I was induced to issue the following short statement in reference to the condition of Achill. 363

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ISLAND OF ACHILL, Co. Mayo “The extreme distress which exists on this island, comprising a population of about 6,000 persons, has been prominently noticed in many of the leading newspapers. It is the old story, the entire failure of the potato crop; the complete absence of employment, and the consequent inability of the small holders of land to provide seed potatoes for the crop of the ensuing year. The question has arisen once more, ‘What can be done to meet the emergency?’ As the best proof of the extreme urgency of the case I may state that I was applied to by the Irish Executive just before the Conservative Government left office, and subsequently by the present Executive, to know whether it was possible to raise a small fund, privately, in order to purchase seed potatoes and thus avert the dreaded famine. To both applications my reply has been the same: ‘That in the present state of public feeling towards Ireland, it seems to me impossible to raise any money by public subscription.’2 This reply, however, does not seem to relieve me from the responsibility which attaches to it, without making one effort to obtain the necessary sum by placing the facts before a limited number of those among my friends who have on several former occasions so generously assisted me. Whilst it would be most grateful to me to find that they are not ‘wearied in well-doing,’ I shall hardly be surprised if they should not feel disposed to respond to this appeal. It is estimated that 1,000 families will need to be supplied with seed potatoes at a cost of about £1 per holding. As the matter is pressing an early reply is requested.” – February, 1886. The prompt offer of help which followed this appeal left me no longer in doubt as to my duty in the matter, and with the promise of nearly £1,000, I once more left home for the West of Ireland on the 7th March, accompanied by my wife and nephew, Sir Henry Lawrence. Before leaving, I had an interview with Mr. John Morley, Chief Secretary for Ireland, who afforded me every help in his power, and at my request appointed Mr. Ruttledge Fair as a temporary Local Government Board Inspector to assist in carrying out the work. I started with the idea that the area which needed a supply of seed potatoes was chiefly, if not wholly, confined to Achill, and the other islands on the West Coast of Ireland. Achill, the largest of these islands, was especially pointed to me as needing help. Subsequently information showed how erroneous this idea was, and that nearly the whole coast of Connaught required to be relieved. In passing through Dublin, on my way to the West, it was arranged after consultation with His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant, and Vice-President of the Local Government Board, and others, that I should undertake to supply the islands of Achill, Boffin, and Shark with seed potatoes. Mr. Brady, Inspector of Fisheries, and others, undertook to supply Clare Island and Innish Turk,3 as well as the isles of Arran, in the Bay of Galway, chiefly from the funds raised by the Irish Constabulary. On arriving at the island of Achill I found that a Relief Committee presided over by the parish priest, Father O’Connor, was in active operation. The lists of the Committee showed that no less than 750 families out of 1,000 or 1,100 on the island were 364

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in the receipt of relief in the shape of doles of meal, generally given as payment for work. Taking the lists of this Committee as the basis of our inquiries we made a very careful inspection of most of the villages on the island. And whilst we found it desirable to exclude from our list a few families who appeared to have sufficient seed, we also found it needful to add a considerably larger number who possessed very little seed if any. The final result of our inquiries led us to place 954 families on our lists. These have been provided with seed varying in quantity from 4 to 10 cwt. Each, with the exception of a few families who, being possessed of some seed of their own, received 2 cwt. each. That 954 out of 1,100 families on the island of Achill, should require to be assisted must be regarded as conclusive evidence of the destruction caused to the potato-crop by the severe storms of August last. The following extract from my letter to the Times, dated March 25th, 1886, will supply exact information as to the condition of the villages in Achill Island. With regard to the necessity for seed potatoes, in order to avert yet further distress in the future, I was assured that unless seed were given, 80 per cent. of the holdings would practically remain unsown, and that even for the remaining 20 per cent. there would not be the full quantity of seed. My own visits for four days throughout the island, to a very large number of the houses, the least poor as well as the poorest, confirmed the gloomy statements made to me alike by the Committee, the clergy, the police, and others: and I have no hesitation in saying that the absolute needs of the people have not been exaggerated, and hardly can be. The island is like a besieged city in a state of semi-famine, the people relieved by fortnightly doles of meal barely half the amount required; those who have a few treasured potatoes left eating them like measured rations, sensible that they were consuming their only hope of escape from future famine; whilst all are without credit or means of obtaining supplies. During those four days we were witnesses of scenes of privation and suffering borne with a patience and resignation which it was impossible to see unmoved. And as an example of the condition of the island, I will select from my notes the story of one village. March 15th. – Visited Dooega East and West, two small villages on the seashore, containing 110 houses, more like dirty cattle sheds, and 600 or 700 persons. With the exception of nine families, two of whom had out-door relief, all were receiving fortnightly allowances of meal from the Relief Committee. Rents and holdings very small: three only at or above £2 per annum, the majority varying from 20s. to 30s., and some as low as 5s. or 10s. Visited 20 or more houses. Each, in varying degrees, had the same story, “The potatoes were killed by the Autumn storm,” and either “We have none left,” or “We are eating the little store of seed, yer honour;” while a few told us that they still had one-fourth or one-third of the ordinary quantity of potatoes for sowing. None begged for money; all asked for work so as to obtain meal for their families, and implored for seed with which to plant their holdings; and as the whole male population assembled around us like a small Parliament, we had ample opportunity of hearing the vox populi. “What we want, yer honour, is piers and help with the fishing; but the piers, yer honour, are the first; for if we had them we could go out with our own small boats every day, and need 365

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not go to England – and now for days we are idle and dare not venture out with the rough seas.” “Where is the place for the pier which you think would help you?” we ask; and instantly the moveable Parliament, heedless of the snow and wind howling around, led us to the two or three places on the coast which in the view of the wisest were deemed the best. Their practical explanations were clear and lucid, and the reasons, pro and con stated (it is hardly needed to say) with force and energy. On our return we took shelter in a small shop and from the owner, who hospitably boiled the kettle and provided us with tea, I learnt the following: Asked: “What meal are you selling weekly”. “None now to the people except that on orders from the Committee.’ ” “How much last year at this time?” “We and the other shops sold four to six tons of meal a week – and all the people get now is about one and a-half tons per week from the ‘Committee.’ ” “How much tea did you sell last year per week?” “About four or five pounds, and now all I sell is a quarter of a pound each to the relieving officer and myself; and the little chest I ordered is going back to the merchant.” “How much tobacco was sold weekly last year?” “Five or six pounds, and now I have only an empty canister; no one can buy. We cannot give more credit, the people owe me from £4 or £5 to £10 and some £17 each, and I owe my merchant at Westport, and cannot pay him.” “Were the rents paid?” we asked. “Yes, up to March, 1885, but now it is impossible.” The people spoke of the stoppage of credit as one great cause of the distress. “Last year we could get a bag of meal on credit, for they knew we would pay when we came back from England or had the little beast or cow to sell. This year the English wages came to nothing, the most we brought home with us was £2, £3, or £4, and many earned nothing and to send for or borrow money to bring us back and some staying in England because they had no earnings to bring them home.” “Are you as badly off as 1879–80?” “We are worse, yer honour, because we had the English earnings then, and could get a price for the cattle. Now, if we drove the cattle to four fairs we cannot get a price, and the shopman will not give us a bag of meal (14s.) for a beast! I sold my cow for 15s., and now have no milk for the family.” This impossibility of getting a sale for the cattle I heard of everywhere. Here, then, in this village is a summary of the condition of the island, except that in the better villages 10 or 15 or 20 per cent. of the people may have a little store of seed and some means to buy potatoes. The four causes of the present condition cannot be more clearly shown than from the above. (1) Destruction of the potato crop by the August storms. (2) Want of English earnings from shortness of labour there. (3) Inability to sell stock where held. (4). Stoppage of credit. For the immediate provision of seed potatoes I arranged to supply sufficient Scotch Champions for 750 to 800 families, in quantities varying from five to ten cwt. according to the number in the family. Lists were prepared with the utmost care and verified as we went round the villages or by consultation with those qualified to judge. Further, no seed is to be delivered to the applicants unless a form supplied to them has been signed by two of the head men in the village, stating that the lands

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are cultivated. The announcement of this grant was received with the utmost thankfulness, and seemed to fill the hearts of the people with renewed energy and hope. I must not conclude this notice of Achill without saying that the Relief Committee appeared to be working with the utmost energy to meet the present emergency, and as it is dependent on subscriptions its position is a very difficult one. On leaving the island of Achill I closely inspected various villages on the mainland lying between Achill and Westport, as well as other portions of the Mayo coast, south-west of Westport, a distance in all of 50 or 60 miles. Some notes of my visits to these districts, taken on the spot will be found in the reports on the mainland. So convinced was I of the necessity of informing the Government of their distressed condition that on the day after my return to Westport I proceeded to Dublin to confer with the Lord Lieutenant 4 and the Local Government Board. For, quite apart from the necessity of obtaining a much larger private fund for the supply of seed potatoes for the mainland, it appeared evident that other relief measures were absolutely required to bridge over the time which must elapse between the planting and gathering of the crops. Owing to this and other representations, Mr. John Morley 5 introduced into the House of Commons a short Bill for relief of distress in several of the Western Unions, and a Commission for carrying out useful relief works, chiefly roads and piers, is now in operation in the district, of which Mr. Charles Reddington was appointed chairman. During my temporary absence in Dublin Captain R. Fair visited the islands of Boffin and Shark. His report, dated 20th March, is to the following effect: – After making most minute inquiries he is of opinion that the population of the two islands is in a worse condition than that of the poorest districts of Achill. He further confirmed this opinion by the evidence of Father Colleran, P.P., the police, coastguard, medical officer, and shopkeepers, whose statements disclose a state of destitution in Boffin and Shark considered to be worse than that of 1879–80. Father Colleran stated that a few weeks since he had distributed to a few families a small quantity of seed potatoes, and after doing so it had come to his knowledge that, in their great hunger some of the people had eaten them, having no other food. As the local committee had no funds at its disposal, it seemed necessary to guard against this contingency in reference to the intended supply of seed potatoes, by sending some meal to the island. Captain Fair therefore returned to Westport to arrange for the immediate shipment of five tons of Indian meal, which was despatched the following day in one of the gunboats placed by the Admiralty under orders to assist in the work. Further extracts from the evidence of persons in the island of Boffin will further confirm Captain Fair’s statement. MRS. BARRETT, SHOPKEEPER. 

– I used to sell half a-ton of flour and one ton of meal per week; now hardly sell anything; about 3s. per week; the times are far worse than in 79 and ’80, far worse; remember ’46; thinks this is just as bad. Only for what they are getting from the priest they would be just as bad.

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Fishing has failed entirely this year; the people want new nets badly. As for selling tea and tobacco they laughed at the very idea. MARK CUNANE.  – I sowed four bushels (192 stone) last year, but they were hardly worth digging. Have had no potatoes since Christmas. Have six children, the eldest fifteen. Have lived on sea-weed since the potatoes were finished till last month, when the priest gave me a little meal. PAT LAVELLE.  – I have six children (nearly naked, sleeping in one bed). No potatoes at all. I  fish a little but have caught scarcely anything. Have one and a-half acres (Irish); could sow three and a-half bushels of potatoes. His wife said she had to sell her bed and blankets to get food; would have starved if it were not for the priest. (Lavelle tried to prevent his wife making the statement but could not stop her.) MICHAEL DAVIS, SHOPKEEPER.  – Five weeks ago went to Westport and bought one ton of meal. It is not all sold yet, though the priest bought some of it. Used to sell one ton in a fortnight before now. Sold over £40 worth of fish in Westport up to Patrick’s Day, 1885; has only sold seven or eight dozen fish this year, for which got £1. ACTING SERGEANT PATRICK COGHLAN, R.I.C. – I have been stationed on the island three separate times, and have now been in charge 14 months. The people are miserably poor, and in many cases try and hide their poverty. I have relieved many families myself privately. I never remember the people so poor – they are far worse than in 1880. I was at Cleggan then, eight miles off. The failure of the potato is the chief cause of the want. They have also caught no fish this winter, which adds greatly to the distress. I attribute the failure in fishing to the want of proper boats and nets. I myself have seen large shoals of fish escaping for want of nets. On my return to Westport from Dublin the distribution of seed potatoes at once commenced. The first cargo arrived at Westport on the 25th of March. The difficulties experienced in conveying the seed to the Islands as well as in its subsequent distribution is very great. The weather was extraordinarily stormy, and for more than a fortnight the wind, and frequently snow and hail, were constantly fighting against us. There is no harbour or pier of any size on the island of Achill, and for many days no gunboat or other vessel could approach the coast; this compelled us to store the potatoes at Westport (30 miles distant), where they were left by the Glasgow steamers awaiting transhipment to the islands, in gunboats. On more than one occasion, after being detained some days in harbour, the gun boats were driven back into port after attempting to make the passage. Nor did the difficulty end here, for when able to arrive in Achill the discharge of 30 to 60 tons of potatoes over the shipside into hookers or boats was attended with no small risk and trouble in the open roadstead. The work was consequently very much delayed and it took more than three weeks to complete the distribution in the island of Achill alone. 368

