FROM THE ARCHIVES: MOST ATTENTION is devoted, understandably, to the Great Famine of the 1840s but it was far from being the only period of severe food shortages in 19th-century Ireland. One such localised episode was in the Erris peninsula in Co Mayo in 1859-60 when food shortages were created by autumnal gales followed by a long and harsh winter. A letter from Dubliner Richard Webb on the conditions there prompted this editorial.
THE MOST sceptical must now be convinced that very great distress prevails in, probably, one of the most primitive and interesting districts in Ireland. We have not only the testimony of the landowners and clergy of both denominations, in Erris and Tyrawly, but also that of Sir James Dombrain, of Lieutenant Edwardes, and of Mr. Webb, whose interesting letter will be found in our columns.
It is painful to think how little has been done as yet. A small vessel carries out 65 tons of yellow Indian meal, 40 barrels of seed oats, 1 cwt. of turnip seed, and a small quantity of mangle wurtzel. The 65 tons of Indian meal are for food; how small an amount is that in an extensive district, where there are at least 21,000 people suffering privation! How long will this small vessel be on her way? What if a storm should arise and she be lost? How are the poor people far away among lonely hills to receive the food, such as it is?
We have done far more for Africa than for Erris. In the latter there are no roads; the traveller makes his way over bogs and fens, on layers of reeds over which earth is sprinkled. The cottages are few and far between. Some in hidden nooks among the hills, or on the borders of great lakes. All are suffering. The winds of the Atlantic scatter sand over the shore district, the storms of September shook the seed from the husk and broke the stems of the oats. The “stalks” of the potato were broken by tempests. A long and bitter winter, with a still more bitter spring, have frozen and killed the grass.
For a while the men shared what potatoes they had with their cattle, but at last these failed, and the cattle died.
Mr. Webb states that one poor man lost all his cows, and the carcasses of 18 were lying around his dwelling. At another humble homestead, the owners had retreated to an inner room, but in the outer three cows lay dead. It is pitiable that this country of Erris was just recovering from the effects of the great famine, and giving promise of prosperity. The people were hard-working, industrious, and frugal. Slowly, but steadily, they had added to their means, when this visitation came, perhaps designed by Providence to direct our attention to the neglected districts of our own land, for which, whatever the Deity has done, man continues to do so little.
The landowners have given portions of land, often extending to many acres, at rents varying from £1 to £10 a year, to an energetic tenancy. The people have set to work “with a will,” and, from that passion for land which is peculiar to the Irish peasant, have reclaimed portions of bog and sanddrift by the most persevering industry. Once they succeeded in getting the “short grass” to grow, they procured a cow or two, and thus gradually they were increasing their grass land and their cattle, when this visitation came on them, and fell the more heavily upon those whose industry had given them something to lose.
These people will not enter the poorhouse; they will die at their hearthstones first. We know something of Erris, and we state that if there be one peculiar characteristic of the peasantry, it is an absolute horror of the workhouse. The man who enters it thinks himself lost beyond all hope of recovery, and that he has fixed an indelible stigma of disgrace upon his kith and kin.
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