The Great Famine

The annual famine national commemoration day falls on Sunday next 21st May. On that day, we will remember the unfortunate folk from Athy and the outlying districts who died during the Great Famine. We will remember in particular the 1,200 or more men, women and children who died in the Athy workhouse. The service led by our Parish Priest, Fr. Liam Rigney will be held at 3.00 p.m. in St. Mary’s Cemetery where the uncoffined remains of the workhouse dead were buried during the Great Famine. Their graves remain unmarked and sad to write Kildare County Council have yet to erect a memorial to the famine dead in St. Mary’s which memorial was promised some years ago. The Great Famine, so called to distinguish it from other Irish famines, saw the darkest days in Irish history. Evictions were a common place occurrence in Ireland of the 19th Century but the clearing of tenants from land during and immediately after the Great Famine was a cause of extreme hardship for many. Hunger and plague stalked the Irish countryside at that time and entire families were robbed of life. The workhouse opened in Athy in January 1844 was just one of the 163 workhouses which were built in Ireland between 1840 and 1853. Recording the tragedy of the Great Famine has been very difficult. For decades, the tragic events of Ireland’s worst famine were shrouded in silence. Those who survived those terrible years were perhaps ashamed to speak of what occurred. The famine dead were buried and sadly their memories were neglected for far too long. In more recent years, we have come to understand the suffering and the hardships of those who lived or died during the Great Famine. It was this better understanding of the famine years that led to the holding of the first National Famine Commemoration in Skibbereen in 2009 and since then the National Commemoration Day has been held in different locations throughout the country. Five years ago, the Government formally designated the third Sunday in May as the National commemoration day to officially mark the Great Famine. Many years ago I studied the minutes of meetings of Athy’s Town Commissioners held during the famine years 1845 to 1849. I was astonished not to find a single mention of the Great Famine, it’s effect on the townspeople or any reference to the local workhouse which was under the control of the Athy Board of Guardians. During those years, more than 1,200 persons died in the workhouse while the town’s population which had numbered 4,698 in 1841 had fallen to 3,873 ten years later. This represented an actual loss of 825 persons but if one takes account of the town’s population increase of 4.5% in the 10 years prior to 1841 and applied the same rate to the following decade a loss of 1,036 persons can be assumed. The Irish famine of the 1840s was one of the worst tragedies in 19th century Europe and the silence of the towns public representatives at that time is a sad reminder of how a demoralised people become silent. Not only did they remain silent and leave little record for examination by future generations but the survivors of the famine also remained silent. For decades, the Great Famine remained an unspoken and an unwritten part of our shared history. The first publication of note on the famine was published in 1874 by Fr. John O’Rourke who was Parish Priest of Maynooth. He had been ordained in 1850 and immediately spent some months as a curate in Castledermot before being transferred to St. Michael’s Parish in Athy in 1851. In his book “History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847”, he wrote “I have a vivid recollection of the blight as it appeared in the southern portion of Kildare in 1850. The 15th July in that year was a day of clouds and lightening, of thunder and terrific rain. It was one of those days that strike the timid with alarm and terror, sometimes it was dark as twilight, sometimes a sudden ghastly brightness was produce by the lightening. Those who had an intimate knowledge of the various blights from 1845 said this is the beginning of the blight, so it was”. We will remember on Sunday next at 3.00p.m. our dead of the Great Famine and especially those who passed away in the local workhouse and whose uncoffined remains were brought by hand cart to the nearby cemetery of St. Mary’s for burial.

The Great Famine in Athy

It’s a quote I have used before but its use again is justified when announcing the holding of Athy’s annual Famine Commemoration Day to take place on Sunday 25^th September at 3.00 p.m. in St. Mary’s Cemetery near to the former workhouse, now St. Vincent’s Hospital.  Athy’s Literary Magazine in its edition of March 1838, just seven years before the start of the Great Famine, printed a letter from an Athy resident in which he claimed:

‘there is not a town in Ireland so completely neglected.  Ramble through our deserted streets and see the able bodied labourers at our corners, hoards of beggars at our doors, disease and famine in the hovels of the poor.’

Three years after that letter was published the census recorded Athy’s population as 4,698, with 1,005 families living in 790 houses.  147 of those houses were unfit one roomed mud walled cabins, while another 318 houses consisted of two roomed mud walled cabins which were undoubtedly unfit for family use. 