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In this island 944 families were supplied with seed; and in Boffin and Shark 223 out of 240 families on the islands. The supply of potatoes to these 1,167 families amounted in the whole to 455 tons. The potatoes supplied were Scotch Champions: subsequently nearly all the seed potatoes were purchased in Londonderry, being Champions grown in the North of Ireland from seed recently imported. Leaving the islands I now proceed to report on the work done on the mainland. MAINLAND - COAST OF CONNAUGHT As already noted, it soon became evident that the storms which had injured the potato crop on the islands had with greater or less severity affected the whole coast line of Connaught. If the work attempted in the islands was a necessity, equally was it needed for the inhabitants of the villages and hamlets on the rugged coasts of Mayo and Galway. How great was the extent of the destitution will be seen from the following extracts from notes taken at the time of my visit to some of these villages on the northern shores of Clew Bay. In these visits I had the great advantage of being accompanied by Mr. A. E. Horne, R.M., whose acquaintance with the district and sympathy with the people gives us a much added weight to any information I might obtain. VILLAGE OF DOOBEG ON THE MAINLAND. March 16th, 1886. In this village there are thirteen houses, in which eighty-seven people live. Hugh Cattigan’s daughter lately died for want of proper nourishment, and he had not the few shillings necessary to buy a coffin for her, until his neighbours, who are almost as poor as himself, subscribed the pence which they received for the eggs sold, and the Mulranny police subscribed their shillings to buy the boards required to make a coffin. His wife and another daughter are now sick in the house, and evidently in want of sufficient food. He has only two or three “cleaves” of potatoes in the world, and has now no other food. A few days ago he got two stones of meal on credit from a shopkeeper, although he owed him already from £4 to £5. He has a boat which he bought for £10, which Mr. Brady (Fishing Inspector) had lent him. Of this £10 he has paid 35s. and owes the rest. He also got a set of news from the same source, for which he owes £6 6s. He lost the nets last year in a storm, and nearly lost his life and his boat in trying to save them. Has seven in family. Got 2s. from the Relieving Officer, but no more since. He has no seed, but has land ready for seed and hopes that God may send it to him. He usually sows two barrels of potatoes (32 cwt.), sufficient for one and a-half acres, and he also sows about three-quarters of an acre of oats. He has not a grain of oats to sow now. He has no cattle except a calf two years old. He had three beasts two years ago. In former years he used to buy £10 to £12 worth of provisions, along with what he raised on the land. He made the money on cattle and on fishing. 369

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John Malley’s rent is £2 4s. He paid rent last November two years, but could pay none since. This is the case with every man in Doobeg. About half the men went to England last year. In a crowd of about twenty, who were around us, one man stated he had brought less than £1 home with him from England year. Another had £1. Others had similar small sums, but one brought £8 home earned at St. Michael’s, where he has worked for many summers now. This man has ten in family, and his potatoes lasted him but three months, so his money is all gone, and he has no credit. Another man brought £3 home from Lancashire. Another, who stated he sometimes brought £9, and sometimes £12 from England, brought but £1 this year, and his potatoes lasted only till Christmas. He got an £8 loan from Mr. Brady to buy a boat, and he cannot pay the “cess” which is now coming due on that loan. Another man stated he used to sow forty-eight cwt. of potatoes every year, and in times past, when he had only himself and his wife to feed, and when the crops were good, he often sold five tons of potatoes in the year, for he reclaimed land off the wild mountains, and went out to sea and got seaweed; but now he has a houseful of children and is failing to feed them, for instead of selling potatoes they were all used before Christmas, and he has been buying meal since on credit, and now all his credit is used up. He has one cow, which he took to five fairs, but was not even asked the price of her. He would be glad to take £2 for her if he could get as much. Martin Patton’s circumstances are about the same. He sold a four-year-old cow after calving for £3; and was at three fairs before he succeeded in selling her. He sold her in Newport fair and bought Indian meal with the price of her, but that is all used now. He bought this cow last year at Achill fair, from a man named Cafferky, of Meelin, for £11. Peter O’Donnel lost £7 worth of nets the day Hugh Cattigan’s boat was broken and nets lost. Owing to sickness in almost every house in Doobeg we could not enter many of them. We saw enough, however, to convince us of the universal distress. The police who accompanied us stated that the people are far worse off now than in 1879–80, and that not one of the Doobeg men has potatoes to sow. They saw them dig them last harvest, and they were not worth digging, being “no bigger than marbles.” We noticed that all the Doobeg people have their land prepared for seed, but we found there was actually but one small pit of potatoes in the entire village. COSHLECKA March 16th, 1886. In this village there are nine families, comprising 66 people. They have no potatoes, even their seed is eaten, and they owe three years’ rent. James Moran’s rent is £2 5s., but owing to the poverty of his crops, he has not been able to pay any rent these three years. He has eleven in family. He owns one cow and one calf; he would be glad to take £3 or even £2 for the cow and £1 for the calf. He would sow two tons of potatoes if he had seed; but this year his crop

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did not bring him two tons altogether, and they were all used before Christmas; whereas, in a good year, he would have a few barrels to sell. He has a boat, but last year the fishing was bad; he bought the boat with money he had on loan from Mr. Brady and is not able to pay the “cess” now coming due on that loan. James Grehan’s circumstances are nearly similar. He was nine weeks in England last year but could not bring anything home. Pat Grehan says: “We are now living on meal; some of us got it in Newport from men who knew us and gave us credit, and Father Coan got meal for some of us who had no credit by going bail for us; but he told us he cannot bail us any more. He got me a bag.” (Note this is the man whose mother gave some of this bag of meal to John Grehan in Mulranny). Pat Grehan, further stated: “All of us were here in ’79 and ’80, and we are now worse off, for we got a little relief then, and had a little ‘praties,’ and some of us had cattle, which then went from £5 to £10. Now we could not get 30s. for a cow or more than 10s. for a calf. Sixteen stone of Indian meal costs 14s. in Mulranny, and would keep a family of six for two weeks well; we are living on far less now and don’t even know where to get that any more.” __________________________________ MULRANNY VILLAGE March 16th. Near Mulranny we were stopped by two men, John and Michael Cleary, who informed us that they were both under ejectment notices. The child of one of them accompanied them. Examined him alone. He (the child) stated he had Indian meal for breakfast; that they had eaten no potatoes for a month. The Clearys said: We have now no provision at all, and a good many in the village are as bad; we were under decree before, three years ago, and we had to pay the sheriff, and we are sunk is debt since! We pay £5 12s. 6d. rent; and there is a decree against each of us, for we are a joint holding. We have now one potato; we bought meal from Mr. Moran’s, and now we have no more money and we have no credit.” With the Clearys was Thomas Maguire, who stated that he had about three cwt. of potatoes and no other provision in the world. Pat Masterson has a boy who has been in bed six months with a bad leg, a most pitiable object. His wife’s father, an old man of 90, was lying on a bed with the most scanty bed clothing, the old man being naked in the bed, no shirt on. Masterson has a little cow and calf, and about seven or eight cwt. of potatoes. He paid his rent (£4) last November, and had nothing now to live on. Thought he had done very wrong in paying his rent, for his children were now in want of food; but his fear was that he would be turned out in the middle of winter if he didn’t, and he thought it better to give all the means he had to pay his rent and thus secure the children having a house over them during the winter. Two other owners told the same story with regard to the rent, and it was corroborated by the Sergeant of Police.

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Sergeant McGuinness states there are forty-six families in Mulranny, of whom fifteen families are now very badly off, and many more will be so in a short time. Not more than ten families in the village could plant their ground without help! Michael Joyce has one little pit of potatoes, and nine in family, whom he is feeding on meal and potatoes; he got the meal on credit, and his wife remarked, “sure the books of the whole of them is dirty with our names.” His rent is £3 1s. 6d., and there is a decree against him. John Grehan is in absolute want, “having put a quarter of a stone of meal between himself and starvation.” He often brought £16 out of England, last year he brought £6 7s., but he has yet to pay for most of the meal he had last year, so that he is ashamed to go near the shop. He did well with his English earnings until the past three years, and now he has twelve mouths to feed, which makes him so much poorer than his neighbours. His rent is £2 5s.; he owes but one year’s rent; there is no decree against him. The poor man stated: “I could not buy three stone of meal if it was to save myself and my family from starvation forever, if I was to die for it. In three weeks I will not have one potato and nowhere to go for a bit, and now I have no credit. I paid the little rent I had while it lasted. My children go to the shore and pick up cockles and winkles. I do not know where to go nor who to ask for one pound of meal. If I got anything to earn for the last two or three months I would not have seed, but there was no work at all. I cannot go into the workhouse with my big family. I want to do a little sowing if I can get seed to keep them next year, and they would not take the family in unless I went with them. I don’t know how to go to England this year, for the train fare is £1 0s. 1d. Myself and my family would eat one cwt. of meal in a week, and I would seldom be trusting to that in good times, but I wish I had it now. The quarter of a stone of meal I have in the house now is the remains of what I got from my mother last night. My mother is Ellen Grehan, who lives in Coshlecks, with her son, my brother Pat. She got a bag of meal the priest bailed for her, and it’s part of that meal she sent me. I have about seven cwt. of potatoes I was trying to save for seed, but I must eat them now.” Owen Masterson has his cow lying dead in his house, a one-roomed shed; she died last night with a calf. His rent is £2 10s., and he owes one year’s rent. Went to England while he was able, but is now too old to go any more; brought home only £2 last year; he was working at Preston. Has four cwt. of seed potatoes, but must now eat them. Has four children all is rags, none fit to earn. Is in the habit of setting ten cwt. of potatoes yearly; has no credit in the shop, and got no meal yet, and has no way to get meal; the cow had supported the family by the sale of her milk. Another man stated, “I owe one year’s rent last November, and there is an ejectment decree out against me; so I do not know what day I may be turned out and be without a roof to cover my sick daughter. I am carrying home a drop of paraffin oil (we saw he had a pint in a bottle) to have a light when we want to attend her by night. I used to go to England when I was able, but I am too old now. The land was wide enough for profits until this year, but they failed me this year. I walked twenty miles to-day, and had nothing to eat since a little breakfast I got.”

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The sergeant at Mulranny informed us that there were several other cases in the locality quite as bad as those we had seen, and some even worse. He had himself relieved several to save them from starvation, and had gone bail in Morgan’s shop for others. He went bail for one bag of meal, which he is sure he will have to pay for, as the man for whom he bought it is in so deplorable a state that we will not be able to pay for it. It would be quite beyond the limits of this report to give details as full as the above of all the districts visited during a journey prolonged over a period of two months, and extending over large portions of Mayo and Galway. Suffice it to say, that these faithfully represent the condition of thousands of the small holders of land scattered along the west coast line of Connaught. Convinced of the reality and extent of the distress on the mainland, it became needful to endeavour to obtain at once the funds required to provide a supply of seed potatoes for a population four or five times larger than that of the islands, scattered at intervals along a coastline of nearly 200 miles. To be thus suddenly called upon to supply districts wholly without railways and situated on a line of coast nearly equal in extent to the three English counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, districts accessible only for these supplies by steamers, and dependent upon the weather (at the time unusually severe), was a task of no small difficulty. In addition, the whole of the funds had to be appealed for and raised in the very short period which the season allowed for planting of potatoes. In the emergency I was most generously helped by the Lord Lieutenant, who privately gave me a guarantee to a considerable extent, which permitted me to continue the work of investigation and arrange, in part, for the purchase of seed, and as day by day the funds arrived in response to appeals, which appeared in several of the leading London newspapers, I was ultimately able to supply the most pressing demands, daily showered on me by the clergy and others in the districts around. With the exception of Belmullet and Killala, and Inismurray Island, where owing to the pressure of time the necessities of the people were investigated and distributions of seed superintended by Captain Sampson, L.G.B. Inspector, Father Hewson, and Mr. Nolan, R.O., I visited nearly the whole of the other portions of the coast line, and with the invaluable aid of Captain Ruttledge Fair, who was assisted by Mr. F. Robinson, superintended the distribution of seed. The selection of families most needing help from the somewhat promiscuous lists supplied to us (including sometimes nearly all families in the district) was a work which occupied much time and thought. The difficulty of obtaining precise information, and of deciding on the nice shades of difference in the needs of thousands of applicants, all of whom were poor, was enormous: and in spite of all the care exercised, it is too much to hope that none received the seed who did not really require it. On the other hand, I feel much more assured that very few, if any, to whom the supply was essential were overlooked in the districts under our care. While preparing this report, I have received many letters containing a most satisfactory account of the progress of the potato crop, of which I give a few extracts, as follows: -

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EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS. CLIFDEN, - “I beg to inform you that the seed potatoes distributed by you are doing well, and that the crops are promising a fruitful harvest. My people frequently come to tell how grateful they have reason to be to you and to Mrs. Tuke for your kindly, provident efforts in their regard. They will gladly visit you and her a ‘cead mille failthe’ [sic] when you next do them the favour of a visit.” – P. LYNSKEY, P.P. June 10th, 1886. CLIFDEN. – “For some time past I have been making careful inquiries as to the general state of the potato crop in this Union, and in occasional drives through the district to see and gather information on the ground. The crop on the whole is splendid, healthy looking, and of greater extent than for the past few years. Passing through the villages you may easily note the difference in the worn out native seed and the vigorous and luxuriant growth of your imported Champion. Many a heartfelt prayer and blessing is bestowed by the poor people on good Mr. and Mrs. Tuke and their generous and charitable English friends, without whose benevolence this year’s crop would have been a poor one indeed, and the state of affairs (bad as it is) for the coming year, would be something too melancholy to think about.” JOHN BOURKE, Clerk to the Clifden Union. June 13th, 1886. CARNA. – “The crops of potatoes from the seed distributed by you are looking exceedingly well. I never saw a better potato crop in Connemara, nor a better prospect of a good harvest. The seed supplied by you was excellent. No failure, whatsoever, of any of the seed planted. I have seen nearly all the fields from this to Clifden, and from Clifden to Roundstone, through Errismore, and I may say that the potato crop looks well and very healthy. I am sure you and your charitable friends would be delighted if you now saw the lovely fields and gardens of potatoes along the Connemara coast. We have, indeed, great reason to be very thankful and grateful to you. I don’t know what would become of this people only for you.” THOMAS FLANNERY, P.P. June 10th, 1886. CLIFDEN. – “you will like to know, I am sure, how your seed potatoes are doing. They are coming on, I am glad to say, remarkably well. So far as I have made inquiries, I find that not a single failure has occurred, in fact the whole country is now in a smiling condition, and if they escape that scourge, the ‘blight,’ you will have every reason to be proud that your efforts to alleviate the distress will be most successful.” – P. C. GORHAM, Medical Officer, 1st June. LETTERFRACK. – “I beg to inform you that the seed potatoes supplied by your Committee are doing splendidly, and show a marked difference to the seeds hitherto sown in this district, and are a boon to the people of this locality, many of whom would have left their land waste were it not that your Committee came so kindly to their aid.” – STEPHEN JOYCE, R.O. June 10th, 1886. 374

