Famine and Cholera in Athy

Adding to the problems of the people of Athy who had already endured four years of famine was an outbreak of cholera in the town in June 1849.  By the 29^th of September of that year twenty seven cholera cases were recorded and eleven local cholera victims had died.  A temporary cholera hospital was opened in the town and funds intended for the relief of famine had to be diverted to deal with the cholera epidemic which would remain a threat to public health until the following year. 

Not every town in County Kildare was affected by the cholera epidemic.  Naas for instance remained free of the dreaded disease.  From the 7^th of June until the 3^rd of October 1849, 141 cholera cases occurred in Maynooth with 47 deaths but not a single case was recorded in Kilcock, only four miles away.

Cholera, which thrived in the unhealthy overcrowded conditions to be found in the narrow lanes and courts of urban settlements, had previously occurred in Athy in 1834.  At that time the treasury had advanced the sum of twenty pounds to the Select Vestry of the local Church of Ireland which had responsibility under the Vestry Act of 1772 for public health in the town of Athy.  The cholera outbreak in 1849 was more serious that the previous occurrence adding fear to the distress and hunger of the local people.  While many cholera deaths were recorded one wonders how accurately deaths caused by the cholera outbreak and those occasioned by malnutrition or other disease were distinguished.  In the 1851 census details of deaths in hospital and sanitary institutions in the period of the 6^th of June 1941 to the 31^st of March 1851 were detailed.  For Athy the opening of the local workhouse in January 1844 marked the effective commencement date for the census figures given a period which apart from the initial one and a half years largely coincided with the famine years.  During that time a total of 1,205 paupers died in Athy workhouse and the local fever hospital. 

Athy’s population which in 1841 numbered 4,698 had fallen to 3,873 in 1851, which latter figure excluded the inmates of the workhouse.  This represented a loss of 825 persons or a 17.5% decrease.  Between 1831 and 1841 Athy’s population had increased by 4.5% and if one assumes a similar increase for the 10 years to 1851 the town’s projected population would have been 4,909 at the end of that period.  The famine can therefore be seen to have caused a fall in Athy’s population of upwards of 1,036 persons, or a 22.5% decrease.  Of course not all of these losses resulted from famine deaths or cholera deaths.  Emigration to America and England and migration to Dublin city where the population increased during the famine years no doubt accounted for some of the decrease in the town’s population.  Consequently the exact losses attributed to the different factors which contributed to the reduction in the town’s population can now be accurately determined. 

An examination of the minute books of Athy Town Commissioners for the years of the Great Famine shows no reference whatsoever to distress, disease or famine in the town of Athy.  This might suggest that for whatever reason the plight of the poor people did not figure prominently on the political agendas of the day even during the local elections of August 1847.  It might also indicate the possibility that local distress was on a scale no worse than that experienced in the past. 

The absence of any famine related references in the town commissioners minute book coupled with the holding of a Town Council election during ‘Black 47’ may not be especially significant given the fact that the Board of Guardians were charged with responsibility for the workhouse and for the provision of outdoor relief.  The decline in the population, the rise in the workhouse numbers such as to necessitate the opening of two auxiliary workhouses in Athy during the famine and the huge numbers fed at the local soup kitchens all point to widespread distress in South Kildare during the years 1845-1849. 

That there was a workhouse in place in Athy before the potato blight struck undoubtedly served to enable the civil authorities and others to respond to the emergency in a manner which helped minimise the number of deaths in South Kildare from disease and starvation.  Another important factor was Athy’s location among the richest arable lands in Ireland and the existence of a local landlord class sufficiently well off to fund the activities of the local Board of Guardians as first they provided relief in the local workhouse and later outdoor relief for those in need.

The Famine National Commemoration Day took place on Sunday 11^th May with ceremonies centred in Strokestown, Co. Roscommon.  On the same day members of Athy’s community led by clergy from the local churches gathered in St. Mary’s cemetery to remember the local victims of the Great Famine.  The lonely graveyard of St. Mary’s where the workhouse dead were buried in unmarked graves was for a short time on Sunday afternoon a place of prayer and remembrance for those unknown men, women and children who succumbed to hunger and disease over 160 years ago.  They should never be forgotten.