Following the passing of the Poor Relief Act a workhouse was opened in Athy on the 9^th of January 1844.  It was appropriate recognition of the squalid poverty to be found in Athy and district of that time.  However, even that workhouse which was built to accommodate 360 adults and 240 children could not accommodate the large number of starving people requiring assistance.  As the Great Famine progressed through 1846, 1847, 1848 and 1849 workhouse additional accommodation had to be found in the town to meet the needs of 1,528 adults and children.  They represented the most helpless members of the local community, while at the same time outside the workhouse system 2,807 persons were in receipt of outdoor relief during the summer of 1848. 

The town gaol, opened on the Carlow road in 1830, held almost 100 prisoners as famine ravaged the countryside.  16 of those prisoners were awaiting transportation to Van Diemen’s land.  Their lot was in all probability better than many of those unfortunate local persons availing of outdoor relief, or even the inmates of the workhouse.  John Butler, Justice of the Peace, a native of Athy, obviously concerned by the activity of the Young Irelanders, wrote on 2^nd April 1848 to the Lord Lieutenant: ‘As the only resident Magistrate in this town I beg leave to state to your Excellency that a few days ago the troops quartered here were withdrawn and the town left to the protection of a few police ….. I don’t want my native town in these alarming times to be left to protection of ten or a dozen policemen.’  Butler had no justifiable grounds for expressing concern as the local population were so hungry, demoralised and down trodden to do anything other than to live from day to day courtesy of the food kitchens and the workhouse.

To add to the distress of the local families, just as the worst excesses of that time were being played out, an outbreak of cholera killed many more of the hungry and diseased population of south Kildare and the adjoining counties.  A total of 1,205 deaths were recorded in Athy workhouse between 1844 and 1851.  At the same time the town population fell by 825 persons and if one calculates an increase in population for the years to 1851 similar to that which occurred in the previous 10 years the notational drop in the town’s population was over 1,000 persons.

These are startling statistics for a town with a relatively small population.  Regretfully the names of those who died in Athy workhouse during the Great Famine are not known.  They were buried in the nearby cemetery of St. Mary’s which continued to be used to receive the unclaimed dead of the County Home up to recent years.  Sadly St. Mary’s Cemetery, the last resting place of so many from this community, tends to be overlooked in much the same way as the Great Famine was for decades after it occurred.

Next Sunday at 3.00 p.m. St. Mary’s will host a gathering of local people who aware of their past and the importance of remembering those who have gone before us, will commemorate the Famine dead of Athy and the local workhouse.  At the same time they will remember those men and women who left this area to emigrate overseas in an attempt to escape the disease and poverty which marked the Famine years in Athy. 

We should never forget our Famine dead.

Great Famine

This year marks the 150th Anniversary of the first year of the Irish Famine which is acknowledged was the greatest social catastrophe in Irish history.

The blight which affected the potato crop of 1845 was not widespread. The area around Athy where there was a less dependency on the potato than in other areas appears to have escaped the worst excesses of that first year of what later became known as The Great Famine.

The Workhouse which had opened in Athy in January of the previous year did not show any marked increase in inmate numbers in the first year of the Famine. As the Workhouse was the only place where people in need could receive assistance it is clear that the destitution in Athy and district as a result of the partial potato failure of 1845 was perhaps no worse than in other years.

Not so the affects of the potato blight on the crops in the following year. Early reports from the Athy area confirmed that the disease had appeared in crops in all parts of the Poor Law Union, an area which included Monasterevin, Kildangan, Ballytore, Athy and parts of County Laois. The loss of the crop in 1846 had a devastating affect on the people throughout the island of Ireland, especially those living in the west of Ireland. Even in Athy and South Kildare families unable to feed themselves overcame their reluctance to enter the Workhouse. Daily the numbers coming to the Workhouse door increased so that by December 1846 there were more than 700 inmates.

On entering the Workhouse the men were separated from the women, the women separated from their children. Their clothes were taken from them and they were given rough Workhouse uniforms before being segregated into separate dormitories for men, women and children. At mealtimes they took up their rations which they ate in silence. During the day the men were put to work breaking stones or picking oakum.