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LEENANE. – “I have heard from all sides a very satisfactory account of the appearance of the potato crop from the seed you so generously supplied to the poor people of this locality. My people all tell me they look much better than the crop from their own seed.” – R. W. McKEOWN, Leenane, June 9th. BOFFIN ISLAND. – “I am very happy to state that the potato crop of the island looks very well. The seed received from you, although planted late, came over the ground very quickly. Should God grant a favourable season, I have no doubt the islanders will have a very plentiful produce of the potato crop.” – M. COLLERAN, P.P., June 9th, 1886. ACHILL. – “The crops this year are as late as ever I recollect, but your seed, which is taking the lead, is admitted the best and most promising. If the district be so fortunate as to escape the summer blight and storms, your seed will be the means of keeping hundreds of families from becoming a permanent charge as paupers. The recipients are grateful to you for your charity, and look upon it as the only way “to put us on our legs again,” and hundreds of ‘God Bless Mr. Tuke’ are given.’ ” – P. LAVELLE, R.O., June 17th, 1886. NEWPORT. – “It affords me very great pleasure to be able to say that so far the potato crop – especially that portion of it for which we are indebted to your very great kindness – is progressing remarkably well. I have no doubt that some few are a little short in quantity; many people, however, have a really good tillage made, and if circumstances are at all favourable, I have every hope that we shall be blessed with an abundant harvest.” JOHN McHALE, C.C. JUNE 10th. ISLANDEADY. – “The potatoes are a real blessing. Fancy the pleasure it gives us to see the people, amongst whom they were distributed, working hard putting them in the ground the day after they got them.” – P CORCORAN, P.P., Islandeady, Castlebar. June 4th, 1886. BELMULLET. – “I am happy to be able to say that everywhere the crops look healthy and far advanced since the soft weather set in. Reports of the Champion crop everywhere are cheerful; the people are in high hopes of a prosperous harvest, and I must say they are nowhere unmindful of the kind benefactors who have laid the foundation of such hopes. They have unfortunately been the recipients of relief in various ways for years past, but it is now an established fact that in all the money that has been expended in relief none has ever been such a lasting benefit to the poor as that given by you in Champion seed some years ago to our poor people. Knowing the plenty that then followed while the seeds remained good, no wonder they hopefully look to the future and say ‘God bless the givers’ in the fullness of their hearts.” – J.A. NOLAN, R.O. June 12th, 1886. 375

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In addition to the foregoing from residents in the districts assisted, I have been favoured with two letters, one from the Vice-President of the Local Government Board, Dublin, Sir Henry Robinson, who has recently paid a visit to the West of Ireland, and the other from Mr. Christopher Redington, Chairman of the recently appointed Piers and Roads Commission. Sir Henry Robinson to J. H. Tuke. March 19th, 1886. “I have just returned from a short tour in the West, having visited Belmullet, Achill, Clare Island, and parts of Clifden, and Oughterard Unions, and you will be glad to hear that there is a magnificent crop of potatoes from the seed you were so good as to supply. “They are all above ground, being in many places a foot high. I never saw a finer promise, and my son Harry, who was with me, thinks that there is more land under potatoes in Achill and Belmullet, than has been the case for many years. The poor ought certainly to be well off next year if there is no blight, which is not very likely to happen owing to the change of seed. “I write you this as I think it will be gratifying to you and Mrs. Tuke to hear of the success which has attended your good work.” From C. T. Reddington, Esq., Chairman of the Piers and Roads Commission June 10th, 1886. “As far as I have been able to judge, your potatoes are at present doing remarkably well. They offer a very strong contrast to the plants grown from old seed in adjoining ridges. The people seem much pleased at the vigorous growth of the ‘Tuke potatoes,’ as they call them. I hope they will long remember your kindness and timely assistance. I don’t think any thoughtful person can overvalue what you have done for them. We hope to make a good harbour, three-quarters of a mile south-west of Keel, in Achill Island, which is perfectly landlocked, and can shelter large hookers. It is a costly job; but if we succeed, there will be some hope for Achill. I was greatly impressed by the works of Major Gaskell, in the Carraroe district. (These works were carried out by funds supplied by the Duchess of Marlborough’s Fund in 1880.) ‘The Major’s time’ is an epoch over there. I never heard a man so blessed by the poor people. He knew what they wanted and tried to give them the needed accommodation in piers, &c., but owing to lack of funds he was able to finish the works as well as they should have been; and we will take a good many of them in hand again. The only way to do what is right in these matters is to live among the people as ‘The Major’ did. For want of local knowledge great mistakes have been made in fishery piers. I hope we may not add to the number of failures.” Throughout our work we received assistance from the clergy and other residents in the districts relieved. As the result of the work just noted, I beg to append a list of the places assisted and the quantities supplied. The total number of families assisted 376

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exceeds 6,000, and the amount expended has been over £5,000. The cost of the potatoes has varied from £3 to £3 15s. per ton, including freight and sacks for which we were charged 5s. per ton, a large portion of which has been repaid. The total amount of contributions from first to last for the islands and the mainland has been £5,207. There are, however, some liabilities incurred which will nearly absorb the balance. I cannot conclude my report without an expression of sincere gratitude for the assistance and marked kindness invariably extended to me by His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant and Lady Aberdeen, and the Chief Secretary.6 My grateful thanks are also due to Sir Robert Hamilton, to the Vive-President of the Local Government Board, to Lieut.-Col. Turner, and to Admiral Hickey, and the officers of the gunboats. I wish also specially to record my sense of the invaluable service rendered by the officers and men of the Constabulary, Coastguard, and crews of the gunboats. J. H. Tuke, Hitchin, June, 1886. DISTRIBUTION OF SEED POTATOES. List of Places Supplied, and Quantities to Each. Achill Island. . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 Tons Boffin and Shark Islands. . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 ″ Belmullet, Rossport, and Island of Inniskea. . . . .  . . . . . . . . 140 ″ Killala and Inishmurray Island. . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20 ″ Villages on North Shore of Clew Bay, Newport. . . . .  . . . . . 100 ″ Villages on South Shore of Clew Bay, Westport. . . . .  . . . . . 120 ″ Leenane, &c. . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .     20 ″ Cleggan and Renvyle, Silerna, Omey Island, Clifden, Roundstone, Cashel, Carna, Kilkerran, all in Clifden Union. . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480 ″ Carraroe, Oughterard Union. . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .      20 ″ Sundry Payments to supply Seed, for Partry, Aughower, &c. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .       70 ″      1425 Tons

Notes 1 Achill Island was very much affected when the potato crop failed in 1886 with over 80 per cent of the population in need of relief. 2 Tuke was referring to the issue of Home Rule which in 1886 had become a major topic in British politics. Tuke himself was opposed to Home Rule for Ireland. 3 More usually, Inishturk. 4 Earl Spencer was Irish Lord Lieutenant at this time. 5 John Morley was the Irish Chief Secretary. 6 Lord Aberdeen succeeded Earl Spencer as Lord Lieutenant under the new Conservative government. The new Chief Secretary was Arthur Balbour.

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45 LETTER FROM REV. MICHAEL MAHONY TELLING HOW THE TUKE EMIGRANTS FROM CONNEMARA, WHO HAD BEEN TAKEN FROM POVERTY AND FAMINE, WERE PROGRESSING WELL IN MINNESOTA ALTHOUGH THEY STILL HAD FRUGAL ACCOMMODATION, BUT THEY PURCHASED THE BEST OF FOOD AND GROCERIES BECAUSE OF THE GOOD WAGES THEY WERE EARNING. 1 HE ALSO OUTLINES HOW IRISH EMIGRANTS COMING TO MINNESOTA COULD IMPROVE THEIR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POSITION. PROCEEDINGS OF MR TUKE’S COMMITTEE (1889), pp. 176–8 November 5, 1888. I think I am entitled to have an opinion worth hearing as to the condition of the ‘Tuke Emigrants’ to Minnesota. I had pitied—not barrenly—their condition at home; I travelled with many of them the whole way from Galway to St. Paul;2 I was with them, trying to help them through their homesickness and the troubles of their start in life at this side. And since then, frequently visiting them in their homes, or meeting them in the streets, or meeting their several pastors, I have 378

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been able to inform myself as to their condition and progress, and I may say they have been lifted to quite a new life, benefited every way, and are right along being better and better. I might mistrust, as being rather too favourable to the change, my own impression if it were not backed up on every side by those of pastors with continuous opportunity for observations. But particularly and most notably it is backed up by Bishop Ireland,3 who declares lately that the change in their condition, and in themselves and their prospects, in every way, is positively marvelous, and that ‘they have become a most valuable and important addition to the community.’ That Minnesota has been a land of fulfilment is very tellingly shown by the numbers who have every year kept coming on from Toronto and other places in Canada and from Ireland, encouraged by the good accounts and often helped by the prepaid tickets of their friends in St. Paul. The continuous growth and improvements of the twin cities, St. Paul and Minneapolis, these late years has been occasioning an unlimited demand for just the sort of labour and service suited to immigrants from Ireland – common labour for men and boys, and housework for girls. With streets in every direction to be opened and graded, or widened, and again and again cut through for sewer-pipes, well into the winter, work for every comer who could handle a pick or a shovel, and never at less than a dollar and a half a day, and during part of the time a dollar and three-quarters and even two dollars a day. Even in the winter, when no more grading of the roads could be done, men got a dollar and three-quarters for clearing off the snow and ice from the side-walks and the street-car tracts. In St. Paul particularly the ‘Ice Palace’ has served to prolong work and keep up wages all through the winter. And at the same time that there is work for men out of doors there is also a constant demand for females indoors, in private families, hotels, boarding-houses, laundries, at wages ranging from eight to sixteen dollars a month for ordinary housework. In this line the demand is always in excess of the supply. So the Irish emigrants could not but find it well for them to be here. Really, even a little nurse-girl, only able to wheel around a perambulator, might support all alone a large family . . . And as none of the emigrant families are without some wage-earners, and most of them have several, they have been taking and saving such sums of money as no outsider could have a notion of till he calculated them, or some accident revealed them to him. Where the ordinary impression may be to the contrary, it is usually a case of more developed ‘acquisitiveness.’ As contrasted with an American’s artisan’s neat house, and even with a Scandinavian, or German, or poor Polish immigrant’s interiorly home-like shanty, the ‘Connemara’s home’ is deceptive. It is often bare, unpartitioned, unplastered, unpapered – such as his former poverty, or abiding fear of ‘a rise’ of rent upon any show of ‘style,’ has trained his soul, without any aesthetic torture, to look at and live in. And sometimes when benevolent people, whether on the part of the city or some private society, go in quest of objects of charity, they can get accommodated, of course. But let not the priest expect to get to know and note down what, when the occasion arises, can be produced from the red box or the rafters, in rolls of greenbacks or deposit certificates for hundreds of dollars, and beyond. Flour, 379

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bread, meat groceries, and the common sort of wearables, are comparatively very cheap; of even the beer this may be said, that is ‘werry fillin’ at the price, a dollar for a ten-gallon keg. So that if the Irish immigrants do not, after a couple of years like these comings, or poor as they are from other countries, own their own houses and lots, free of all burden of rent for ever, it is because they do not set their minds on doing so. They are afraid traditionally, of putting their savings anywhere but into the stocking or the bank. Being so accustomed to rent, they easily fall into renting still, and come in a few years to have paid out in rent for the passing use of a house as much as might have bought it outright or built one, free for ever; and again, seeing limitless ground lying idle around them or growing weeds, they can readily see the benefit of paying some hundreds of dollars, it may be, for a few square feet of it. They have on this account missed splendid opportunities. Even now, however, the poorest may begin to own their little places by aid of some safe building society. By the end of 1887 a good number of the assisted emigrants have bought and sold their homes and lots; and, after their example, and favoured by the continuous good wages and the temporary setback in the price of real estate, doubtless a great many more will have done so by the end of this year. This landed-proprietorship, with all that it involves, is a great means of incorporating them into the social and civil life of the rest of the population. This is being done right along, even with the old. The close balance of the two political parties serves to hurry it up. The meetings for Church services, with the more old-settled and the natives, has strong influences in this direction. The young men of the ‘greenhorns’ need but a short time to get, in dress, and speech and look, into ‘the hang’ of the country; the young women still less; it is marvelous how they brighten up and improve every way. With hardly an exception the girls of ‘the Connemara’ are respected and trusted and treasured as wives and domestics. So with the little girls of the several families, even where their brothers are slovenly, or loafers and bad, they are cleanly and bright, and eager to go to school and church and Sundayschool, and everywhere the peers of their best American coevals, or ahead of them, as I thought. In even the most poor-looking shanties there are abundant supplies of the very best kind of food: sacks of wheat, flour, loaves of the whitest bread (home-made and baker’s), butter, groceries of the primest brand, meat, even fresh butcher’s meat – more meat, and more belief in it, and more of the butcher’s labour in it, than is good for the people’s pockets and health. Not in the best hotels have I been able to sniff the full ‘Oolong’ aroma as from the black porcelain teapots in the shanties of the ‘Connemaras.’ That these want the ‘best’ is well known to the grocers, and it is got for them. I have no doubt they spend for groceries three or four times as much as others. The vast improvement in their condition is often heartily averted to by the emigrants. They are not merely satisfied but ‘enthused’ with the change. If any wish to see again Old Ireland it is as American tourists. It would add unspeakably to the comfort and the start and the constant earningpower and the social standing of emigrants if, before leaving Ireland, they were posted on how to do and live and work here. Surely it would be possible, easy even, at fairs and patterns and church-service gatherings, by plain speech and object 380

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illustrations, to instruct the vast numbers destined to emigrate on how to do at this side, the males and the females in their several lines: how to get about building and fixing up a shanty, to manage the American stove, to cook and keep house economically. The pork gone for, and fetched from the butcher’s at eight or ten cents the pound, could be bought in a dressed hog for three cents, or live for two. And so of other things. The actual exhibition of the extra handful of heavy dollar-pieces to be secured in one month by handiness in cooking, baking, laundry-work, &c., would wake up many an otherwise heedless girl to become in no time a proficient in all these, and able at this side to get anything she could ask in wages and general treatment. And so for other kinds of crafts. The genius of this country and the dearness of labour calls for all-round handiness. Dull German and Scandinavian boys will in a week or less qualify themselves to run a steam-heating engine, and thereby have open to them the chance of forty-five dollars a month when, without this bit of knowledge, they would have to take only ten or fifteen-dollars, or even be idle. Last spring, on a building in front of my house, Scandinavians and others were getting in the several lines of work from two dollars fifty cents up to seven dollars the day, the last for plain brick-setting; two Irishmen were at the painful, dangerous hod-carrying for only one-dollar fifty cents. Women sometimes fall into the habit of daily beer-parties, for want of something to do, whilst they might have – only they have never contemplated the thing – regular rounds of little jobs at scrubbing and house work, and earn even more than their husbands. It is only some time after reaching America that they learn how other women do, and how they might do, but meantime they have settled down into doing nothing, and they stay there. And the drink, in view of the immense numbers always coming to America, and in the all-in-ness here of sobriety, of total abstinence even all the drink of the old country ought to be made bitter and nauseous, as with aloes, so as to utterly disgust and wean people from all desire or taste for it; or better yet, the grain wasted to make it should be saved to stop hunger and the chronic wail of distress; and the manufacture of the worthless, mischievous thing should entirely cease. Proceedings of Mr Tuke’s Committee (1889), pp. 176–8.

