The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 Part 22

Whilst Bantry was in the condition described above, Dr. Stephens was sent by the Board of Health to examine the Workhouse there. He found it simply dreadful. Here is an extract from his report, which duty compels me, however unwillingly, to quote: "Language," he says, "would fail to give an adequate idea of the state of the fever hospital. _Such an appalling, awful, and heart-sickening condition_ as it presented I never witnessed, or could think possible to exist in a civilized or Christian community. As I entered the house, the stench that proceeded from it was most dreadful and noisome; but, oh! what scenes presented themselves to my view as I proceeded through the wards and pa.s.sages: patients lying on straw, naked, and in their excrements, a light covering over them--in two beds living beings beside the dead, in the same bed with them, and dead since the night before." There was no medicine--no drink--no fire.

The wretched creatures, dying from thirst, were constantly crying "Water, water," but there was no Christian hand to give them even a cup of cold water for the love of G.o.d.

Towards the end of April, the Rev. Mr. Barry estimated the deaths from famine, in Bantry alone, at four thousand.

Some time ago, speaking with a gentleman, a distinguished public man, about the hinged coffin, he said: "At the time of the Famine I was a boy, residing not far from Bantry. I have seen one of those hinged coffins, which had borne more than three hundred corpses to the grave. I have seen men go along the roads with it, to collect dead bodies as they met them."

Good G.o.d! picking up human forms, made to Thy image and likeness, and lately the tenements of immortal souls, as fishermen may sometimes be seen on the seash.o.r.e, gathering the _debris_ of a wreck after a storm!

With such specimens of the Irish Famine before us, we cannot but feel the justice, as well as the eloquence, of the following pa.s.sage: "I do not think it possible," writes Mr. A. Shafto Adair, "for an English reader, however powerful his imagination, to conceive the state of Ireland during the past winter, or its present condition. Famines and plagues will suggest themselves, with their ghastly and repulsive incidents--the dead mother--the dying infant--the feast of cannibals--Athens--Jerusalem--Ma.r.s.eilles. But these awful facts stand forth as dark spots in the illuminated chronicles of time; episodes, it may be, of some magnificent epoch in a nation's history--tragedies acted in remote times, or in distant regions--the actors, the inhabitants of beleaguered cities, or the citizens of a narrow territory. But here the tragedy is enacted with no narrower limits than the boundaries of a kingdom, the victims--an entire people,--within our own days, at our own thresholds."[245]

FOOTNOTES:

[213] Letter from Captain Wynne, Government District Inspector to Lieutenant-Colonel Jones.--_Commissariat Series, part 1, p_. 438.--The italics are Captain Wynne's.

[214] Report of Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends, pp.

180-2.

[215] Census of Ireland for the Year 1851. Report on tables of deaths.

[216] The circ.u.mlocutions had recourse to by relief committees and Government officials to avoid using the word _Famine_ were so many and so remarkable, that at one time I was inclined to attempt making a complete list of them. Here are a few: "Distress," "Dest.i.tution,"

"Dearth of provisions," "Severe dest.i.tution," "Severe suffering,"

"Extreme distress," as above; "Extreme misery," "Extreme dest.i.tution,"

etc., etc. The Society of Friends, with honest plainspeaking, almost invariably used the word "Famine;" and they named their report, "Transactions during the Famine in Ireland."

[217] Commissariat Series, part I, p. 409.

[218] Commissariat Series, part I, p. 382.

[219] _Ib._ p. 442.

[220] Appendix to Report of British a.s.sociation, p. 181.

[221] Report of Central Relief Committee of Society of Friends, p. 168.

[222] This Workhouse was built to accommodate 900 persons. The Fever Hospital and sheds had room for only 250.

[223] _A Visit to Connaught in the Autumn of_ 1847: by James H. Tuke, in a letter to the Central Committee of the Society of Friends, Dublin, p.

8.

At the end of February there was a meeting of coroners in Cork, at which they came to the determination of holding no more starvation inquests.

[224] Letters from Mayo to the Dublin _Freeman's Journal_, signed W.G.

[225] The italics in the above quotation are W.G.'s.

[226] It is not to be inferred from this, that evictions were rare in Ireland immediately preceding the Famine. A writer has taken the trouble of recording in a pamphlet Irish evictions, from 1840 to the 3rd of March, 1846; a period of about five years. Up to March, 1846, evictions _arising from the Famine_ had not really begun, although preparations were being made for them; so that those recorded in the pamphlet were carried out under no special pressure of circ.u.mstances whatever. The writer premises that he regards his list as far from complete, inasmuch as it was compiled chiefly from the public journals, and every evicting landlord uses all his power and precaution to keep his evictions as secret as possible; still, it was found on record, that there were over 8,000 individuals evicted in Ireland during those five years, many of the evictions being attended with much hards.h.i.+p and suffering, such as the removal of sick and dying persons in order to take possession. In one case a dead body was actually carried out. In two instances, comprising the dispossession of 385 individuals, the evictions took place avowedly for the purpose of bringing in Protestant tenants; in a third, 1175 persons were evicted by a n.o.ble lord, and although he did not give his reason, his name and his whole career abundantly justify the conclusion that this vast clearance was effected to make way for a Protestant colony.