Many died from fever and malnutrition. In the week ended 9th January 1847, 17 poor inmates of Athy Workhouse died. Two weeks later 19 more people were recorded as having died in the space of one week. At the end of the famine period 1,205 men, women and children had died in Athy Workhouse and the adjoining Fever Hospital. As in life their deaths were not marked by any ceremony. Their emaciated bodies were hurriedly brought by handcart across the Stradbally road and over the Canal bridge to be buried without the benefit of clergy in graves which would remain unmarked.

Two auxiliary Workhouses were opened in the town at Barrack Street and in a Canal store at Nelson Street in 1847 to cater for the large number of people crowding into the Workhouse. A Soup Kitchen operated by a local Relief Committee was opened in Athy on the 6th of June 1847. On one day 3,088 people from Athy and the surrounding countryside got rations at the food kitchen. It closed on the 15th of August when the Board of Guardians who operated the Workhouse were allowed for the first time to give help to the starving people in their own homes. In the Athy Workhouse area an average of 3,410 persons received assistance each day from the Board of Guardians. Oral tradition relates that some hungry people survived by eating Praiseach which grew in abundance in fields where the Ashville houses are now located.

The failure of the 1848 potato crop led to further hardship such that at one stage almost 1,300 people were living in the local Workhouses. We don't know how many local people died during the Famine. We only know of the 1,205 who died in the Workhouse and the Fever Hospital in the town. How many more died in their own homes or on the side of the road we cannot now say.

The Great Famine had a devastating effect on our country. It shattered the confidence of the Irish people and accelerated the flow of families from our island. The horror of that period is beyond imagination but in this the 150th Anniversary year we have an opportunity of remembering those who suffered and died during the Great Famine while understanding and helping those who today similarly suffer in Rowanda and other famine areas of the world. For how can we ever again ignore scenes such as those recorded by Canon O'Rourke, Parish Priest of Maynooth who in his history of the Famine described people wandering through the Irish countryside in search of food, people dying of hunger in their cabins and people refused admission to the Workhouses who lay down on the road outside to die of hunger and fever.

We must never forget these people and as the inheritors of a legacy of famine we should never turn our back on the victims of hunger.

Books on the Great Famine

In this the 150th Anniversary of the first year of the Great Famine understandably there is great interest in that sad event which represented the greatest social catastrophe in Irish history. Many new publications relating to the Famine are currently on the bookshelves and many more are expected during the year. I am prompted to write this item this week because of the many requests I have received, especially from school-children involved in school projects for information on the Great Famine.

For a detailed account of the period it would be difficult to overlook Cecil Woodham Smith’s book “The Great Hunger”, first published in 1962 and now reprinted in paperback form. An early book published by Brown & Nolan in 1956 was “The Great Famine” edited by Dudley Edwards and Desmond Williams, both of UCD. It consisted of a series of chapters written on various topics relating to the Famine by academics in the Irish Universities. An even earlier publication was Canon O’Rourke’s “The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847”, first published in 1875 and reprinted several times thereafter. Canon O’Rourke was parish priest of Maynooth and his pioneering work was a valuable social document prepared as it had been with the assistance and co-operation of people who had lived through the Famine.

Books recently produced include John O’Connor’s paperback publication entitled “The Workhouses of Ireland” which is of relevance to an understanding of that most feared of pauper institutions. Another new paperback is “The Great Irish Famine”, published to coincide with the Radio Eireann Thomas Davis series of lectures on the same topic. Christine Kinealy has written a scholarly work published last year by Gill and MacMillan under the title “This Great Calamity - The Irish Famine 1845-52”. It takes a more analytical look at the Great Famine than the other books mentioned and as such might not be regarded as one for the general reader. Two other books still in the bookshops which would certainly appeal to the average reader are “Famine Diary” by Gerald Keegan and “A Farewell to Famine” by Jim Rees.

Keegan’s book is in fact a fictionalised diary account of a journey endured by Irish refugees aboard a coffin ship as they journey to the new World. Jim Rees’ book deals with the people from Wicklow and Wexford who, led by Fr. Thomas Hore, travelled across the Atlantic to set up homes in America. It is an interesting insight into the experiences of famine emigration. The last book I will mention, again in paperback, is “The Famine in Ireland” by Mary E. Daly, published by the Dublin Historical Association in 1986 and still available in the bookshops. This gives a useful concise outline of the famine period.