Notes 1 Rev. Michael Mahony was a Catholic priest from Preston who accompanied one of the early groups of emigrants sent out under the Tuke Fund in 1882. He took up a position in the diocese of St Paul, but also monitored how the Tuke emigrants were progressing proving regular reports as to their well-being. 2 Many of the emigrant assisted by Tuke went to Minnesota because Bishop John Ireland agreed to support and provide for them. 3 Bishop John Ireland, a native of Callan, Co. Kilkenny; became Bishop of St. Paul in 1875 And in the late 1870s and 1880s was actively engaged in encouraging Irish emigrants to settle in Minnesota. One of the schemes he was actively involved with was the Connemara emigration scheme to Greaceville, Minnesota in 1880. See Gerard Moran, “ ‘In search of the promised land’: The Connemara colonization scheme to Minnesota, 1880” in Eire/Ireland, 31:3 & 4 (Fall and Winter, 1996).

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46 LETTER OF JAMES HACK TUKE TO THE LONDON TIMES IN 1889 SUGGESTING THAT TO COUNTERACT POVERTY AND FAMINE IN WEST DONEGAL INVESTMENT IN RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION SHOULD TAKE PLACE WHICH WOULD LEAD TO THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE REGION 1 (THE TIMES, 28 MAY, 1889) THE CONDITION OF DONEGAL To the Editor of “The Times.” Sir – In my letter in your issue of the 20th I asked permissions to state in detail the measures which I advocate for permanently improving the condition of the western unions of Donegal.2 Before doing so I wish to refer for a moment to the omission in my former letter of any allusion to Poor Law relief as a trust of poverty.3 But owing to the practical absence of outdoor relief and the objection on the part of the people to enter the house it is impossible to consider Poor Law relief as a real test of poverty in these and similar districts. Only the sick and friendless will consent to enter the workhouse, and outdoor relief is also confined to cases of sickness or infirmity. Consequently, out of a population of 54,000 in the two unions of Glenties and Dunfanaghy, the number of persons relieved in April, 1888, and 1889, were as follows: - Indoor: - April 1888, 119; April 1889, 115. Outdoor: - April, 1888, 74; April, 1889, 90. The deficiency in the potato crop in 1888 again forced us to consider what are the measures needed to develop the resources of the country, and, if possible, to mitigate in the future the chronic poverty that exists.4 Referring to the suggestion in my previous letter that the introduction of fresh seed, both oats and potatoes, is much required in West Donegal, it is useful to 382

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point out that since the distribution of seed potatoes in the congested districts of Mayo and Galway in 1886 the potato crops there have been most prolific and singularly free from disease, and upon all sides it is admitted that the condition of the people has improved.5 I think provision should be made for the supply of improved Scotch seed potatoes, and for this purpose I would suggest that depots should be established where, under proper supervision, small quantities of seed – say, from 1 cwt. to 4 cwt. – could be purchased at prime cost, to be paid for on delivery, by any of the small cultivators of land in the neighbourhood. Everywhere I have found this proposal welcomed by all experienced persons, including numbers of the small tenants. The expenses attendant upon the distribution might fairly be borne by the Government, but it should be laid down as a rule that no seed is to be given except for cash. The primary measure, and that upon which the success of any other remedial legislation depends, is, beyond all doubt, the development and extension of the railway system. It is everywhere stated to be the measure preliminary to all others for opening up the country.6 It is impossible that the fisheries can be extended or increased in districts which are twenty-five to forty or more miles from a railway. Fish, when caught in quantities, can hardly be sold at any price. Witness what occurred ten days since at Dunfanaghy on the north coast. Haddock had been unusually plentiful, and large numbers caught. In the absence of easy and rapid communication with the railway at Letterkenny, the price obtained was at the rate of 12s. 6d. for twenty-four dozen – about ½d. each for fish varying from 2lb. to 6lb. in weight! This is an instance, in passing, of what constantly happens, and probably accounts largely for the want of energy and enterprise on the part of the fishing population. I am perfectly satisfied that if higher prices could be obtained it would immediately stimulate this most important industry. The prices of all kinds of agricultural produce would also be increased, especially eggs and poultry, which are at present sold at ridiculously low prices. The quantity of eggs exported from these districts is a very important item; eggs are selling at 6d. per dozen and (as in the case of Normandy) all the small tenants keep fowls, the number of eggs is much larger than is generally supposed. At the above price the value of the eggs sold in the Dunfanaghy Union and carted, at a cost of 30s. per ton, to Letterkenny, en route to Londonderry and England, is estimated at over £10,000 annually. Spring chickens, the size of grouse, were selling at 4d. to 6d. each. At the same period (May) the price of eggs in the London markets was 1s. per dozen, and of fowl 1s. 6d. to 2s. each. There is also a concurrence of opinion that these poor districts could ill afford to bear any addition to the present very high local taxation which might result from the payment of a guarantee for the construction of a railway, although such a guarantee might easily be borne in the more wealthy portions of the county. This is needful to recognize, as many persons favourable to the introduction of railways stated they should be opposed to their introduction if they caused any additional 383

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taxation. The Government, must I believe, be willing to make the railways irrespective of the amount of guarantee, or be content to limit it to a very low figure in the union of Dunfanaghy and Glenties, which contain 54,000 persons, one-fourth of the population of the entire county – the Poor Law valuation of these unions being £32,000, one-ninth of the valuation of the Co. Donegal. The Royal Commissioners, in their report on railways, suggest that the maximum rate of guarantee should not exceed sixpence in the pound – a most valuable recommendation, which allows a latitude most necessary to be used in dealing with impoverished unions in the West of Ireland. There is also a preponderance of opinion that railways, if introduced, should follow the coast line, where the main population exists. The centre of Donegal is a wild, mountainous district, with a very sparse and widely-scattered population. At present the line from Letterkenny to Londonderry is the only railway available to North-Western Donegal, and Letterkenny is forty to fifty miles distant from a large portion of the population. The people in and around Glenties make use of the Finn Valley Railway at Stranorlar, whilst the southern districts of the county are served by the railway near the town of Donegal. Both these railway stations are forty to fifty miles from the most distant portions of the Glenties Union. For the northern and central districts an extension of the narrow-gauge line from Letterkenny is most essential. This line would run via Kilmacreann to Creeslough and Dunfanaght [sic] (the most important little town in the north-west), thence by Cross Roads and Falcarragh through Gweedore to Dunglow or Burton Port, more than fifty miles in all. This would completely open up the most thickly populated districts in the northwest, and wherever fishing could be carried out, and give a ready means of communication with Londonderry and Dublin, and has the advantage of facilitating the exodus of the people in search of work, and in many other ways benefiting them.7 The population thus assisted would exceed 40,000 people. In reference to this suggestion, the Commissioners in their second report on public works in 1888 recommend the extension of the narrow-gauge line from Letterkenny to Kilmacrenan, and although their recommendation stops there, they point out that the line might easily be extended as I have suggested above. The probable cost of this extension would not be less than £225,000; a rate of 6d. in the pound would add £650 yearly to the already heavy taxation of the Dunfanaghy Union. This union now pays a rate of 4d. in the pound as its share of the guarantee for the Letterkenny railway, forty or fifty miles distant from many of the ratepayers. I think a rate of 2d. in the pound would be the utmost which if any is demanded, the district under consideration can reasonably be asked to guarantee. In the south or south midland districts of Donegal the Commissioners also recommend that the Finn Valley Railway should be tapped at Stranolar, and a

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broad-gauge line constructed across the centre of Donegal through a very thinlypopulated district to Glenties and thence to Killybegs on the south coast. With great difference to the views of the Commissioners, I confess that I think this is not likely to prove nearly as useful as the alternative plan (also considered though, apparently after much hesitation, not approved by them), to extend the narrow-gauge line from Donegal town to Killybegs – the most important harbor in the county – and possibly thence to Glenties. Another suggested line, apparently not considered by the Royal Commissioners, is, I venture to think, entitled to very careful attention. By making a short broad-gauge line of about fourteen miles from Castle Caldwell, on the Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway, to Donegal, and thence to Killybegs, broad-gauge communication would thus be opened up between West Donegal and England via Greenore, and fish could be sent daily, without trans-shipment, by this route. It has thus a marked advantage over the alternative extension of the Donegal line (upon the narrow-gauge system), which involves a trans-shipment on to the broad-gauge line at Stranorlar. An Act for the construction of the line from Castle Caldwell to Donegal town was obtained in 1879, but owing to the disturbed condition of the country at that time, the required capital could not be obtained, and the Act has now lapsed.8 If the line – i.e., from Castle Caldwell to Donegal and Killybegs – were adopted, a short extension – from a point between the two latter towns – would easily connect the important district of Glenties with this system, and I hope as effectually that portion of Donegal. The total mileage from Castle Caldwell to Donegal, thence to Killybegs and Glenties, would be about forty miles; a somewhat shorter distance than the line recommended by the Commissioners from Stranorlar to Glenties and Killybegs. [Some objections have been made both in the papers and privately to my advocacy of the extension of the broad-gauge line from Castle Caldwell on Lough Erne to Donegal town, and thence to Killybegs; and it is urged that the narrow-gauge system which will shortly connect Donegal town with Stranorlar and Londonderry ought to be continued from Donegal to Killybegs and Glenties]. There is no doubt considerable force in the arguments put forward for the adoption of this line both on account of the intimate connection of Londonderry with the south of Donegal and on the ground of the smaller cost of the narrow-gauge and of its adaptability to hilly districts. This does not, however, in any way alter my strong conviction of the importance of connecting Donegal town with the Great Northern system, via Castle Caldwell, even if a break of gauge is needed at Donegal. The benefits of giving South Donegal a second outlet and a direct communication with Greenore and England must be very considerable. In saying this I have no wish to undervalue or appear to lessen the importance of the port and town of Londonderry and highly appreciate the prominent position which it holds in Donegal and elsewhere. It has also been said that the mileage mentioned by me in pointing put the advantages of the line from Donegal to Glenties, &c., over that from Stranolar to

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Glenties is not correct. I regret any error on my part, but I am quite unable, after careful examination, to discover how the longer mileage of fifty miles is made up. I trust, however, that all minor difference may be put aside and that a united and determined effort may be made by all Irishmen to ensure the passing of Mr. Balfour’s very liberal scheme for the extension of railways in the West of Ireland.9 Such a measure, if thrown out, is hardly likely ever to be offered again to the country. A further most important point which should be noticed is the probability that the ratepayers in the districts between Castle Caldwell and Killybegs would be able to pay the maximum guarantee required, while the poorer districts between Stranorlar and Glenties it is more than doubtful whether any part of the guarantee could be levied. The importance of the harbour of Killybegs cannot, I think, be over-estimated; it is the only safe harbour for large vessels on a rocky and dangerous coast extending over 100 miles between Lough Swilly to the north, and Broadhaven, of the west coast of Mayo, to the south. The quantity of fish caught in the vicinity of Killybegs is already large, and might be very much increased it direct communication were opened up between Killybegs and the east coast. Its value as a naval station has never been fully recognized, and the construction of a deep-water pier, which could be undertaken at a moderate cost owing to its landlocked position, could render it a harbour of national as well as local importance. Let me once more say that, while there exists a variety of opinions as to the precise route which might be adopted, there is none whatever as to the value and importance of the extension of railways into these very neglected districts. This letter, commenced in Donegal, I have been compelled to finish at home. The delay has afforded me the great advantage of seeing the exposition of Mr. Chamberlain’s views,10 as given in The Times of May 23rd, in reference to the crofters of Skye, and of knowing that his far more powerful advocacy is given to measures, whether for Skye or Donegal, almost identical with the suggestions contained in this letter. If it is possible to grant me space for a further letter bearing on the social conditions of the inhabitants of Donegal I should be grateful.11 I am, yours faithfully, J. H. T.  Hitchin.  May  25th, 1889. P.S. The development of the Fisheries seems to hold out the greatest prospect of success – and first as to inshore fishing. We heard the most distinct and favourable evidence of large quantities of fish being taken along the cost. One instance was mentioned by a gentleman who had provided two boats of a slightly better class than those in ordinary use, which he managed in partnership with the crews. In a short time, notwithstanding the present difficulties of transit, the men were able