[227] Letter of Mr. Joseph M. M'Kenna to Lord John Russell. Mr. M'Kenna gives the names of all the parties. Yet still more dreadful is the case we read of as having occurred in Galway. A man having been sentenced for sheep-stealing in that city, it was stated to the bench by the resident magistrate "that the prisoner and his family were starving; one of his children died, and he was, he said, credibly informed that the mother ate part of its legs and feet. After its death he had the body exhumed, and found that nothing but the bones remained of the legs and feet."--_Freeman's Journal, April, 1848._

[228] Letter dated from Killybegs, 18th of 12th month, 1846. Report, p.

151.

[229] Count Strezelecki's Report to the British a.s.sociation, p. 97. "In addition to the Government aid, large sums were distributed by the British a.s.sociation, through the agency of the generous and never-to-be-forgotten Count Strezelecki."--_MS. letter from a Mayo gentleman, in author's possession_.

[230] Report, p. 97.

[231] MS. notes taken down from Mr. Egan.

[232] Joseph Crosfield's Report to the Society of Friends, p. 145.

[233] James H. Tuke's report to the same Committee, p. 147.

[234] In Irish _corrac_, pr. _corrach_ or _currach_. This primitive boat was made of a slight frame work of timber and covered with skins, whence its name. In early times _corrachs_ were used in all the British islands. They are mentioned by many Latin authors, especially by Caesar, who had several of them made after the British model.

[235] Mr. Tuke's report, p. 148.

[236] Letter dated from Killybegs, 18th of 12th month, 1846. Report, p.

151.

[237] _The Sack of Baltimore_, by Thomas Davis. A ballad, one of whose many beauties is the striking correctness of its topography.

[238] Letter of Commander J. Cruford Caffin, R.N., of Her Majesty's steam sloop "Scourge," dated 15th February, 1847, written to Captain Hamilton.

[239] a.s.sistant-Commissary Bishop's letter of 14th Feb., 1847.

[240] So he always signed himself, although Captain Caffin calls him Dr.

Traill.

[241] Letter to Mr. Trevelyan of 14th Feb., 1847.

[242] Correspondent of Dublin _Freeman's Journal_.

[243] "Report: Colonization from Ireland." Brought from House of Lords 23rd July, 1847; ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 23rd July, 1847; pp. 243 and 244.

[244] This physician had three large crosses made from the timber of a sliding or hinged coffin. One of these he kindly presented to the author, which is now in his possession. It is two feet three inches long, by one foot one inch across the arms. It bears the following inscription:--

"During the frightful famine-plague, which devastated a large proportion of Ireland in the years 1846-47, that monstrous and unchristian machine, a "sliding coffin," was, from necessity, used in Bantry Union for the conveyance of the victims to one common grave. The material of this cross, the symbol of our Redemption, is a portion of one of the machines, which enclosed the remains of several hundreds of our countrymen, during their pa.s.sage from the wretched huts or waysides, where they died, to the pit into which their remains were thrown.--T.W."

[245] _The Winter of 1846-7 in Antrim, with Remarks on Out-door Relief and Colonization_. By A. Shafto Adair, F.R.S. London: Ridgway, 1847.

Haliday Pamphlets, Royal Irish Academy, vol. 1,992. Mr. Adair is a landlord of large possessions in the County Antrim, who exerted himself very much to alleviate the sufferings of the people during the Famine.--He was raised to the Peerage in 1873 as Baron Waveney.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Irish Relief Act, 10th Vic., c. 7--Rapid expansion of Public Works--They fail to sustain the people--Clauses of the new Relief Act--Relief Committees--Their duties--Union rating--Princ.i.p.al clergy members of Relief Committees--Duties of Government Inspectors--Finance Committees--Numbers on Public Works in February, 1847--Monthly outlay--Parliament gives authority to borrow 8,000,000--Reduction of labourers on Public Works--Task work condemned--Rules drawn up by new Relief Commissioners--Rations to be allowed--Definition of soup--First Report of Commissioners--Remonstrances--Quant.i.ty of stationery used--Cooked food recommended--Monsieur Soyer comes to Ireland--His coming heralded by the London Journals--His soup--Jealousy--M. Jaquet on Soyer--The _Lancet_ on the subject--Professor Aldridge, M.D., on Soyer's soup--Sir Henry Marsh on it--M. Soyer's model soup kitchen--A "gala day"--Ireland M. Soyer's "difficulty"--Last appearance!--Description of his "Model Soup Kitchen"

(_Note_).--Reclamation of waste lands--Quant.i.ty reclaimable--Sir Robert Kane's view--Mr. f.a.gan on Reclamation--Mr. Poulette Scrope on the Irish question--Unreclaimed land in Mayo--The Dean of Killala--Commissary-General Hewetson on reclamation and over-population--Opposition to reclamation--No reason given for it--Sir R. Griffith on it--Mr. Fetherstone a reclaimer of bog--Reclamation of bog in England--Second Report of Relief Commissioners--Relief Works closed too rapidly--The twenty per cent.