In concert with the Ulster Plantation, infrastructure was improved, towns were expanded or constructed entirely to further British commerce.  Newly built roads connected urban centers within the county and others throughout the island.  Flax, at the time, was of great economic importance – flax being the material used to weave linen, a fabric of great value.  Flax growers were often individual families with meagre land holdings. Once harvested, it was typically the women and girls of the household who carried-out the remaining stages of linen production (retting, scutching, hackling, spinning and weaving) all within their own modest cottages.  The final product would generally then be shipped by coach or cart to Belfast for sale.   

Flax production filled the cyclical lulls in potato farming which helped those in pockets of Cavan maintain a slightly better standard of living than other areas.  One would expect this to alleviate the impact of the Great Hunger (1845-1852) within the county, but by the late 1700s, mechanized linen production in Belfast using flax grown closer to the city began to supplant this cottage industry. Combined with a downturn in the Irish economy around 1815, by the 1830s, the people of Cavan, most specifically the cottiers were just as vulnerable to crop failure and resulting hardships as the balance of the island. At the onset of the famine, 3 million people or more fell into the cottier class, out of Ireland’s total population of about 8.5 million. In 1812, British M.P. Described the lives of cottiers this way: 

“The cotter hires a cabin, the worst in the county, with a small patch of potato land, at a rent of 30 shillings per annum…At the same time, he works for his landlord at the small wage of 5d per day: but it comes to settle, he receives nothing, as the food of his few sheep is set off against what he charges per labour. In this manner the poor cotter must toil without end, while his family eats of the produce of the small spot of land he has hired.” 
   

The forgoing description contemplated normal circumstances, not life during a temporary scarcity, much less a multi-year crop failure. Tradition holds that the blight first appeared within County Cavan at Blacklion in the autumn of 1845. Based on the 1841 census, Cavan’s population was 243,158 just prior to the famine.  Most of the poverty stricken within that population were to be served by three newly created Poor Law Unions (Bailieborough, Cavan and Cootehill), whose workhouses were functional by 1842 (though some portions of the county fell with unions with workhouses physically located in an adjacent county).  A fourth, Bawnboy Union with a workhouse at Corrasmongan, Co. Cavan opened November 24, 1853, when the Great Hunger was essentially concluded. Due to timing, Bawnboy Workhouse played no role during the famine, however it remains one of few largely intact workhouses, that with the appropriate permission, can be visited, giving one a sense of their industrial size and cold, institutional atmosphere paupers experienced. 

Workhouses were not designed to be comfortable, but to be an unpleasant last resort, capable of sustaining life and nothing more. All had been designed by an architect named George Wilkerson of Oxfordshire, England - just 25 years old at the time of his appointment to the project. They were intended to handle localized, temporary cases of poverty, estimated at 1% of each union’s population, not county or island-wide destitution like that of the Great Hunger.   

When the blight first appeared at Blacklion, Co. Cavan in the autumn of 1845, few could foretell the horrors it would help to lay bare, particularly via the flawed design and overall inadequacy of the poor law system, and the ineptitude and ambivalence of those in control of policies and regulations around agricultural, economics and land.  Nonetheless, and despite opposition from British policy makers at the time, workhouses were put into extended emergency use and pushed beyond their limits as hunger and disease took hold.

Despite the blight appearing in 1845, no deaths were directly attributed to it.  Generally, this was because the crop failure that year was partial, cottiers and small farmers might still have some food stores, household items that could be pawned and perhaps a small number of livestock – sheep, pigs, donkeys that might be converted to food or sold.

But by 1846, the story in Cavan was alarmingly different.  In April of that year, The Dublin Evening Post reported on Cootehill, Co, Cavan: “The potatoes are run out with many families and there is no means of procuring meal.” “Fever is raging to an alarming extent: it commences with the poor but has extended its ravages to persons in more comfortable circumstances.” 

News like this was already being globally publicized. As reported in Sydney Morning Herald in July of 1846: “In Cavan the poor are unemployed and starving.  Inflammation of the stomach and diarrhea are frequent and attributable to the use of bad potatoes.  Insufficiency of food is the cause of this present disease, and fever will break out to frightful extent, in the event of scarcity of food.” 