Famine

The Great Famine Exhibition continues in the local Town Hall, showing a number of interesting artefacts relating to that terrible time in our history. The mock-up Soup Kitchen has a huge famine pot, which I understand is on loan from the Lullymore Heritage Centre, and is a direct link with the famine of 150 years ago. It prompted me to question my own knowledge and understanding of the hardships endured by the Irish following the arrival of the potato blight from North America in 1845.

Living today in the rich heartland of County Kildare, it is difficult to appreciate the suffering and deprivation endured by those unfortunate people whose main source of food was the potato. One searches in vain through the history books for any reference to famine in Athy and South Kildare. When I attended the local Christian Brothers School my knowledge of the Great Famine was confined to the dreadful happenings in Skibbereen, Schull and West Cork and in the region of Bangor Erris, Co. Mayo. Thousands of men, women and children died of starvation, disease or fever in the West of Ireland and our history books recounted in a detached but factual way the awful tragedies which visited those far-flung corners of our island.

The famine details and descriptions I read in my school days failed to arouse any deep-seated response largely because they related to people who were so far removed from my own area. My reaction, or lack or it, was no doubt typical of what occurs today when one reads of famine on another Continent. The horror of the moment eludes us and prompts no more than a temporary blimp on our conscience.

What a surprise therefore awaited me when I was asked to write a piece for a forthcoming publication on the Great Famine in County Kildare. My research produced results which prompted an immediate re-assessment of the effects of the Famine of 150 years ago on Athy and the surrounding countryside.

I was previously aware, as we all had been, of the opening of a Workhouse in the town of Athy in 1844. It has always been presumed that the Workhouse had met the demands of the poor and hungry of the locality, thereby minimising local distress and hardship during the famine. Nothing had come down to us in folk memory which would give us any idea of the nature and extent of the famine relief measures in South Kildare.

To find that 1,205 poor persons died in the local Workhouse during the Famine years and another 1,250 or so either died or left Athy in the same period, was unwelcome confirmation that our townspeople had suffered great hardships during the famine. However, the loss of life was considerably less in South Kildare than in the rural areas on the Western seaboard where there was a greater dependency on the potato crop.

Another famine fact gleaned from my research, showed that in the Athy Electoral Area, over 3,000 people received food each day from the local Soup Kitchen. The television images of Famine Relief work in Rwanda and elsewhere can help us to visualise the scenes on the streets of Athy as people gathered for the daily ration of bread and soup. How sad it is to relate that in the Ballyadams area, almost 100% of the population had recourse to the local Soup Kitchen for their daily sustenance.

Why had so much local hardship endured during the years of the Great Famine escaped our notice when we studied that period of Irish history? Why did we not know that the inmates in the local Workhouse increased at such a rate that two auxiliary Workhouses had to be opened in Barrack Street and Canal Side to accommodate the starving, helpless poor of the area? Why did we not know of the young girls from our area sent from Athy Workhouse to Australia in 1849 in a futile attempt to reduce the number of children in the local Workhouse?

The Great Famine is part of our troubled past as much as it is of those towns in the west of Ireland, where the human losses were numerically far greater than ours. The legacy of the Famine was overlooked and pushed from the collective memory in South Kildare, almost as if there was a hurried rush to bury an unpleasant experience. The full facts surrounding those dreadful times may never be fully known, but we have a responsibility to acknowledge our past, no matter how unpleasant it may be.

Perhaps it is now time for us to remember those who faced into the famine of 1845 and the succeeding years without hope, and who succumbed before the dreaded potato blight had departed. It would be an appropriate act of remembrance to commemorate in stone our famine dead with a suitable memorial in the graveyard attached to the former Workhouse. I wonder if the Eastern Health Board and the Town Council might take up the suggestion so that our once hidden past may not be entirely forgotten.