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to earn from £14 to £20 each, and it was thought these profits would have been doubled and the railway transport been possible. There is a general consensus of opinion that large quantities of fish are to be found on the “great banks,” at a distance of from fifteen to twenty miles from the mainland, but at present the want of suitable boats prevents the fishermen from the dangers of the terrible Atlantic storms which sweep this wild and rugged coast. Occasionally a few Manx or Scotch boats fish with great success on these banks. So far as my inquiries extended, there are at present very few (perhaps not half a dozen) boats on the West Donegal coast in which deep sea fishing in any but calmer weather could be carried out. The great majority of what are called fishing boats are simply undecked sailing or rowing boats of various sizes. It is hardly necessary to point out that profitable fishing under such circumstances is an impossibility, and owing to the want of deep water piers or places of refuge, it would at present be unwise to supply many decked boats of a better class. After the wasteful expenditure of money on piers in the past it requires anyone to consider, with the utmost care, where deep water piers, other than at Killybegs, can be really beneficially placed. All I would suggest is, that a survey of a few of the principal fishing stations along the West Coast should be made to determine where such piers or harbours could be safely constructed. The places suggested to me were: Port-na-Blair (near Dunfanaghy), Burton Port, Glen Harbour, Glencolmbkill. All along the coast lobsters are caught in large numbers and sent weekly to Liverpool by steamers. When caught they are placed in cages in the water and are thus kept alive till the steamer passes, but unfortunately fish cannot be treated in this manner and must be sent daily and rapidly to a market. It must not be overlooked that technical education in fishing as well as in other industries is also much required, and the great success which has attended the Baltimore Fishing School leads one to hope that some effort will be made to encourage the formation of similar institutions in Donegal.12 The other industries, such as stocking knitting, frieze and flannel making, would, no doubt, be beneficially affected by the proposed railways. I was much gratified to notice the large quantities of home-made flannels and friezes in the various stores I visited. At Glenties the very extensive trade in weaving and stocking and glove knitting, introduced many years since and fostered by the Messrs. McDevitt, are too well-known to need any comment from me. Mrs. Ernest Hart and Miss Roberts are also most usefully helping to encourage local industries. – J. H. T.

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Maud Gonne, A Servant of the Queen. Reminiscences (1938) and Maud Gonne, ‘THE FAMINE QUEEN’ (United Irishman, 7 April 1900). Maud Gonne’s background and gender made her an unlikely candidate to be a committed republican, a social activist, a hunger striker and a champion of the poor. She had been born in England in 1866 to an Irish father and an English mother. Like the Parnell sisters, she was presented in Dublin Castle, her beauty and position being seen as a passport to a good marriage. Similarly, Gonne was politicized by the evictions taking place in the post-Famine decades. However, her request to Michael Davitt that she be allowed to join the Land Leagues was refused. Undaunted, she attended evictions and spoke out against them.13 The famine of 1897–1898 coincided with preparations for the centenary commemoration of the 1798 Rising. Gonne was active in both. Upon her return in January 1898 from a fund-raising tour in America, she travelled to County Mayo to lecture on the commemoration. Although based in Ballina, she also travelled to the remote and impoverished district of Erris. During that time, she maintained correspondence with her friend, W. B. Yeats,14 informing him in detail of the splits within the ’98 movement and adding, in a post-script, ‘the poverty here is AWFUL’.15 As her Memoir outlines, she spoke out against the lowness of wages on the relief works. A legacy of her interventions would be a spinning wheel that she kept in her living room in her home in Clonskeagh in Dublin until her death. It was, ‘a gift made to her by the grateful peasants of County Mayo, whom she saved from starvation and death’.16 Gonne’s activism continued beyond her time spent in the west during these localized famines. Together with James Connolly, she was involved in protests against Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897, and again during the fourth and final visit of the aged and invalided Queen Victoria to Ireland in 1900. On the latter occasion, Gonne wrote an article, initially published in French, entitled ‘The Famine Queen’, a sobriquet that proved enduring.17 As a result of Queen Victoria’s visit, Gonne founded, in April 1900, Inghinidhe na hÉireann (Daughters of Ireland), a woman- only organization whose aspirations were republican, socialist and feminist. It opposed the partial nationalism of the Home Rule movement, wanting complete independence for Ireland and supporting physical force politics. In 1903, Gonne took part in protests against the visit to Ireland of King Edward VII. From 1908 onwards, Inghinidhe na hÉireann published Bean na hÉireann (‘Irish woman’), a nationalist women’s journal. The journal contained an eclectic mixture of articles, yet it was important in politicizing a generation of women. It led the demand for free school meals for inner-city children in Dublin—legislation for free school meals had been introduced in England in 1906, but not extended to Ireland. Gonne, working with Connolly and Helena Molony, supplied daily meals to impoverished school children, regardless of religion. Gone pressurized the Dublin Corporation into taking action on this matter by addressing their monthly meetings. Gonne’s friend, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, drafted a bill for free school meals which was introduced into the House of Commons by Stephen 388

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Gwynn and passed in 1914.18 At that stage, with Ireland moving towards civil war, Inghinidhe na hÉireann was absorbed into the newly formed Cumann na mBan (Women’s Council). In February 1903, Gonne married nationalist John MacBride. Before doing so, she had converted to Roman Catholicism. MacBride had organized the Irish Brigade and fought on the side of the Boers (and so against Britain) in South Africa during the Boer War. In 1904, their son, Seán, was born, but the marriage was not happy and in December 1904, Gonne sought a separation. In 1916, Gonne was nursing in Paris. She returned to Ireland shortly after the Rising, to work on behalf of families who had lost a member. However, her estranged husband, John, had taken part in the Rising and was executed for having done so. Later in life, Gonne campaigned for a copy of the Easter Proclamation declaring a Republic to be displayed in every Irish classroom.19 Gonne’s death in April 1953, at the age of 88, was widely noted in the Irish newspapers. At that point, she was referred to as Madame Gonne MacBride, part of her fame coming through her long dead ex-husband, and her son Seán MacBride TD, who was then Minister for External Affairs.20 Her role in helping the poor was not forgotten, however. On her death, the Letterkenny Urban Council passed a vote of sympathy to her son, adding ‘Madame Maud Gonne had spent her life in the service of the country, and in particularly the people of Donegal, whom she had not forgotten in their days of distress’.21 Gonne was buried in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. The Servant of the Queen was published in 1938. Only one year later, a German language version was published.22 As it was written almost forty years after the period that she is recalling in this chapter, there are some inaccuracies regarding dates. The final document in the volume was also written by Maud Gonne in 1900. It is a powerful polemic in response to the visit of Queen Victoria to Ireland – the monarch’s forth and final visit. It was an uncompromising piece of polemical writing that was immediately banned by the British authorities. One of its legacies was that the title of the article, ‘The Famine Queen’, haunted the memory of Queen Victoria long after she had passed away.23

Notes 1 In the period 1880–1896, the philanthropist, James Hack Tuke, sought ways of improving the position of the population of the West of Ireland and played a major role in the establishment of the Congested Districts Board. 2 In May and June 1889, Tuke sent three letters to the London Times on the conditions he witnessed in Donegal. He had been asked to visit the area by the Irish Chief Secretary, Arthur Balbour, and write a report on conditions in the area where it was reported there was widespread distress. 3 Tuke’s first letter had been published in The Time on 20 May, 1889.

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4 The potato crop in many parts of the west, and in particular in west Donegal, had been a failure in 1888. 5 In 1886 Tuke had played an active role in the distribution of seed potatoes to communities along the coasts of counties Mayo and Donegal. 6 Tuke had been one of the advocates of light railways for the poorer areas of the west coast and it was largely due to his intervention that railways such as from Galway to Clifden and Westport to Achill Island were put in place by the Congested Districts Board when it was established in 1891. 7 There were high levels of participation from the Dunfanaghy and Glenties Unions at this time. In 1890, 288 migrants from Dunfanaghy went to Britain and 333 from Glenties. See Moran, “A passage to Britain”, p. 27. 8 This is reference to the land agitation and large-scale agrarian crime that took place between 1879–82. 9 Arthur Balfour was Irish Chief Secretary at this point and was engaged with Tuke in the formation of the Congested Districts Board. See Ciara Breathneach, The Congested Districts Board of Ireland, 1891–1923: Poverty and Development in the West of Ireland (Dublin, 2005). 10 Joseph Chamberlain M.P. who was Secretary at the Colonial Office at this stage. 11 This letter appeared in The Times on the 29 June 1889. 12 The Baltimore Fishing School was established by Rev. Charles Davis with funding provided by the philanthropist, Lady Burdett-Coutts. 13 ‘Madame Gonne MacBride’s Long Service to Ireland’, Irish Press, 28 April 1953. 14 William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) had met Gonne in 1889. She was then involved in a relationship with a Frenchman, with whom she had two children. Yeats proposed to Gonne a number of times. 15 Gonne, Belmullet, to Yeats, dated ‘late February’ 1898, in Maud Gonne, Anna MacBride White, The Gonne-Yeats Letters, 1893–1938, pp. 84, 85. 16 The story of Maud Gonne, Longford Leader, 10 November 1951. 17 The article first appeared in Ireland Libre in March/April 1900, and was translated and reprinted in the United Irishmen, 7 April 1900. 18 Jim McPherson, Women and the Irish Nation: Gender, Culture and Irish Identity, 1890–1914 (London: Palgrave, 2012) pp. 130–31. 19 ‘Service to Ireland’, Irish Press, 28 April 1953. 20 ‘Death of Madame Maud Gonne MacBride’, Irish Independent, 28 April 1953. 21 ‘Condolence on death of Maud Gonne’, Strabane Chronicle, 16 May 1953. 22 Maud G. MacBride; Ruth Weiland, Im Dienste einer Königin: eine Frau kämpft für Ireland (Bremen: Schünemann, 1939). 23 Victoria died in 1901.

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47 CHAPTER XVIII, ‘FAMINE’ FROM A SERVANT OF THE QUEEN BY MAUD GONNE MACBRIDE (LONDON: VICTOR GOLLANCZ, 1938) CHAPTER XVII. FAMINE On landing at Cobh1 after my second lecture tour in America in 1897,2 I turned the tables on the reporters trying to interview me by asking them for news. These eight days without news on the ship were always trying. “Not too good,” said the reporter of the Freeman’s Journal, “Potato blight in the West,” and he handed me a copy of his paper which contained the insolent reply of Balfour3 to a question in the House of Commons in regard to deaths from starvation in County Mayo and the inadequate relief measures. Balfour had produced doctors’ certificates of “death from heart-failure” and then said: “You can’t expect us to supply your farmers with Champagne.”4 In Dublin I saw Arthur Griffith and James Connolly; 5 I had the money to clear the small debts of the United Irishman and wanted Griffith to accept at least £2 10s. a week as its editor,6 but Griffith, who was entirely unselfish and disinterested about money, refused. “Till the paper pays, I won’t take a penny more than the Twenty-five shillings which I have to pay my mother for my board.” I was often worried about Griffith’s finances; I knew he had broken his engagement to a girl who was in the National movement because he saw no prospect of money to marry on; I also knew he had refused several good offers of work on other papers, for he was a brilliant writer, but though I insisted, I was never able to shake his proud resolve of living on a bare subsistence till the paper paid. It never did pay owing to its frequent seizures and difficulty of production under British Coercion Acts. Connolly was perturbed about the famine. He had terrible reports from Kerry. The people must be roused to save themselves and not die as in 1847. That evening we drafted a leaflet. “The Rights of Life and the Rights of Property.”7 It ran as follows: ‘The use of all things is to be common to all. It is an injustice to say this belongs to me, that to another. Hence the origin of contentions among men.’ His Holiness Pope Clement I. 391

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‘Let them know that the earth from which they sprang, and of which they are formed, belongs to all men in common and therefore the fruits which the earth brings forth must belong without distinction to all.’ His Holiness Pope Gregory the Great. ‘In case of extreme need of food, all good become common property.’ Cardinal Manning.8 “Fellow Countrymen: At the present juncture when the shadow of famine is already blighting the lives of so many amongst us, when famine itself in all its grim horror has already begun to claim its victims . . . we desire to offer a few words of calm advice . . . to move you to action before it is too late and to point out to you your duty whether as fathers or sons, as husbands or as Irishmen. “In 1847 our people died by thousands of starvation though every ship leaving an Irish port was laden with food in abundance. The Irish people might have seized that food, cattle, corn and all manner of provisions before it reached the seaports – have prevented famine and saved their country from ruin, but did not do so, believing such action to be sinful and dreading to peril their souls to save their bodies. In this belief, we know now they were entirely mistaken. The very highest authorities on the Doctrine of the Church agree that no human law can stand between starving people and their RIGHT TO FOOD including the right to take that food whenever they find it, openly or secretly, with or without the owner’s permission. His Holiness Pope Leo XIII has lately recommended the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas as the best statement of Catholic Doctrine on Faith and Morals. “Listen to what St. Thomas teaches on the rights of property when opposed to the right of life. “In Summa Theologica Quest. 66 Art. 2. “Is it lawful to steal on the plea of necessity? “The institution of human law cannot abrogate from natural law or Divine law . . . therefore the division and appropriation of goods that proceed from human law cannot come in the way of man’s needs relieved out of these goods . . . If however, a need is so plain and pressing that clearly the urgent necessity has to be relieved . . . then the man may lawfully relieve his distress out of the property of another, taking it—either openly or secretly. . . ’ ” Connolly said he would go to Kerry as soon as he had arranged for the printing of the leaflet and hurried off to the National Library to get the quotations from the Fathers of the Church. I gave him £25 from the money collected on the lecture tour to pay for printing and for the journey. I was starting next morning for Mayo on organizing work for the ’98 Centenary.9 The approaching Centenary of Ireland’s great fight for Independence in 1798 provided the opportunity for putting the Separatist idea before the people. Anna Johnson,10 Alice Milligan,11 Willie Rooney12 and myself prepared and delivered many lectures on the United Irishmen in many places and as early as 1896 Centenary 392