By January, 1847 the Northern Whig reported that in Cavan “little or no labour [being] done [on] the small farms, the Workhouses are full .”  To the British parliamentary Scarcity Commission on April 4, 1847, Henry J. Kilber, esq of Drumken reported “no neighborhood had suffered more from failure of potato crop; distress is already great and the prospects of the future are alarming”. He went on to plead for Indian corn for the Cavan Union as did Rev. J Martin of Killeshandra. By April 14, 1847, that same Rev. J. Martin reported “The poor in a wretched state and daily their situation becoming worse”  after which he requested approval of new line of road be built to provide employment within his union.

Overcrowding at the workhouses was a major issue, especially considering the contagions already present.  On Jan 23, 1849, Captain Duckworth and Mr. Ellis, Vice Guardian of Cavan Union reported that the workhouse, designed for no more than 1,200 inmates contained 3,004 and was providing outdoor relief daily to 267 others.   And at Oldcastle Workhouse the following day, there were 1,054 paupers in a facility designed for 600 with an astounding 6,570 given daily outdoor relief.  By January 25, 1849, despite a capacity of 800, 2,600 paupers resided at Cootehill Workhouse with an additional 1,800 receiving daily outdoor relief.  

But raw statistics alone, whether they be deaths, workhouse admittances or the like, do not begin the paint a full picture of the situation on the ground during the famine era.  Stories of evictions and emigration, on the other hand, do more to round out the picture. Such was the case in the small townland Tonagh, which along with neighboring Mount Nugent and the islands in nearby Lough Sheelin were part of County Cavan yet within the boundaries of Oldcastle Poor Law Union, the workhouse for which was in Oldcastle, County Meath.    

It was within the Townland of Tonagh, where one of the most egregious evictions of the Great Hunger took place on November 3rd, 1848; an event known to the worldwide press as ‘The Lough Sheelin Eviction’. Landlords O’Connor and Malone, like many others, used the chaotic atmosphere of the famine to rid their property of tenantry.  Often this was part of an effort increase their income by transforming their landholdings into more profitable and low maintenance grazing pasture. The two engaged a Land Agent, by the name of Guinness to evict Tonagh’s 700 tenants in a single day.  A local doctor and newly ordained priest, who would later be the Bishop of Meath, witnessed the heartbreaking scene and recorded the grisly details. Dr. Nulty put it this way:

“The Crowbar brigade, employed on the occasion to extinguish the hearts and demolish the homes of honest, industrious men, worked away with a will at their awful calling until evening. At length, an incident occurred that varied the monotony of the grim, ghastly ruin which they were spreading all around. They stopped suddenly, and recoiled panic-stricken with terror from two dwellings which they were directed to destroy with the rest. They had just learned that a frightful typhus fever held those houses in its grasp, and had already brought pestilence and death to their inmates.”

“They therefore supplicated the agent to spare these houses a little longer; but the agent was inexorable, and insisted that the houses should come down. The ingenuity with which he extricated himself from the difficulties of the situation was characteristic alike, of the heartlessness of the man and of the cruel necessities of the work in which he was engaged. He ordered a large winnowing-sheet to be secured over the beds in which the fever victims lay - fortunately they happened to be perfectly delirious at the time - and then directed the houses to be unroofed cautiously and slowly, because he said that he very much disliked the bother and discomfort of a coroner’s inquest.”

Dr. Nulty administered “the last Sacrament of the Church to four of these fever victims next day; and save the above-mentioned winnowing-sheet, there was not then a roof nearer to me than the canopy of heaven. The horrid scenes I then witnessed; I must remember all my life long. The wailing of women - the screams, the terror, the consternation of children - the speechless agony of honest industrious men- wrung tears of grief from all who saw them. I saw officers and men of a large police force, who were obliged to attend on the occasion, cry like children at beholding the cruel sufferings of the very people whom they would be obliged to butcher had they offered the least resistance.

“The heavy rains that usually attend the autumnal equinoxes descended in cold copious torrents throughout the night, and at once revealed to those houseless sufferers, the awful realities of their condition. I visited them the next morning, and rode from place to place administering to them all the comfort and consolation I could. The appearance of men, women and children, as they emerged from the ruins of their former homes - saturated with rain, blackened and besmeared with soot, shivering in every member from cold and misery - presented positively the most appalling spectacle I have ever looked at.”

