Despite the misery wreaked in Ireland by the Spanish flu virus towards the end of the first World War, the tragedy has largely been forgotten, writes Claire O'Connell.
THEY KNEW it was coming. A great malady arrives at the end of a great war, warned the newspapers. And when the Spanish flu unleashed its force around the globe in 1918, it turned out to be the most devastating pandemic on record. Yet, bizarrely, the disease that killed somewhere between 40 and 100 million people worldwide has all but slipped from folk memory.
Its origins remain in doubt, but experts agree that 90 years ago the virus took hold of the western front, then used it as a springboard to hitch-hike around the world as soldiers returned home.
Ireland was not spared. Conservative estimates suggest that 20,000 people died here of the "black flu" in 1918 and 1919, and that around 800,000 people became seriously ill, causing widespread hardship and social disruption.
The first port of call in Ireland for the virus was Belfast, where the "mystery malady" was recorded at the start of June 1918, according to Patricia Marsh. A doctoral candidate at Queen's University Belfast, she is studying the impact of the disease on Ulster, where the official death tally from the flu stands at 7,982.
As in most other parts of the world, the pandemic washed over Ireland in three distinct waves, with the first coming to a peak of mortality in Belfast around June 29th. Initially the authorities tried to play it down to keep morale high, says Marsh. "They would make you think it's really bad on the Continent and not so bad here, so don't be overreacting to it."
But when the second and more virulent wave arrived towards the end of 1918 there was no brushing it off. Ulster was particularly badly hit - probably because of its large urban populations, and because many people worked at close quarters in factories, where the highly infectious disease could sweep through staff and close down businesses.
TRAGIC STORIES were commonplace at that time, says Marsh. "You had situations where two or three members of the same family died and the rest were too ill to go to the funeral. Really horrible stories."
And Leinster, which also suffered badly, was not far behind. The first wave of flu arrived in Dublin in the third week of June, says Ida Milne of the school of history in Trinity College Dublin. For her PhD she has interviewed people about their memories of the flu in Leinster, and has heard accounts of pharmacists making up litres of cough mixture at a time and delivering up to 50 prescriptions at night, of families going without food or fuel because the parents were too ill to provide, and of children subsisting on gruel because their throats were too sore for anything else.
"One woman had spoken to a doctor who had worked during the pandemic," recalls Milne. "He said sometimes there wasn't even time for patients to follow the advice to go to bed. He saw young men who felt ill at noon and who were dead by the evening."
Some communities suffered more than others, and particular black spots stand out, with Naas, Dundalk and Wexford each seeing thousands of people ill at the same time in the second wave. Newspaper reports also told of people dropping dead in the streets of Cork, Milne adds.
There was no cure for the virus, but people tried to battle its effects with a cocktail of remedies, she says. Poultices were made up for pneumonia and medical advice included taking strychnine and purgatives, and using disinfectant. Meanwhile, people self-medicated with camphor, eucalyptus and whiskey.
Alcohol may have helped in at least one case recorded by Milne. "A man from Dublin said his father kept his brother drunk for three weeks, and thought he may have died otherwise," she says.
The Local Government Board, which had responsibility for health, seems to have washed its hands somewhat of the situation and delegated on-the-ground action to the local authorities and Board of Guardians, the experts agree. "There was no real coherent plan and it came down to the energy levels of the local authorities," says Caitríona Foley, a researcher at the school of history and archives at University College Dublin. "In some areas you find that disinfectant was given out because that was believed at the time to be the most effective way to cope with it. And in other areas there was very little done - it really depended on the local response."
Some towns, such as Clonmel, showed a strong community spirit, she notes. "Relief committees were organised there and they designated people to go from house to house and give out soup and make sure that families were okay."
But the widespread illness continued to cause massive social disruption. "A lot of schools were closed, businesses had to shut down because everyone was sick, theatres and cinemas were closed and sporting activities like Gaelic matches were disrupted," Foley adds.
Yet despite the death, misery and mayhem wreaked by a virus that is thought to have infected one fifth of the world's population, the Spanish flu has been largely forgotten, including in Ireland.
"It's one of the most curious features of the whole thing," Foley continues. One argument is that it was simply lumped in as part of the war experience, and historians have focused more on the war than on the "mystery malady" that followed, she explains.
Ireland's own political turmoil of the time, and the loss of so many public records during the War of Independence, may also have contributed to historians here glossing over the pandemic, and a seeming loss of folk memory about the flu.
We also need to remember the context of a more adverse time where there were fewer effective weapons against infectious disease, notes Patricia Marsh. "In those days people took these sorts of things in their stride. There was so much illness, TB was rampant and there were also measles and whooping cough epidemics. Flu came and it was vicious enough that people took notice, but the next thing there was something else."
To contact Ida Milne about memories of the Spanish flu in Leinster, e-mail milnem@tcd.ie or tel: 087-2207994
PROF RB McDowell is lucky to have lived past his childhood.
At the age of five he was struck down with Spanish flu, a malady that killed over 1,800 people in his native Belfast during the pandemic in 1918/19.
"I remember the morning when I was feverish and the doctor and my parents were looking at me with concern. And the next thing I remember was waking up several weeks later. I was very, very ill and didn't know what was happening," he recalls. "My next clear memory was a nurse carrying me from the bed to the window to see the Union Jack flying from the house opposite and being told we had won the war."
Everyone except the maid fell ill in the household. His brother's nurse died, and Prof McDowell himself developed double pneumonia as a follow-on from the flu.
"There were no drugs then of the sort that are used now. The only treatment was good nursing, and I got that," says Prof McDowell, who went on to become a historian and junior dean of Trinity College Dublin. He attributes his good fortune to his local doctor, who arranged for two nurses to tend to the ailing family. Many others were not so lucky: "There were lots of stories, terrible things happening, people dying and leaving a baby alone in a flat, because it struck very quickly."
Prof RB McDowell touches on this experience in his memoir, McDowell on McDowell (The Lilliput Press, Dublin)
SOUND ADVICE 1918
Public health committee's recommendations, on contemporary posters and leaflets, in reference to the epidemic of influenza.
1. Keep away from crowded assemblies.
2. Do not spit on the floor or tramcar, or on the streets. Expectorated matter may be full of objectionable microbes. In sneezing keep a handkerchief on your face. Keep a little pad of cotton containing eucalyptus and smell it often, especially when in contact with other people.
3. Allow plenty of air into your dwelling. Avoid overcrowded rooms.
4. Vermin and dirt convey contagion. The strictest cleanliness should be observed.
5. Do not over exert yourself or give way to panic.
6. If you feel a pain in the head, or feverish, go to bed and send for a Doctor.
7. In recovering from Influenza only see the persons you are obliged to see, so as to avoid infecting others.
8. The Drivers of Public Conveyances must obtain permission from the Public Health Department to convey patients to Hospital, and the vehicles must be subsequently disinfected. The Corporation Ambulances convey infectious cases to Hospital.
9. Do not attend Wakes.