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Committees were being organized throughout Ireland with the object of erecting monuments in their honour. James Daly of Castlebar 13 had asked me to go with him and inspect the graves of the French soldiers killed in the battle known as the “Races” of Castlebar where General Humbert and his thousand French soldiers, with the almost unarmed Irish, had routed the British army of General Lake who fled so fast that it gave the battle its name, “The races of Castlebar.”14 They then proclaimed the Irish Republic which was maintained in Connaught for two months. Those graves had been piously guarded by the farmers on whose holdings they were situated. The plough had never been allowed to obliterate those little green mounds amid the furrows. We intended erecting crosses further to mark the spots before the arrival of the two French delegations which we had invited to be present at the laying of the foundation stone of the Ballina Memorial in honour of the men who died for Ireland in 1798.15 James Daly presented me with an old French coin and a bullet that had been found in one of the graves; later I had these made into a brooch which I always wore. I learnt that, while there was great distress round Castlebar, the real famine area was in North Mayo. In Ballina I stayed with the Kellys. Thomas Kelly was the Secretary of the Ballina Memorial Committee.16 He was also an old friend of mine in Land League campaigns and his wife and big family gave me a warm welcome. Thomas Kelly was a commercial traveler; he told me how, returning from Ballycastle, he had seen ten new unfinished graves in the little cemetery between Ballycastle and Belderrig; the people were too weak to do the work of burying properly. The priest, Father Timony of Ballycastle,17 was down with the fever which always accompanies famine.18 I took the Mail car19 for Ballycastle the following morning in spite of the hospitable remonstrance of Mrs. Kelly. Miss May, the proprietress of the hotel in Ballycastle, told me a man had died of hunger in the town the day before I arrived and that the doctor had signed the usual certificate of “death from heart failure”. “Why is he such a coward as not to say from starvation?” I asked indignantly. She shrugged her shoulders: “If he did he would be prosecuted for manslaughter for not having ordered relief. If he ordered relief sufficient to prevent deaths, he would bankrupt the Union and lose his job. The Belmullet Union has already been declared bankrupt.”20 In the evening, people hearing of my arrival surrounded the hotel and I addressed a big meeting and distributed the leaflets of which I had received a large supply from James Connolly and arranged for a group of young men to distribute them in outlying townlands. Next day I got on to the Mail car for Belderrig; I got the driver to halt a moment to let me inspect the barely covered graves in the little wind-blown cemetery of which Mr. Kelly had spoken. The pretty young wife of the man who kept the general store in Belderrig looked doubtful when I told her I wanted to stay. “You had better go back to Ballycastle,” she said. “We have no accommodation for a lady like you. Things are so bad I find it hard even to get a drop of milk for my own children.” I told her I didn’t mind; all I wanted was a room. She said: “We haven’t a room fit for you.” But 393

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when she found me determined to stay, she added she would do her best, which she certainly did. That evening, in her kitchen, round the turf fire on an open hearth, I heard pitiful tales from a few famine-stricken women with shawls over their heads, come to fetch little bags of meal or sugar for which they had no money to pay. “But for Mrs. Kelly we would all be dead,” was the refrain. One woman whose father and brother lay in the little graveyard I had visited told me her remaining brother was down with famine fever but was on the mend. “If only I could get food to keep the life in him! Father worked on the Relief Works till he came home to die. He was old; the Relief Works are so far away. No, he didn’t die of the fever; he just came home one night tired out and went to bed and next morning he couldn’t rise, and he died, – without a priest,” she said with a sigh. “Father Timony, God bless him, is down with the fever.” She told me she was going to work on the Relief now her brother was no longer raving and she could leave him. A Coast Guard from a station along the coast came into the shop. He had heard there was a stranger in Belderrig and had come to see. He looked curiously into the kitchen and said good evening politely. We made a place at the fire for him. “We give the poor people all the scraps at the Station and indeed a good share of our own food, more than we can afford,” he told me. “They come round every day and when some don’t appear we know they are down with the fever. They would do far better to go to the workhouse, though I hear the fever is there too. Yet at least they would get food, but they won’t go. You see, if they go into the workhouse they lose their title to the land and they prefer to starve.” I asked him about the relief works. “They are all right of course,” he said., “but they can’t take on any except the heads of families and the 6d. a day they earn can’t keep big families. The Government is doing its best; there are four Relief Works started in Erris; but the people are starving and I wish I was out of this part of the country. Where are you going, young lady? It’s not much of a place for you.” “Oh, I’m going to stay here, or around here, for some time I expect. I am going to write about this famine and try to get help.” “Well, I wish you luck and that you get something done for the poor people.” And he got up and went into the shop. I turned to the woman who had said she was going to try to get onto the Relief Works; she was gazing at me with clear grey eyes, her shawl had fallen back from her fair hair, bleached by sun and sea and I noticed she was beautiful. “If you can leave your brother, will you come and show me round the country instead of going to the Relief Works? I want to visit some of the sick people.” “Of course I will. But aren’t you afraid of the fever?” I laughed. “I am afraid of nothing and you are not either.” “Indeed she is not,” said another woman. “Peggy Hegarty goes to all the houses where people are ill and does what she can for them and puts them in their coffins when they’re dead.” “How old are you, Peggy?” I asked. “Thirty,” she replied. “Two years younger than I am.” She looked ten years older. “Well, Peggy, we will do some work together and stop the famine. People who are not 394

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afraid can stop it.” They all looked at me and one old woman crossed herself. The women, except Peggy, got up and went out into the wet night. Mrs. Kelly came in from the shop and said: “They all go together: they are feared to walk alone these times.” “What are they afraid of?” I asked. Mrs. Kelly laughed: “They say the good people are angry because they have nothing to leave in plates outside for them.” I met a lot of people who had seen fairies in Mayo but it was seldom they would talk about them. Mrs. Kelly said my room was ready and I followed her upstairs to a bare room. She was very apologetic about the bed and said she was afraid I would not be comfortable though she had put a hot jar in it. I looked at the little bit of guttering candle and asked for more candles. I did not think it necessary to tell her but I had so much writing to do I had no use for the bed. Wrapped up in my big seal-skin cloak with its immense bear-fur collar that Uncle Charlie had given me when I came of age and which had protected me from many storms, I sat by a rickety little table and wrote all night. I was unutterably lonely and sad and frightened, for the task seemed too big for me. I thought of Tommy’s words, “You must never be afraid of anything, even of death.” Peggy was afraid of nothing because she had lost all and was not afraid of walking alone in the fairy-haunted night with her little bags of meal and sugar. The people must be taught to be afraid of nothing, neither death nor war, if the famine was to be stopped. I wrote to James Connolly, chiefly because he was the bravest man I knew, and to Ellen Ford,21 reminding her how I had asked for no subscriptions in America and had refused to allow collections to be made at my meetings, but telling her that now I was up against it and must appeal for help for the famine stricken areas. I told her I wanted money to feed the children in the schools and money to nurse the fever patients. Ellen Ford did not fail me. She opened a subscription list in the Irish World22 and I got money for both these things; and I put Peggy, who had no fear, in charge of the nursing, – such as it was. I wrote an article describing just what I had seen for the Freeman’s Journal. I did not know if it would publish it because I was already looked on as an enemy of the Parliamentary Party.23 It was day-light when I had finished writing. I tossed the bed clothes, for I did not want Mrs. Kelly to be worried by thinking the bed was too uncomfortable for me to sleep in and I did my best with my toilette and went downstairs for breakfast. “Up so early!” exclaimed Mrs. Kelly. She was in the kitchen struggling with the curly tangled hair of her youngest girl. “I sent Jimmy out an hour ago to get a cup of milk for the tea. We have only opened this shop recently and have no cows of our own yet and the bailiffs seized all the people’s cows for arrears of rent when they saw the famine coming. It’s true the people wouldn’t have had feeding for them through the winter; but milk in these parts you cannot get. Jimmy is not back and I will have to give you condensed milk in your tea and you won’t like that.” “Don’t bother about me, Mrs. Kelly. But we want a lot of condensed milk for the sick people,” and I arranged with her to order in a good supply. Peggy was waiting 395

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outside the shop. I made her come in and share my breakfast which she did with some shyness and reluctance, for Peggy was proud. Then we went out together. Peggy was well known to all. She was used to going into the houses where there was sickness and helping the women to tidy up their places. Many of the sick lay on rushes and rags on the floor. I reflected that it was perhaps better than beds for the rushes could always be burnt afterwards and end the infection. Some of the hovels beggared description, but there were fewer down with actual fever than I had feared. There was a listless misery over everyone that was indescribable. Food was the most pressing need. I told them all that the worst was over, that help was coming and they would soon be well. I pretended to knowledge I did not possess and said that Peggy would bring them something that would make them well; that “something” was only oatmeal gruel and condensed milk but it worked wonders; we cooked it over Peggy’s little turf fire; we collected three or four women from homes like Peggy’s where someone had already died of the fever, so that they had no fear of going into infected houses, and we organized a rough and ready scheme of nursing. All the credit for the nursing scheme was due to Peggy who was far more knowledgeable and helpful than myself, but my cheerful confidence was more infectious than the fever. I told the men I wanted to hold a meeting on the quay, where the fishing boats came in, that evening and to gather the people here so we could decide on the necessary measures to end the famine. A large crowd attended and I told them a fish-curing station was needed so that when they got a big catch of herrings they should not go to waste and each house should have some for preserving as the people in France had when the weather was too bad for the Curraghs to go out, and I told them that if they demanded this as a right, I would see they got it and the building of it would be better paid than work on the Relief. I distributed the leaflet. I could see that Mr. Kelly the owner of the store did not altogether approve of the leaflet and one man said to me: “But what is there for us to take? There is nothing except at Mr. Kelly’s store and it is Mrs. Kelly who is keeping us all alive.” “Are there not sheep upon the mountains that belong to the landlords?” I replied. There was silence. Someone said: “We are not sheep-stealers.” Another: “We don’t eat meat.” “You are worse than sheepstealers if you allow one of your children to die of hunger when there is food to be taken. Sheep can be killed and made into soup which will keep your wives and children alive and if you go to jail for it, you will go as honourable men, for a decent cause, but if you are clever, no one will go to jail. Who is to stop you on these lonely mountains! Be men. Go out hunting!” The men shuffled uncomfortably; I saw that the fish-curing station was a more popular idea, but it was of no immediate value and it was immediate results for which I was looking to stop the famine. I told them about the ’98 Centenary and about the Frenchmen who were again coming to Ireland and that the Irish people were determined to be free. This roused a little enthusiasm but they were too hungry. However, they raised a small cheer as Peggy and I walked off. “Will they take the sheep?” I asked her. She shook her head. Later I learned that a few had taken my advice, but not to the extent I would have wished. 396

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Next day the doctor from Ballycastle arrived; it was weeks since he had visited the district. Mrs. Kelly said: “I suppose he has heard of you being here and thinks he must show up.” I had a long talk with him. He seemed a kindly well-meaning man; he was very apologetic. “Sure, what good can I do, Miss Gonne? It is food the people need, not medicine.” “Order food supplies,” I answered. “And if I do, the Killala Union goes bankrupt. What good has it done them in Bellmullet? They have Dublin Castle Vice-Guardians now, but that won’t prevent deaths from starvation.”24 “Order this food all the same, doctor,” I said. “If I get the sack my wife and children will starve then.” He went round and visited all the sick people and ordered some food and medicine to be supplied. “You certainly have put great heart into the people,” he said; “they are all talking of you.” He also told me that two of the boys who were distributing my leaflets round Ballycastle had been arrested. I sent a wire by the Mail car ordering more leaflets with my name printed on them this time so that if the distributors were arrested I would have to be prosecuted also. The Freeman’s Journal published the first of my famine articles; I  received a cheque for two guineas from the editor and a request for more articles, especially on the Relief works, and a few cheques from people who had read the article, which were very useful for immediate relief. Leaving Peggy Hegarty in charge of the nursing I proceeded by Mail car to Belmullet. Monsignor Hewson, the Parish Priest of Belmullet,25 received me kindly when I called, for which I was surprised and thankful, for the Bishop had denounced me and the ’98 Centenary Committee in Mayo for stirring up old hatreds which should be forgotten and for encouraging revolutionary spirit. All the young priests who had joined our committees had been ordered to leave them. “What is this I hear,” said Monsignor Hewson; “you are teaching my people it is no sin to steal.” But there was a twinkle in his eyes and he smiled. “I have the backing of Popes and of Saints for that,” I replied, handing him a leaflet. “I don’t blame you,” he said; “the condition of the people is desperate and the M.P.s are doing nothing. I read your article in the Freeman’s Journal. You have understated things. You have not said the worst, which is that they have been forced to eat every seed potato and it is time for spring-sowing and there is nothing being put into the ground, so famine next year is inevitable.” He was evidently seriously alarmed. I told him the Freeman’s Journal had asked me to write an article on the relief works. “Say they are only organising famine. Sixpence a day for useless work, making roads leading nowhere, or moving hillocks from one side of the road to the other. Sixpence a day to feed a family often of twelve or thirteen people!” He was particularly enraged over the rule which allowed only the head of the family to be taken on. If it happened to be a woman she had to go while her grown-up sons remained idle. “Only yesterday,” He said, “I was called to see a little child who is nearly burnt to death from falling into the fire while his mother was on the 397