“The landed proprietors in a circle all around - and for many miles in every direction - warned their tenantry, with threats of their direct vengeance, against the humanity of extending to any of them the hospitality of a single night’s shelter. Many of these poor people were unable to emigrate with their families; while, at home, the hand of every man was thus raised against them. They were driven from the land on which Providence had placed them; and, in the state of society surrounding them, every other walk of life was rigidly closed against them. What was the result? After battling in vain with privation and pestilence, they at last graduated from the workhouse to the tomb; and in little more than three years, nearly a fourth of them lay quietly in their graves.” 

This first-hand account describes the horror of one large-scale eviction, but sadly, similar events took place around the island during and well after the Great Hunger.  As Nulty points, out eviction in either the short or long term would likely mean death.  Those evicted could try to survive without proper shelter only to succumb to hunger or disease in a hastily constructed scalpeen or in a roadside ditch. Or they might gain entrance to the workhouse, receiving sustenance, but dying just the same from the maladies running rampant through those facilities.

Emigration for the evicted or those in the workhouse, unless sponsored by the landlord,  was virtually impossible.  For if they had the means, paupers would likely have emigrated before being evicted and facing the workhouse.  There were some exceptions, notably through controversial the Earl Grey Scheme.

In 1850, many workhouses in Cavan and elsewhere were still at or above capacity and there was much debate on how to address this. It was Earl Grey who infamously tried to alleviate these two problems at once.  In the Australian Colony, due to prisoner “transportation” among other factors there was an extreme gender imbalance.  For every female in the colony there were 8 males.  In Earl Grey’s scheme, orphaned girls of “pure manner”, aged 14-18 and currently housed in designated workhouses were offered free transportation to Australia which due to a labor shortage, promised employment. In his callous and simplistic view, this would help alleviate the overcrowding issue while addressing Australia’s gender imbalance.  Before the scheme came to an abrupt halt, over 4,000 young woman from Ireland felt compelled to sign on.  Records indicate that at least 100 young woman from Cavan and at 22 specifically from the Oldcastle Union elected to make the arduous trip.  

It is here that we return to the story of Cavan teenager Fanny Young. Ms. Young was raised in Mount Nugent, but her most recent residence was actually the Oldcastle Workhouse. Doubtless, she knew the story of the Lough Sheelin eviction, and while in the workhouse she likely crossed paths with some of those evictees.   Her parents, William and Elizabeth Young both died during the Great Hunger, so Young had little hope leaving the workhouse without sponsored emigration. 

She signed onto the Earl Grey Scheme, travelling aboard the “Tipoo Saib”, with 297 other famine orphans. Though the passengers were unaware, due to the bad press the scheme received, this was the last ship to transport Irish orphans to Australia.  

Ms. Young had indeed survived the Great Hunger, but upon disembarking the ship that July day, she faced the unenviable task of rebuilding her own life.  Through Australian records we can see that Young went on to marry a miner named William Melbourne on the 14th of October 1856. Melbourne was a native of England, and the pair would have 10 children between 1856 and 1871. Melbourne outlived Young, who died October 9, 1890, while he survived another ten years.  Given the number of children that the couple shared, it is highly likely that there are many descendants of the Melborne/Young family in Australia today; each of them owing their very lives to a brave 17-year-old famine orphan, who yearned to escape the workhouse during the Great Hunger.   

Another positive story from famine times is that of Cornelius O’Reilly. On May 5th, 1851, this probable descendant of East Bréifne’s Ua Raghallaigh (O’Reilly) clan, arrived in New York aboard the “coffin ship” Malabar. Born in Drumroragh, Crosserlough, Co. Cavan in 1836, Cornelius O’Reilly used his cousin as a reference when he opened an account at Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank (EISB). The son of John O’Reilly and Mary Leddy, the younger O’Reilly, was a mason when he arrived in the US. A survivor of the famine, he settled on East 29th Street in Manhattan and picked up additional skills over the years. A mason, then a bricklayer, he described his occupation as a builder by the time he closed his account in 1861.  When he left the bank that day, O’Reilly had almost $500 in his pocket, roughly $18,000 in today’s currency. The streets may not have been paved with gold, but it seems this branch of Clan O’Reilly was doing okay for itself. 