A number of other publications on the famine are planned for publication throughout the year including what I believe is a book of essays on the famine in County Kildare. This I believe will come out in June or July.

There is no doubt as to the importance of what we commonly refer to as the Great Famine in Irish History. It shattered the confidence of the Irish people and accelerated the flow of Irish people from our islands. The devastation it left in its wake is beyond imagination but in this the 150th anniversary year we have an opportunity of learning more of the hardships endured by those who lived or died in those dreadful times.

Last week two men who had shared their experiences with me and of whom I have written previously passed away. Paddy Kehoe who played a significant role in the early development of Macra na Feirme and who was a close friend of Stephen Cullinan, died at an advanced age. Billy Cunningham who left Athy in 1954 and settled in Manchester and whom I met in “The White Sheaf” on Oldham Road this time last year died after a long illness. One of the great pleasures on writing a weekly article on the past is the opportunity it affords me of meeting and listening to men and women whose experiences of life in Athy are always interesting, always enlightening and never without a touch of humour. As a corollary to this there are also the sad moments such as last weekend when two men who had shared their experiences and thoughts with me died. May they rest in peace.

Athy Workhouse after the Great Famine

The number of inmates in Athy Workhouse fell dramatically after the ending of the Great Famine. At the height of the Famine almost 1,400 men, women and children were housed in the Poor House. The fall in numbers was largely due to the introduction of a system of outdoor relief which allowed poor families to obtain Indian meal without becoming inmates of the local Workhouse. Another reason was the high level of emigration from the South Kildare area in the years following the Famine. In 1855 there were 516 inmates in the Workhouse and six years later the numbers had dropped to 296. Thereafter there were seasonal fluctuations in the inmate population of Athy Workhouse with the highest number usually registered in January and February of each year when employment was unavailable and the weather was at its worst. In February 1862 the inmates totalled 392, an increase of almost 100 since the previous December. Poverty in the town of Athy was a cause of concern. On the 10th of January, 1863 it was reported that the mortality rate in Athy from various causes had been unusually high - six persons having died on Old Christmas Day. The extensive use by the poor and the labouring classes of a cheap American bacon was considered to be the cause of these deaths. That same month the Board of Guardians, as part of its outdoor relief scheme, employed an extra thirty local men to dig the Workhouse lands for one shilling per day each.

In the first quarter of 1863 there were 107 cases of fever reported in Athy. The Fever Hospital had been built in 1836 at a cost of £300 with monies collected by the local townspeople for a Mr. Keating of Market Square whose shop premises had been destroyed by fire. A respected and obviously well-liked individual, Keating donated the money for the building of a Fever Hospital in Athy. Officially designated a District Fever Hospital under the Fever (Ireland) Act 1847, the Athy Hospital remained independent of the Board of Guardians until 1854. In that year it was put on the Union which meant that the Poor Law Union of Athy was in part, at least, responsible for its running costs. The Board of Guardians fulfilled their obligations in this regard by agreeing to pay the sum of one shilling per day for each Workhouse patient maintained in the Fever Hospital.

Early in 1846 the Board of Guardians were required to equip Hospitals and Dispensaries for the sick poor. A voluntary dispensary committee had been operating in Athy since 1818 and it now became a sub-committee of the Board of Guardians. A small Infirmary was provided within the Workhouse to meet the responsibility of the Board of Guardians with regard to medical services for the poor. It was to this Infirmary that the Sisters of Mercy came as nursing sisters in October 1873.

The Sisters of Mercy from the local Convent apparently began to visit patients in the Infirmary on Sundays and over time they built up a relationship and an understanding with the patients. This encouraged the Board of Guardians to approach the Sisters of Mercy to take over the running of the Infirmary. The nuns agreed to do so and by March 1880, they were looking after the needs of 89 patients in the Workhouse Infirmary. In November 1885 John McLoughlin, a member of the Board of Guardians, referred to the time
"when the Board was a hostile camp composed of rabid Tories with a strong mixture of brutal Whigs... we may feel justifiably proud of what has been done. Look to the Chapel, look to the officers of the House and compare them to the officers of twenty-five years ago when we had not a Catholic officer at all and see how we have sanctified the place with the holy women introduced into the House instead of drunken nurses as in olden days".
His comments met with the approval of his fellow Guardians.

