Two sides of the coin
Saturday, we started out south toward Galway to head further south to the town of Portumna. Candee had looked online for something to do and uncovered a fairly new historical exhibit - the Irish Workhouse Centre. Workhouses had originated in England and Wales as a way of supporting the poor, elderly, and destitute. Conditions were designed to be very unattractive - in actuality, brutal - with little heat during winter, and little food year-round. Work was meaningless, with men breaking rocks and women doing endless reams of laundry. It was thought that lazy and indolent people would take advantage of this charitable effort if the conditions were too comfortable.
In ancient Ireland, rulers looked after the sick and poor. With the coming of Christianity through St. Patrick in the late fourth century, the sick, poor, and elderly became the wards of the religious orders and significant care was provided through the monastic orders. From The Workhouse Story - "From 1535 onwards, Ireland was colonized by English protestant settlers. The land was taken from the Irish and the religious were persecuted. The monasteries were suppressed and the care system broke down. By the beginning of the 1800s, the country was desolate. Of a population of 8 million, it was estimated that some 2.3 million people were at near starvation level."
To this woefully inadequate system of relief came The Great Hunger - An Gorta Mór - the Great Potato Famine of 1845 - 49. The Irish population had doubled between 1720 and 1820. This was primarily due to the introduction of the potato. The potato required much less land to sustain a family, and along with some dairy and some occasional additional protein from meat or fish, provided a quite adequate nutritional diet.
Again from The Workhouse Story - "By the autumn of 1846, the full disaster became apparent. The potato crop was diseased, rotten, inedible. There was nothing to eat, nowhere to go, except to the workhouse. People began to flood in. In some areas, hungry men, women, and children gathered at the workhouse door begging to be admitted. In many places the pathway to the workhouse became known as casan na marbh (pathway of death) because so many people died when they could not get admitted. Inside the workhouse, deaths were so numerous that corpses were carried on special carts day after day to be thrown into mass pauper graves or pits in the workhouse grounds and covered with lime.
"It should be noted that huge quantities of food, in particular grain, were exported from Ireland during this time, often under armed guard, during the famine years."
At Portumna, it was required that entire families had to enter the workhouse. Families were separated, men from women, children from adults. There were separate wards for men, women, boys from age two to fifteen, and girls from age two to fifteen. Children under the age of two were allowed to stay with their mothers, but were taken away when they turned two. For some families, it was the last time they saw one another.
During the famine years, it is estimated that over one million people starved to death. Over two million emigrated to England, Canada, America, and Australia. There were so many deaths during transit that the ships became known as "coffin ships."
Almost without exception, every Irish person I've met is charitable in their judgment of British actions of the times. To my cynical mind, it seems a clearly apparent instance of conscious genocide. Contemporaneous accounts in the London newspapers refer to the Irish in the time-honored traditions of genocide - less than us, subhuman, not capable of experiencing the care, love, and concern for our families that the more "highly evolved" English found a normal part of being human. Indeed, woodcut illustrations in the papers portrayed the Irish as virtual monkeys, dressed in leprechaun garb. In reality, landlords were moving away from a tenant farmer arrangement which allowed for small family-sized leaseholds to an economic model of cattle-raising which required large tracts of land for grazing. The famine, and the workhouses, allowed them to evict families and consolidate holdings. And there was that pesky Irish trait of never quite submitting to colonization - there was always a rebellion brewing among the fiercely independent Irish.
The current population of Ireland is approximately four and one-half million people; it is, perhaps, the only modern nation to have declined in population over the past century and a half.
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| The women's yard |
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| Sleeping quarters |
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| A cold, forbidding physical plant |
From the Workhouse Centre website:
"Portumna Castle and Demesne occupy a magnificent location on the shore of Lough Derg on the River Shannon. Portumna Castle was home to the Clanricardes, landlords during the workhouse years.
"The Burkes were descendants of the Norman family de Burgo who came to Ireland with Prince John in 1185. The family had become Burkes as the Normans became gaelicised. By 1543, however, Ulick Burke with an eye to the future of his clan, acceded to Henry V111’s plan of Surrender and Regrant, and was created Earl of Clanricarde.
"Portumna Castle was built in 1616 by Richard Clanricarde, then governor of Galway, who spent the enormous sum of £10,000 building the semi-fortified house to replace the family’s earlier castle at Loughrea. In so doing, he consolidated his claim to the medieval de Burgo lordship of Connaught.
At the time, the building of Portumna Castle was an architectural novelty. The plan was for a double-pile house, meaning that it was two rooms in depth. This was a change from the typical tower house or courtyard-style building of the time. It was designed to be easily defended, with strong exterior walls and two massive interior walls running the length of the house to support the roof.
"The approach to the Castle leads through a series of three imposing gateways. Matching gate lodges were designed by Sir Richard Morrison, a prominent architect in the early 19th century. The middle gate and lodges provided further security with the final one, the Tuscan gate being an ornate affair with architectural motifs.
"The castle was accidentally burnt down in 1826. The Clanricardes still in residence moved to the some outbuildings that had been fitted up as a temporary residence for the Countess Dowager. Today these premises are known locally as the Dowager or Dower House. They began building a new house in 1862. The “New Castle” was built on the site of today’s carpark. On the death of the heir to the estate, Ulick Clanricarde, in 1867, the new house was left unfinished and was burnt down in a probable arson attack in 1922. The stone was used in the building of Portumna Cathedral.
On the death of the 15th Earl of Clanricarde in 1916, Portumna Demesne was inherited by Viscount Lascelles, the last Marquis of Clanricarde. In 1948, it was sold to the Irish government for a token sum of £12,000 pounds. It was not until 1968 that Portumna Castle and gardens passed into the care of the Office of Public Works (OPW) for preservation of a National Monument.
"Today, Portumna Castle has been brought back from ruin with the addition of a new roof, the rebuilding of much of the inner double supporting walls, and refurbishment of the carved stone windows. It is open to the public as a “restoration in progress.” To the north of the house are formal, geometrically laid out gardens. The 17th century walled kitchen garden has also been restored."
The scion of the family during the famine and workhouse times is particularly reviled due to his callous and cruel treatment of his tenants.
In Florida, we have endless sun, heat, and more than adequate rainfall. Why can't we easily grow flowers such as these in the kitchen & castle gardens of Portumna Castle?
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