Local legend in north Sligo has it that the poteen-makers on Inishmurray, an island about four-and-a-half miles off the coast, reserved the word "whiskey" for their own spirit and called the legal product "parlement", in reference to its licensing by an Act of Parliament.
For generations, distilling poteen for sale on the mainland by established retailers was the main economic activity on Inishmurray. During the 193945 war, however, sugar rationing made it impossible to produce enough of the stuff. This ultimately led to the evacuation of the island on November 12th, 1948, 50 years ago today.
On that day, 46 islanders from six families left Inishmurray to be housed on the mainland by Sligo County Council. Four families had already left in the previous two years. The island population had peaked in 1880, when there were 102 people living in 15 houses.
According to the account of a former islander, Dr Patrick Heraughty, in Inishmurray: Ancient Monastic Island (O'Brien Press, £9.99), the economic crisis was compounded by the withdrawal of a motor-boat service from Killybegs, due to fuel rationing, and by increased emigration to England, where there was abundant work available in the war effort.
Subsistence farming
On an island a mile long and less than a half-mile across, with subsistence farming only and a constant battle to get fresh fish to market on time, it was perhaps inevitable that the islanders had come to depend on poteen-making for their livelihood. Their key advantage was that the work carried little risk of interruption from the authorities.
Heraughty's fascinating book, which was first published in 1982 and revised in 1996, tells of the poteen-makers' considerable expertise - and of the frequent efforts, before and after independence, to crush the industry.
As early as 1834, an RIC base was established on the island. "When the trade had been stopped, the force was withdrawn to the mainland, but as soon as it became apparent that poteen was again being made, they returned to the island station. This was repeated on four separate occasions."
Heraughty writes, however, that the islanders' relationship with the RIC was broadly positive. "The members of the force had so little to do, they apparently became avid readers. They brought or had sent to them a good supply of books and interested many islanders in reading, with the result that one could often be surprised by an islander's chance reference to some little-known historical or geographical fact.
"One would then be told, `I read it in the barracks', or `my father [or grandfather] read it in the barracks.' "
A notable guest on Inishmurray was John Power, of Powers Whiskey, who made a visit at the turn of the century. "After examining the equipment, he very sportingly had a copper still and head sent to the island. This was more magnanimous than it may first seem, since at the time illegal poteen was a keen competitor with authorised whiskey."
Heraughty, who was born in 1912 and spent his first 12 years on Inishmurray, does not write only about the poteen trade. He accounts for the island's resettlement after 1802, describes the specific customs there, and tells also of the Columban monastic communities. Inishmurray was a rich and satisfying environment in which to live, he writes. "It was a close community in which people were friendly and helpful . . . and no one was allowed to be in want - a helping hand was always reached. When someone was old or ill, for example, a group of younger people would gather, without being asked, to save their hay, cut their turf, plant their potatoes, or offer to transport their cattle to the mainland . . . Fellowship and community spirit were strong. Indeed, islanders often felt `lonely' on trips to the mainland and longed to return home."
Severe solitude
But the island too could be a lonely place. I once heard a story about young people going to a vantage point on Inishmurray to watch bicycle lamps moving in the night towards a dance in Grange, the nearest village on the mainland.
In earlier times, especially before the island was resettled, the solitude was severe. Heraughty recalls a report on Co Sligo written by James McParlan for the Royal Society in 1801-2: "He tells us that there was only one family then living on the island (number of persons not recorded) and that they, particularly the grown-up daughters, were most anxious for others to come and live there."
This depopulation was reversed when a leading farmer from Hazelwood in Sligo, Owen Wynne, was engaged by the owners of the island, the Hipsley and Sullivan estate, to address the problem. He made a proposition to an heir of a reasonably-sized holding on the nearby Gore-Booth estate, Domhnall O'Heraughty, offering the whole of Inishmurray in exchange for his land. The tenant was in a weak position, but made his own demands of Wynne. "One of Domhnall's objections was that he would not be able to find a wife to live in isolation with him on the island. But the adroit Wynne was prepared for this, and had obtained the agreement of Margaret McNulty, a cook at Hazelwood, that she would marry Domhnall and go to the island with him.`
In 1802, after the two had married, they moved to Inishmurray. O'Heraughty took a partner, Sean Brady, who with his wife was allotted a holding. The population grew steadily until 1880, with the exception of the famine period. Even at the time of the evacuation, all the islanders were descended from O'Heraughty and Brady - wives and husbands came from the mainland.
According to Heraughty, the islanders were Irish-speaking until the arrival in 1855 of the island's second official schoolteacher, a Miss Harrison, who was encouraged, like her contemporaries, to suppress the language. Heraughty writes that up to 1935 there were at least eight native speakers. By 1948, there was one only.
"Maistir Dubh"
Heraughty tells also of the remarkable case of Miss Harrison's predecessor, a Mr O'Brien. Arriving in 1834, he spent two years on the island, but never had a pupil. A Protestant, he was condemned by a priest on the mainland who warned that he would proselytise the islanders. They boycotted the school and O'Brien became known as the "Maistir Dubh". But he did not appear to be unduly distressed by this. Heraughty writes that the islanders remembered him, despite his isolation, as a very jolly figure. He was, of course, paid to do nothing, which, in any time, is conducive to jollity.
An incidental question remains as to what word in English would have been used at that time to describe the shunning of the school - the case of Captain Boycott in Co Mayo did not arise until 1880.