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Relief road. My curate shall drive you round and show you the four Relief Works to-morrow and then you can write.” Next day, driving to the Relief Works, Father Munelly [sic]26 told me a man had died on the works a few days previously. The overseers and gangers were respectful to Father Munelly and the people crowded up to see a stranger. The overseer knew nothing about a man having died at the works; he said, when pressed by Father Munelly: “Oh, I suppose you mean the poor fellow who had fits. He got one on his way home, I heard. He was taken to a friend’s house and died.” I saw the people stir and look at each other uneasily. Many had no English; those who had were telling the others. Father Munelly, speaking Irish, asked: “Is that what you all say?” Some shook their heads, but no one spoke. They seemed terrorized. “Here Tom Mulherne, speak out and tell this lady how Patrick Duane died.” “Right here, your Reverence, on the road we are making yonder. We carried him all the way to Moran’s but he was dead.” “Get back to your work, all of you,” said the overseer angrily. “Stay,” I called, climbing back on the car and standing up. “Before you go, I have something to say and Father Munelly will translate for those who don’t understand me. This famine must be stopped. We know the way to stop it. Come to Belmullet to-morrow at eleven o’clock, all of you, and bring every grown man from your districts who can walk. You will find it worth your while.” The overseer came forward: “Very sorry, Miss, but none of these people can come; they have to be at work.” “Work will have to stop to-morrow,” I answered loudly, “the people have something more important to do. Will you come?” Some shouted: “We will.” The overseer looked angry and called out: “Any man or woman absent from the works to-morrow will be sacked and get no pay on Saturday.” “Any man or woman who is sacked will be taken on at my employ at double wage. Please, Father Munelly, will you translate.” We drove off. “How will you keep that promise, Miss Gonne, if they are sacked?” “I don’t know. But I must have them all in Belmullet for the Board meeting if we are to stop the famine. I wonder, will Monsignor take the chair for me.” “Monsignor doesn’t like public meetings; but he is so upset about the famine he might,” said his curate. At each of the four Relief Works I told the people the same thing and ordered them all to be in Belmullet at eleven o’clock and asked them to collect the people of their districts. We drove back to Monsignor Hewson’s and I asked him if he would take the chair at the meeting I called. “You don’t expect me to preach to them that they are to steal? But I will take the chair for you. I have just heard of your work in Belderrig. Good work. You have put new life into the people there; they say there have been no more deaths since you got the nursing going.” I drew up a list of minimum demands. The sixpence a day paid on Relief work to be raised to one shilling. No woman who could get a man to replace her to work on the roads. 1s. 6d. a week extra as lodging money to any who had to walk over a mile to the Relief works. Immediate free distribution of seed potatoes to prevent 398

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recurrence of famine. The work of preparing the ground and planting the seeds on the holdings to be paid a shilling a day as relief work. The two curates saw me back to the hotel. As we passed, a woman snatched up her child and drew it into the house as though afraid; another woman shrank back into her house and crossed herself; a girl caught the end of my cloak and kissed it and a woman pulled her back. I said to Father Munelly: “Why do some of the people seem afraid of me?” The curates laughed. “You haven’t heard?” said Father Munelly. The other curate said: “Don’t tell her.” “But I want to know.” And Father Munelly said: “Did you ever hear of Brian Ruadh and his prophecies?”27 I shook my head. “Brian Ruadh was an old man, reputed to be very wise and a great scholar. He went to a fair and was late returning and couldn’t cross the ford in the dark and went to sleep in the fairy wood where none should ever linger. People found him there in the morning and helped him home. He said he knew he was going to die and asked them to send for the priest and he then wrote down the things revealed to him in the haunted wood. First, that his own death was near and to prepare for it. Second, that news would be carried into Belmullet on the top of sticks and that carriages without horses would drive through the mountains. That there would be a great war, multitudes would be killed and soldiers would land in Blacksod Bay. That there would be famine and that a woman dressed in green would come and preach the revolt. After that, men would rise and there would be fighting and many killed but that the English would in the end be driven out. All the people know the prophecy of Brian Ruadh. He died the day after he wrote it down. “Telegraph posts have brought news to Belmullet on the top of sticks; the light railway has come as far as Killala and there are plans to bring it as far as Belmullet. That is the carriages driving without horses through the mountains. Soldiers were landed from a warship in Blacksod Bay during the evictions. And now there is a famine and you have come and are wearing a green dress; so you are the woman of the prophecy, – the woman who is to bring war and victory. Do you wonder that some of the women are afraid of you and that the men are ready to follow you anywhere?” “Of course, Miss Gonne,” said Father Byrne,28 “that is all nonsense and superstition, but the people are all saying it.” In Donegal, being the woman of the Sidhe29 had helped me to put evicted families back in their homes and release prisoners. I hoped that being the woman of the prophecies in Mayo would help me to stop the famine. I went to my hotel and wrote an article on the Relief Works for the Freeman’s Journal. Next day the people from the whole countryside crowded into Belmullet. The biggest meeting, people told me, Belmullet had ever seen. The Relief Works were entirely deserted in spite of threats of dismissal from the overseers. Some twenty constabulary men looked on helplessly. It was a quiet, anxious crowd of ragged barefooted men and women. Monsignor Hewson blessed the people and spoke about the famine and told them to trust in God and to stand together and said a few bitter words about the British Government. The people raised a shrill cheer when they saw him, then he introduced me. 399

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I told them that those who had no fear could stop the famine; that God, having given us life, it was our duty to protect it; that men were cowards if they allowed their children to die of hunger; that, after consultations with many, I had drawn up the minimum demands of this great meeting of the people of Erris which they were to endorse and that I was going to present them to the Vice-Guardians at the Board meeting in progress in the Court House and would bring them the answer immediately. Above all, no one was to leave this meeting till I returned with the answer. Monsignor Hewson called on them to endorse the demands by acclamation and the people responded by another shrill cheer, more like a cry than a cheer. He told his senior curate to accompany me as a witness to the Court House. An old man, helping me from the wagonette, said: “They’ll never give all that, but God bless you.” At the Court House, Father Byrne and myself were at once admitted. There were the two Vice-Guardians from Dublin Castle, a representative from the Congested Districts Board,30 two representatives from the Government Relief Works who were in charge of the famine roads and the Town Clerk, seated round a table in the Board Room. The chairman was one of the Vice-Guardians. He said, in a hectoring tone: “Miss Gonne, what do you mean by bringing all these people into the town? What good will it do? You know it will mean many being turned off the Relief Works.” “They have come to formulate their demands because the Relief Works are not stopping the famine or famine deaths. They have elected me as their spokesman to present their demands. Here they are.” And I read them slowly and distinctly. I saw sneering smiles on the faces of the officials, especially at the clause that the people were to be paid for work on their own holdings. “Of course these demands are ridiculous and impossible,” said the chairman. “I am sorry you should say that,” I answered very gently, “because I hate violence and bloodshed and if that is the answer of the board, this is what it means. You are quite right in saying I brought all these people here. I did so because I cannot watch any more deaths from starvation. If people are to die, they shall die fighting. You know they are desperate and that they will do whatever I tell them to do.” I looked at the overseers of the famine roads. “Your overseers told them not to come; I told them to come; they obeyed me. They will do whatever I tell them. And if that is the answer you are going to give I shall have to take it to them and tell them what to do next.” “What are you going to tell them to do?” “To take food; to begin here, at once, in this town and take everything there is in it and neither you nor your policemen can prevent it. It will mean bloodshed, perhaps death for some, as your twenty policemen are armed. But ten thousand people will soon take the guns from twenty policemen and it will be at least two, perhaps three days before you can get reinforcements of either police or military. There is no railway, remember.31 By that time the people will be scattered over the hills. You may make some arrests, but in jail the prisoners will be fed. You may arrest me and much good it will do in England in America and France to arrest a woman trying to save a life.”

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The gentlemen were looking uncomfortable and whispering to each other. The chairman said: “Miss Gonne, you talk very unreasonably. Let me see these demands again and please withdraw while we consider them.” I handed him the paper. “There is nothing unreasonable in these demands and please remember they are the minimum and I hope you won’t be too long in giving me the answer, for the people are waiting.” Outside, though the open window, we could hear the confused murmur of that great throng and the strange soft sound of thousands of bare feet beating on the hard earth. The curate and I withdrew to the outer office. I felt horribly anxious, for though I had spoken with quiet confidence of what we intended doing, I realized that starving people are not the best material for a fight; that the prejudice against stealing was inbred and hard to overcome; that, if it came to violence, I doubted of the moral support of Monsignor Hewson and his curates; the one with me was looking out of the window rather dismally. The prophecy of Brian Ruadh was my best hope. Some of the men, I knew, would obey me and people would certainly get killed. It was a great relief when the door opened and the Town Clerk summoned us, after about ten minutes, to the Board room. The chairman had the paper of the demands in his hand. He spoke in a different tone to the one he had previously used. “Miss Gonne,” He said, “I want you to understand we have the welfare of these poor people as much at heart as you have. If you had spoken differently we would have told you so at once and considered these requests. We have done so now and have come to the conclusion that there is nothing unreasonable in them; and if you will send those people back to their homes quietly and at once, you can tell them that their requests will be granted.” “All of them,” I said, refraining from noticing the change of the word ‘demand’ and trying hard to conceal my joy and to speak quietly. “Yes.” “To-morrow, Saturday, they will all receive six shillings instead of three.” “Yes, but in the matter of free distribution of seed they will have to wait, for there are no seed potatoes to be had in the district. They will have to come from Scotland.” I knew it would be true that there was no seed to be got in the whole of Mayo. “How long will it take to get it?” I asked. “It is high time it was in the ground if there is not to be a worse famine next year.” The chairman and the Town Clerk were speaking together about the sailing of a boat from Glasgow. “About a fortnight. We are telegraphing to Dublin to-day. The order will be given at once. It is of course necessary to avert another famine.” “The people are to be paid a shilling a day for planting them on their holdings?” “Yes.” I got up and bowed politely. “Father Byrne and I will convey your answer.” “You will send that crowd home at once?” said one of the officials, as I passed. “Certainly. That is our side of the undertaking.” The Town Clerk, as he showed me down the stairs, patted me on the back: “You are a wonderful lady. No one else

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could have done it,” he whispered excitedly. “Will they keep their promises?” I said. “I think so; you scared them stiff.” “The crowd did,” I laughed. Father Byrne went off to report to Monsignor Hewson who had retired into the presbytery. Father Munelly joined me on the edge of the crowd. We got into the wagonette and Monsignor Hewson came out and resumed the chair. He told them to be very grateful to the young lady who had come to their help and said a lot of kind things about me. I then read out each of the minimum demands which had been accorded and Father Munelly translated them into Irish. “Now,” I said, “you all understand and you can return to your homes; but remember you have won these small things by your numbers and by your united strength. By your strength and courage, you must win the freedom of Ireland.” “It was an indescribable scene. People crying and laughing at once; crowding into the wagonette, kissing my hands and my dress. “You must stay with us. If you go, they won’t keep their promises.” “You will see to-morrow, pay-day, at the relief works. No one is to accept less than six shillings. I have other work to do; I must leave to-night. But have no fear. It is you yourselves, by refusing to be frightened of the overseers and coming here in spite of them, that won the victory. Trust in your own strength. Good luck and God’s blessing on you all.” Monsignor Hewson and the curates had to use all their authority to get me out of that excited crowd into the presbytery till they gradually dispersed. The promises were all kept, so I had no need to return and I wanted to get back to Dublin to see about a fish-curing plant for Belderrig. I secured this through the kind-hearted support of an old official of the Congested Districts Board, Sir Joseph Robinson.32 But I returned to Mayo and spent nearly two months there wandering from place to place, arranging school-feeding and rough-and-ready nursing and working up enthusiasm for the local ’98 Centenary monument. Before leaving, I presented Peggy with two lambs so that next year she would have wool to spin herself the making of a dress. I was worn out when I got back to my little flat in Paris where I stayed lazily in bed for a fortnight, reading novels and answering no letters, but I had stopped the famine in Mayo, I think, saved many lives. Talking in the British House of Commons would never have done it.

