Mayo During the Great Hunger ​

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By Patrick Gannon

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Like much of the island, agriculture (at the family level) was the leading industry and rural Mayo’s economy was largely cashless.  The landlord system and use of middlemen or land-agents meant that landholdings had been continually subdivided into smaller and smaller plots.  Small farmers and cottiers might grow oats or raise a few livestock for the payment of rent, but would depend, like many of their countrymen, on the lumper potato, grown in their own small plot to feed their family year-round. Oats and any animals that grazed their land were earmarked for sale or trade in payment of rent, but ultimately for exportation to England.  Accordingly, they formed little to no part of the typical Mayo family’s diet.

 

Mayo’s soil was often rocky with the lumper being the one varietal of potato that could thrive.  Its resilience was helped along with the use of lazy-beds and continual harvesting of kelp from the seashore for use as fertilizer.  Along with the advantages the lumper offered, there was a major drawback. Lumpers across Ireland came from a single strain.  Because they were genetically identical, all lumpers shared traits appearance and color but also vulnerability to various diseases. 

 

While in coastal areas of Mayo fishing via curragh and net did take place, the sea as a food resource was underutilized by modern standards. Additionally, inland lakes and waterways were typically the property local landlords.  Therefore, the taking of fish from those waters was considered poaching, a crime not to go unpunished by local authorities.

 

The blight was first reported in Mayo in September of 1845, leading to a partial failure of the potato crop.  But the 1846 harvest was a near total loss. With 90% of the county’s population dependent upon lumper for survival a disaster was unavoidable without major intervention.[1]

 

In August 1846, The Mayo Telegraph newspaper in Castlebar reported:

 

'The dreadful reality is beyond yea or nay in this county. From one end to the other the weal has gone forth that the rot is increasing with fearful rapidity. We regret to say no description of potatoes have escaped. One thing is certain, the staple food of the people is gone: and the Government cannot too soon exert themselves to make provision to provide against certain famine'.[2]

 

Throughout August, death continued to rise along with the level of panic.  Gatherings and demonstrations in town centers became more common.

Poor Law Unions had previously been declared at Ballina, Ballinrobe, Castlebar, Swinford and Westport each with a workhouse.  This was an extension of the British Poor Law system and intended to deal with intermittent poverty at the individual and family level – not an island or county wide disaster. They were also designed in a cold institutional manner to discourage their use and make them a last resort. As Britain became more industrialized this may have suited their population. British laborers would more often choose a low paying factory job over a miserable existence in the poor house.

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But Ireland’s economy was agricultural, with vast swaths of farmland few major cities where industrialization had taken hold. And with the blight’s destruction of successive harvests – there were no factory jobs available to keep the average family afloat. Emigration, the Workhouse quickly became the only real options along with Public Works schemes or outdoor relief where either could be secured could.

 

Mayo public works projects commenced in 1846 – but a ticket for work was difficult to come by due to the vast number of people in need of work as well as grift and corruption. Projects often centered around drainage of bog land, construction of walls and roads, the latter often led to nowhere.

 

“The Corrib to Mask canal was one such scheme. Men were paid 8 to 10 pennies a day, while women and children got 6 pennies.” [3], in turn for back-breaking labor, earning wages insufficient to purchase adequate food.  As a result, those lucky enough to be given a ticket for work might easily die on the job.”

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Such was the case for one nameless laborer in the parish of Kilbelfad in February 1847, whose inquest was conducted Coolcran:

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'The deceased was employed at the public works, and on Saturday morning he went to the hill of Gurteens to meet the pay clerk where, in company of other labourers, he remained until night, but no clerk making his appearance, the others went off and he remained behind. Having got quite weak, he requested a girl who was passing to tell his wife to come and meet him, and upon the wife's arriving at the place, she found him dead. A verdict of "death from starvation" was returned'.[4]

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Beyond the obvious, another downside to public works was the monopoly on the labor market it held.  Working aged males initially joined these schemes, with low wages and constant deaths among the laborers, labor ranks were supplemented with adult women, children and the elderly.  Much of the Mayo ‘s populace was now at risk of death but pushed on for a pittance in pay – in the process their farms were left fallow with seasonal preparations and planting left undone.  The destitute, exhausted any remaining food supplies including – eating their seed potatoes or anything that might serve as food. With or without the blight, 1847 would see no harvest.  The door had been left wide open for hunger related diseases which rapidly took hold. 

 

After two successive years of blight, many people chose to eat whatever seed they had rather than risk planting. Ironically in 1847, there was no blight, but there was no crop either. 'Black 47' saw the advent of fevers such as typhus which rapidly spread through the weakened population. Workhouses were crammed with fever patients. Auxiliary workhouses were opened, and fever sheds erected. Dr Daly reported from Newport in May 1847:

In March 1847, a large body of starving people gathered in Louisburgh seeking assistance from the relieving officer. He informed them that they would have to apply to the Board of Guardians who were to meet next day at Delphi Lodge, ten miles away. Having spent the night in the open, they proceeded on foot to Delphi. When they reached Delphi, the Board were at lunch and could not be disturbed. When they finally did meet with them, assistance was refused. That day it rained and snowed and there was piercing wind. On the return journey to Lousiburgh, many perished.