In June 1886 the Workhouse advertised for a Midwife to be employed in the Infirmary at five shillings per case attended. While the Sisters of Mercy continued to work in the Infirmary during daylight hours, there were no qualified Nurses employed to look after the patients at night time. This was the era of pauper nursing when female inmates were locked into the Hospital Wards with the patients at night and were required, as best they could, to look after them. This situation did not change until August 1897 when the Board of Guardians agreed to appoint a trained Night Nurse at a time when there were up to 80 patients in the Infirmary.

Athy Workhouse and the Great Famine

This year marks the 150th Anniversary of the onset of the Great Famine which ravaged our country over a four year period. As school children all of us learned of the hardships and casualties suffered by the Irish people as a result of the failure of the potato crop and what we understood was the inadequate response of the Government of the day.

The history books made no reference to the effects of the famine in Co. Kildare and this might lead us to believe that the famine was centred in the West and South of Ireland only. This was not so as evidenced from the limited contemporary records which are still available to us. The Workhouse in Athy which opened on the 9th of January, 1844 was built to accommodate 360 adults and 240 children. By the 7th of October, 1845 the inmates totalled 390 men, women and children and within two months as the potato famine worsened that number had increased to 615. It was always believed that Athy was spared the worst excesses of the famine but a local constabulary report of 18th of September, 1846 noted that "the inhabitants of Athy have pawned everything and cannot bear it much longer."

On the 26th of December, 1846 the number of Workhouse inmates in Athy totalled 732 of which 65 persons were in the Infirmary and 482 were children under 15 years of age. The Workhouse returns for the four months to the 1st of May, 1847 show that 174 inmates had died in the Workhouse in that period. Local tradition relates that "priseach" which grew in the fields in the present Ashville area provided a source of nourishment for the hungry townspeople during the famine. The Irish Relief Association provided a boiler for a soup kitchen operated in the town by the Local Church of Ireland Curate Rev. Thomas Jameson. Indian meal was imported from America through Cork Harbour and food depots were established throughout the country in areas accessible by Canal. Athy was the location of one such depot which was opened on 1 June, 1847.

Meal was supplied to individuals in 2lb. bags consisting of a mix of one quarter oatmeal and three quarters Indian meal. The local relief committee was not allowed to give out meal free of charge unless the Workhouse was full in keeping with the provisions of the Poor Relief Act. This Act dictated that relief was available only for inmates of the Workhouses.

Despite the availability of the Soup Kitchen in Athy and the reluctance of local men and women to enter the Workhouse the number of Workhouse inmates showed a substantial increase in the final year of the famine period. In the first week of 1849 the number of registered inmates was 1,399 and during that week 13 poor people died in the Workhouse.

The overcrowding in the Poorhouse which was built to accommodate 600 persons was alleviated by the opening of two auxiliary workhouses in Athy. One was located in Barrack Street occupying a row of five terraced houses immediately adjoining the former residence of the local Catholic Curate. A store belonging to the Grand Canal Company was used as the second auxiliary Workhouse.

A substantial number of the Workhouse children under fifteen years of age were orphans or abandoned by parents who could no longer feed them. As they were an unwelcome expense on the rate payers of South Kildare the Board of Guardians which who controlled the Athy Workhouse welcomed the Orphan Emigration Scheme launched in March 1848. This Scheme provided for the free transportation to Australia of girls between the ages of 14 and 18 years who were inmates of Irish Workhouses.

We have an account of 20 young girls who were sent out from the Athy Workhouse to Australia in February 1849 as part of the Orphan Emigration Scheme. A meeting was held in Narraghmore School prior to the girls being transported to Australia where it was explained by a member of the Athy Board of Guardians that a number of families from the Narraghmore area were inmates in Athy Workhouse for the previous two or three years. The terms of the Orphan Emigration Scheme were outlined as a result of which it was agreed to finance the operation of the scheme in relation to the Narraghmore inmates.

History is silent as to what happened to those local girls when they arrived in Australia nearly 150 years ago.