Notes 1 Also Anglicized to Cove, it was a main transatlantic passenger port in the 19th century. 2 Gonne travelled to America in mid-October 1897 and returned to Ireland in January 1898. 3 Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) was a British Conservative politician. In 1887, he was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, by his uncle, Lord Salisbury. Balfour immediately showed himself to be tough on crime and opposed to Home Rule. However, in 1890, he assisted in the creation of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland. In 1891, he became leader of the Conservative Party in the Commons. Balfour served as Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905. His brother, Gerald (1853–1945) served as Chief

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Secretary for Ireland from 1895 to 1900. He was associated with the second phase of ‘constructive unionism’. 4 Referred to as his ‘champagne speech’, Chief Secretary Gerald Balfour not only persistently denied the existence of suffering and famine in parts of Ireland, but stated that the poor ‘could not be supplied with champagne and sent to the South of France’. He was criticized by nationalists for his insensitivity. See Hansard, HC, 13 May 1898 vol. 57, cc. 1239–40. 5 Arthur Griffith (1872–1922) a member of the Gaelic League and the I.R.B., worked on the Nation newspaper. In 1899, he co-founded the weekly United Irishman. James Connolly (1868–1916) was born in Scotland to Irish parents. He moved to Ireland in 1892 to work for the Dublin Socialist Club. He, together with Griffiths and Gonne, campaigned against the Boer War. 6 The United Irishman founded by Arthur Griffith and William Rooney was first published in March 1899. Its contributors included Maud Gonne and Patrick Pearse. It folded in 1906, but was re-established as Sinn Fein. There is a discrepancy in the dates provided by Gonne. 7 This manifesto was published in March 1898. Around this time, Connolly spent three weeks in Co. Kerry, reporting on the approaching famine for the socialist Weekly People in New York. 8 Henry Edward Manning (1808–1892) was an English convert to Roman Catholicism. He was appointed a Cardinal in 1875. While conservative on theological matters, he developed a Catholic doctrine of social justice. 9 Gonne was very involved with the preparations for the centenary of the 1798 Rising. In October 1897, Gonne and W. B. Yeats attended a ’98 Convention in Manchester. Due to a split in the movement, a United Irishmen Centennial Committee was also formed. 10 Anna Johnson (1866–1902) was born in Ballymena. Together with Milligan, she published the monthly Shan Van Vocht (Poor Old Woman), which was the first newspaper run by women in the world. It ran from 1896 to 1899. She was a founding member of Inghinidhe na hÉireann, the radical women’s group led by Gonne. Following marriage to poet Seamus MacManus in 1901, Johnson also wrote under the pen-name Ethna Carbery. 11 Alice Milligan (1865–1953) was born near Omagh in Co. Tyrone to a Methodist family. With Jenny Armour, she founded branches of the Irish Women’s Association in Belfast. When Shan Van Vocht ceased publication, it transferred its subscriptions lists to Griffith’s United Irishman. A fluent Irish speaker, in 1904 Milligan became a fulltime lecturer with the Gaelic League. 12 William Rooney (1873–1901) who was born in Dublin, was a passionate Gaelic revivalist. With Griffith, he founded the United Irishman in 1899, and the following year they created Cumann na nGaedheal (Society of the Gaels) which was a precursor to Sinn Féin. Rooney died aged 27 of tuberculosis. 13 James Daly (1838–1911) from County Mayo, founded a local tenants defence association in 1875. He was appointed vice-president of the new National Land League of Mayo in August 1879 and to the committee of the Irish National Land League, which was formed two months later. In 1876, he and Alfred O’Hea purchased the Mayo Telegraph, which was renamed the Connaught Telegraph and which was used to promote the land movement. 14 On 27 August 1798, approximately 2,000 French troops and Irish insurgents routed a British force of approximately 6,000 in Castlebar. In its wake, General Jean Joseph Humbert, the French Commander, declared the Republic of Connaught. It was shortlived, lasting only days (not 2 months as Gonne suggests) when the rebels were defeated at the Battle of Ballinamuck on 8 September. 15 Before bringing the French delegation to Ballina, Gonne had accompanied them for the laying of a foundation stone dedicated to Wolfe Tone in St Stephen’s Green. The

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‘Humbert Monument’ was dedicated in May 1898, on the 100th anniversary of the French landing in Killala. It depicts Mother Ireland. 16 Thomas B. Kelly was a member of the Irish National League, the Wolfe Tone and United Irishmen Memorial Committee. 17 The parish priest in Ballycastle from 1893 to 1898 was Father Francis Clarke. 18 The common saying was that ‘fever follows famine’. The vector of the disease was the human body louse. There were two major types of fever – typhus fever and relapsing fever – although this distinction was rarely made. 19 The first post office in the Erris region opened in 1820. From 1832, there was a daily postal service to Ballina. A new road linking Belmullet and Castlebar was completed in 1824. 20 Belmullet was one of the Poor Law Unions created at the height of the Famine in 1848. Its population in 1891 was 14,333. In the wake of the famine of 1879–82, the Union found itself with major debts, leading to the dissolution of the Board of Guardians. 21 Ellen was Sister of Patrick Ford, the editor of the Irish World. She had been an active member of the American Ladies’ Land League, working closely with Fanny Parnell. 22 The Irish World was owned by Patrick Ford (1837–1913) who had been born in Galway, but had emigrated with his family to Boston in 1845. In 1870, he founded the Irish World in New York, and it quickly became the main paper of Irish America. His radical politics included women’s suffrage and land nationalization. 23 The Irish Parliamentary Party. Gonne did not support their demand for Home Rule, desiring full independence for Ireland and the establishment of a republic. 24 The Distressed Unions Bill of 1887 had provided for administrators to be appointed by Dublin Castle to replace elected Poor Law Guardians in Belmullet, Clifden, Oughterard, Swineford and Westport. They had been accused of over-spending on relief. Since 1882, the Belmullet Union had been controlled by supporters of Parnell. 25 Monsignor Henry Hewson (d. 1910). He was a persistent and fearless champion of the poor in his parish, a letter appealing for assistance having been published in the Freeman’s Journal on 21 January 1880, during an earlier famine. 26 Father Michael Munnelly, later became Canon. 27 Brian Ruadh was thought to have been born in 1648 in the parish of Kilcommon in Erris. Passed down through oral tradition, it was not until 1906 that his stories were collected and written down, in Irish. 28 Possibly Father Thomas L. Beirne. 29 Or aos sí was the Irish term for a supernatural race. Tenants in Donegal had labeled Gonne in this way, when she assisted them in resisting evictions. Gonne cultivated the image of herself as a mythical, incorporeal figure. In his later poem, ‘A Bronze Head’, Yeats reinforced the idea of Gonne as a non-human shape-shifter. 30 The Congested Districts Board for Ireland was established in 1891 by A. J. Balfour MP, who was then Chief Secretary. Its purpose was to alleviate poverty and overcrowding in the south and west of Ireland. The Board was part of an approach known as ‘Constructive Unionism’, which was to provide an alternative to nationalism and Home Rule. Count Mayo was deemed to be a congested district. 31 In the second half of the 19th century, there were discussions about extending the railway to the Belmullet/Erris region, but local merchants opposed the plans, fearing it would adversely affect their trade. 32 Possibly Sir Henry Robertson (1857–1927) a Dublin-born civil servant who worked with the Congested Districts Board and the Local Government Board.

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48 MAUD GONNE, ‘THE FAMINE QUEEN’ (UNITED IRISHMAN, 1 7 APRIL  1900)

‘The Queen’s visit to Ireland is in no way political,’ proclaims the Lord Lieutenant, and the English ministers. ‘The Queen’s visit has no political significance, and the Irish nation must receive her Majesty with the generous hospitality for which it is celebrated,’ hastens to repeat Mr John Redmond,2 and our servile Irish members whose nationality has been corrupted by a too lengthy sojourn in the enemy’s country. ‘The Queen’s visit to Ireland has nothing at all to do with politics,’ cries the fishmonger, Pile, whose ambitious soul is not satisfied by the position of Lord Mayor and who hankers after an English title.3 ‘Let us to our knees, and present the keys of the city to her Most Gracious Majesty, and compose an address in her honour.’ ‘Nothing political! Nothing political! Let us present an address to this virtuous lady,’ echo 30 town councillors, who when they sought the votes of the Dublin people called themselves Irishmen and Nationalists, but who are overcome by royal glamour. Poor citizens of Dublin! Your thoughtlessness in giving your votes to these miserable creatures will cost you dear. It has already cost the arrests of sixteen good and true men, and many broken heads and bruised limbs from police batons, for you have realised – if somewhat late – the responsibility of Ireland’s capital, and, aghast at the sight of the men elected by you betraying and dishonouring Ireland, you have, with a courage which makes us all proud of you, raised a protest, and cried aloud, ‘The visit of the Queen of England is a political action, and if we accord her a welcome we shall stand shamed before the nations. The world will no longer believe in the sincerity of our demand for National Freedom.’ And in truth, for Victoria, in the decrepitude of her eighty-one years, to have decided after an absence of half-a-century to revisit the country she hates and whose inhabitants are the victims of the criminal policy of her reign, the survivors of sixty years of organised famine, the political necessity must have been terribly strong; for after all she is a woman, and however vile and selfish and pitiless her soul may be, she must sometimes tremble as death approaches when she thinks of the countless Irish mothers who, sheltering under the cloudy Irish sky, watching their starving little ones, have cursed her before they died.

405

THE CRISES OF THE 1880s AND 1890s

Every eviction during sixty-three years has been carried out in Victoria’s name, and if there is a Justice in Heaven the shame of those poor Irish emigrant girls whose very innocence renders them an easy prey and who have been overcome in the terrible struggle for existence on a foreign shore, will fall on this woman, whose bourgeoise virtue is so boasted and in whose name their homes were destroyed. If she comes to Ireland again before her death to contemplate the ruin she has made it is surely because her ministers and advisors think that England’s situation is dangerous and that her journey will have a deep political importance. England has lived for years on a prestige which has had no solid foundation. She has hypnotised the world with the falsehood of her greatness; she has made great nations and small nations alike believe in her power. It required the dauntless courage and energy of the Boers to destroy forever this illusion and rescue Europe from the fatal enchantment. Today no one fears the British Empire, her prestige has gone down before the rifles of a few thousand heroic peasants. If the British Empire means to exist she will have to rely on real strength, and real strength she has not got. England is in decadence. She has sacrificed all to getting money, and money cannot create men, nor give courage to her weakly soldiers. The men who formerly made her greatness, the men from the country districts have disappeared; they have been swallowed up by the great black manufacturing cities; they have been flung into the crucible where gold is made. Today the giants of England are the giants of finance and of the Stock Exchange, who have risen to power on the backs of a great struggling mass of pale, exhausted slaves. The storm approaches; the gold which the English have made out of the blood and tears of millions of human beings attracts the covetousness of the world. Who will aid the pirates to keep their spoils? In their terror they turn to Victoria, their Queen. She has succeeded in amassing more gold than any of her subjects; she has always been ready to cover with her royal mantle the crimes and turpitude of her Empire, and now, trembling on the brink of the grave, she rises once more at their call. Soldiers are needed to protect the vampires. The Queen issues an appeal in England, the struggling mass of slaves cry ‘Hurrah’; but there is no blood in their veins, no strength in their arms. Soldiers must be found, so Victoria will go herself to fetch them; she will go over to Ireland – to this people who have despised gold, and who, in spite of persecutions and threats, have persisted in their dream of Freedom and idealism, and who, though reduced in numbers, have maintained all the beauty and strength and vitality of their race. Taking the Shamrock in her withered hand she dares to ask Ireland for soldiers – for soldiers to protect the exterminators of their race! And the reply of Ireland comes sadly but proudly, not through the lips of the miserable little politicians who are touched by the English canker but through the lips of the Irish people. ‘Queen, return to your own land; you will find no more Irishmen ready to wear the red shame of your livery. In the past they have done so from ignorance, and because it is hard to die of hunger when one is young and strong and the sun shines, but they shall do so no longer; see! Your recruiting agents return unsuccessful and alone from my green hills and plains, because once more hope has 406

M aud G onne , ‘ T he famine queen ’

revived, and it will be in the ranks of your enemies that my children will find employment and honour! As to those who today enter your service to help in your criminal wars, I deny them! If they die, if they live, it matters not to me, they are no longer Irishmen.’

Notes 1 The United Irishman: A national weekly review, represented the views of ‘advanced’ nationalists. It ran from March 1899 to April 1906. Its founder was Arthur Griffith, a friend of Gonne. 2 John Redmond (1856–1918) led the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party after 1900. Welcoming the Queen to Ireland was one of his first official duties, placing him in an unenviable position with his fellow nationalists. 3 The Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1900–1901 was Sir Thomas Devereux Pile (1856–1931).

407

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413

KEYWORDS

Aberdeen Achill Island America American Civil War Anglican Church Australia beggars Belfast blankets blight Boston Boulter, Archbishop Hugh British and Irish Ladies’ Society British army British government British parliament Brooks, Maurice, MP Brosnan, Canon Timothy Canada Carleton, William Catholic Church census returns Central Relief Committee Charitable Irish Society, Boston charity – see philanthropy Chief Secretary children cholera Clifden clothing Congested Districts Board Connolly, James

Cotton Famine Coulter, Henry County Clare County Cork County Donegal County Galway County Kerry County Mayo County Sligo Davitt, Michael disease distilleries Donnelly, Bishop James drainage Dublin Duchess of Marlborough Duchess of Marlborough Relief Fund dwellings emigrant experiences emigration assisted Enniscrone Europe evictions export of food embargo famine of 1741 famine of 1816–1817 famine of 1822–1823 famine of 1845–1852 famine of 1862 414

K eywords

famine of 1879–1882 famine of 1897–1898 ‘Famine Queen’ famines after 1852 famines in the 1720s famines in the 1830s famines in the 1860s famines in the 1890s famines prior to 1845 Fenianism fever fisheries fishing Flannery, Rev T. forgotten famines Foster, Vere Fox, J. A. fuel famine Gonne, Maud Gray, E. Dwyer herring historiography ‘Hold the Harvest’ Home Rule ‘Hovels of Ireland’ Irish Times Kenny, Dr Joseph Ladies’ Land League Ladies’ Relief Committees Lancashire Land League landlords linen livestock Loan Commissioners London Tavern Committee Lord Lieutenant Lord Mayor of Dublin McCabe, Archbishop Edward McCormack, Bishop Francis McDonald, Bishop John MacHale, Rev John Mahony, Rev Michael Mansion House Committee

medical doctors Memories: Wise and Otherwise Minnesota Morant, Captain Digby mortality Murrisk nationalism Nestorian New York Herald O’Connell, Daniel, MP O’Donel, Sir Richard parliamentary papers Parnell, Charles Stewart Parnell, Fanny Party, County Mayo Peel, Robert Peel, Sir Robert, Jr philanthropy by women pigs Poor Employment Act, 1817 Poor Law guardians Poor Law Unions Poor Laws England and Wales Ireland poor rates Poor Removal Act population potatoes Protestantism public works Queen Victoria railway construction Redpath, James relief measures Relief Squadron relief works – see public works religion remittances rents rioting rising in 1848 Robinson, Henry 415

K eywords

Scariff, County Clare Scotland Seed Fund sheep Sigerson, Dr George Skibbereen Sligo, Marquess of Society of Friends Society of St. Vincent de Paul Spain starvation Swift, Jonathan The Groans of Ireland

the Times Treasury Trinity College Tuke, James Hack turf United States – see America Viceroy – see Lord Lieutenant war weather women wool trade workhouses Year of Slaughter (Bliain an Áir)

416