While there are countless success stories, of those who survived at home or emigrated for greater opportunity, the overall story in Ireland was far bleaker.  Prior to the Great Hunger, Ireland’s population was about 8.5 million people. Through hunger and disease, it is estimated that 1 million Irish people died from 1845-1852. In the same timeframe, another 2 million emigrated, largely to America, England, Canada and Australia. Ireland’s population had dropped an astounding 3 million people or 37.5%.  By the closing days of the famine County Cavan’s population had dropped from 243,158 to just 174,064 a decrease of 28%. And while we don’t have specifics for each poor law union at the close of the famine, we can imagine that the unions in the county generally followed the countrywide pattern.  We do have union records from 1881 which showed a continuation of that pattern: 

Bailieborogh Union: Population of 41,414 in 1831 and just 19,876 in 1881 - a decrease of 52%

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Cavan Union: Population of 83,604 in 1831 and just 48,789 in 1881 - a decrease of 42%.

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Cootehill Union: Population of 63,472 in 1831 and just 30,334 in 1881 - a decrease of 52%

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Oldcastle Union: Population of 44,221 in 1831 and just 20,182 in 1881 - a decrease of 54%

We know that Cavan’s unions overall were hit hard during and in the immediate aftermath of the Great Hunger.  But 180 years since the Gardener’s Chronicle first announced the appearance of “the potato murrain” in Dublin, the impact of the famine is still obvious in Cavan, Ireland and around the world. The Great Hunger sparked long-term movement patterns of the Irish populace, away from rural areas to major cities like Dublin or Belfast, but also to all parts of the world holding any promise of opportunity. Over the many decades, emigration would ebb and flow, fluctuating along with Ireland’s industrial, economic and political landscape. Sometimes a trickle, more often a steady stream and occasionally a raging torrent, emigration has remained a concern since the 1840s. The total population within the republic reached its low point in 1961 at 4.25 million. And with Irish communities thriving in places like North America, England and Australia, Ireland’s major export had, for a time, become her people. Since that low, the population within the republic has continued a slow and steady climb, reaching 5.15 million as of the 2022 census.  Adding roughly 1.9 million to account for those in the six counties, yields an island-wide total of 7.1 million which is still 1.4 million shy of the 1841 figure.

Cavan’s population continued a similar slide, until 1971’s all-time low of just 52,618 people (roughly 1/5th of the pre-famine population) and has been slowly increasing since. Despite that growth, the 2022 census puts Cavan’s population at 81,704, 55% higher than 1971 but still only 1/3rd of the pre-famine figure. The Great Hunger left an indelible mark on County Cavan, The Republic and island of Ireland; an indelible one visible from anywhere in the world.

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  1 The History of Bréifne O’Reilly, J.J. O’Reilly, 1976
  2 ibid
  3 The Annals of The Four Masters
  4 The History of Bréifne O’Reilly, J.J. O’Reilly, 1976
  5 The Potato Was Not the Problem: A Study of The Link Between the Workhouses in Ireland and The Great Famine of 1845-50, Dymphna Mayne Headen, 2018
  6 M.P. Edward Wakefield, 1812
  7 Dublin Evening Post, April 18, 1846
  8 Sydney Morning Herald, July 25, 1846
  9 The Northern Whig, January 19, 1847
  10 Henry J. Kilber, esq of Drumken Weekly Report of the Scarcity Commission, week ending April 4, 1846, via Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland, www.dippam.ac.uk
  11 Rev. Messrs Winning and Duff, Kingscourt, Weekly Report of the Scarcity Commission, week ending April 14, 1846, via Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland, www.dippam.ac.uk
  12 Ibid
  13 Mr. Dean, Temporary Inspector, Oldcastle Union, Papers Related to Relief of Distress and State of The Unions in Ireland
  14 Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers on Ireland, 1849, www.dippam.ac.uk
  15 Pastoral to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Meath, Rev. Nulty, 1848 (reprinted in Dublin Evening Post, March 15, 1871)
  16 Irish Famine Memorial, Sydney, Australia; www.irishfaminememorial.org
  17 Irish Famine Memorial, Sydney, Australia; www.irishfaminememorial.org
  18 Irish Famine Memorial, Sydney, Australia; www.irishfaminememorial.org
  19 Earl Grey’s Famine Orphans, Trevor McLaughlin, www.earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com
  20 Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank Depositor Database; www.scholarspace.library.gwu.edu
  21 Townlands in Poor Law Unions, George b. Handran, CG, 1997