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In June, 1847, The Mayo Constitution reported that fever and dysentery were committing ravages in Ballindine, Ballinrobe, Claremorris, Hollymount, Ballina, Westport and Belmullet.

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Many who cared for the sick and hungry caught fever themselves. In April 1847, The Telegraph reported the death of Rev Patrick Pounden in Westport of fever, caught in the discharge of his sacred duties, and rendered fatal by the exhaustion of mind and body in the course of his unremitting labours for the relief of the poor and needy - the famishing and the dying - in his extensive district'. In September Dr Lavelle of Shrule died of fever.

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The starving sick crowded into towns in the hope of securing help. The Telegraph reported the situation in Westport in September.

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'From the town to the Quay, on the Workhouse line, the people are lying along the road, in temporary sheds, constructed of weeds, potato tops . . . . on the road to Rosbeg, similar sheds are to be met with, with poor creatures lying beneath them. On the Newport line, the same sickening scenes are to be encountered'.

 

In the area around Shrule, the Reverend Phew described how:

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'About three or four hundred of the most destitute have crawled to Ballinrobe every Friday for the last month, seeking admission to the workhouse or outdoor relief and though they remained each day until night, standing in wet and cold at the workhouse door, craving for admission, they have got no relief'.

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People weakened by hunger and fever were unable to give proper burials to dead neighbours and relatives. The Tyrawly Herald described the situation at Leigue

 

Cemetery in Ballina:

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'In some places the graves are so shallow that portions of the coffins are visible above ground'.

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Often. Coffin-less bodies were carried through streets for burial. Workhouse dead were buried in mass graves. Some dead were buried where they died, in fields, on the side of the road. Often to avoid contracting fever, neighbours simply tumbled a victim’s cabin around the body.

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THE LANDORDS

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At the beginning of the famine in 1845 and 1846 many landlords reacted with compassion, some reducing rents. Even Lord Lucan involved himself in relief measures but by 1848, he was enforcing wholesale evictions of tenants unable to pay rents on his lands around Castlebar and Ballinrobe. Equally infamous was Sir Roger Palmer who owned 90,000 acres in Mayo. 

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In July 1848, The Telegraph reported how

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‘At Islandeady his 'crowbar invincibles', pulled down several houses, and drove forth the unfortunate inmates to sleep in the adjoining fields. On Thursday we witnessed the wretched creatures endeavouring to root out the timber of the houses, with the intention of constructing some sort of sheds to screen their children from the heavy rain falling at the time. The pitiless pelting storm has continued ever since, and if they have survived its severity, they must be more than human beings'.

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In contrast, other landlords like George Henry Moore, were more caring. In June 1849, Fr James Browne, PP of Ballintubber and Burriscarra wrote:

'I never heard of a single tenant being evicted, either by himself or his agent; he sent over from London at an early stage of the famine, a sum of £1,000 for the poor on his estates, as a free gift, besides orders to his steward to give a milch cow to every widow on his property'.

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The potato failed again in 1848 and there was partial failure in 1849. For many, emigration had become a means of escape. The 'Elizabeth and Sarah' sailed from Killala in July 1846 for Quebec with 276 passengers. By the end of the voyage, 8 weeks later, 42 persons had died due to overcrowding, lack of food and water and unsanitary conditions. Such voyages were common. While the death toll among Famine Ship passengers did drop materially toward the end the famine the flow of Ireland’s sons and daughters from their native shore continued unabated.

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And whatever happened to Catherine Dillon, her son Patrick and daughter Honor? Sadly, they were among several hundred that Dr. Daly reported had perished.  The windswept Valley they travelled through was known as the Doolough Valley and the incident itself would henceforth be known as the Doolough Tragedy – a shining example of the horror people face when met with indifference and authority figures lacking in both empathy and respect for their fellow man.

By 1851, it is estimated that one million Irish people had died and another million had emigrated with Mayo heavily impacted. Based on the 1841 census, Mayo’s population stood at 388,887.  Those with means or sponsorship, had left from Mayo ports for England, America and Australia. Survivors found themselves in a County they barely recognized with a population of just 274,499 – a loss of 29%.  Emigration from Mayo continued long after the famine. Adding movement by the populace toward urban centers meant that in 1977, Mayo’s population stood at just 109,525 or 28% of their prefamine population.

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[1] “The Great Famine in Co. Mayo (1845 – 1849)”; www.mayo-ireland.ie

[2]  The Mayo Telegraph, August 1846

[3] “The Great Famine in Co. Mayo (1845 – 1849)”; www.mayo-ireland.ie

[4] The Tyrawly Herald, February, 1847

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