Another place important to the history of Westport

When I write about this area in which we so blessedly holiday, I often write about some of the defining physical assets present here - Croagh Patrick, Clare and Achill Islands, the mountains of Connemara, the boglands of Ballycroy, the stunning cliffs of the Atlantic Drive, the stark and brutal beauty of Doolough and the Sheeffrey Valley.

I have not, however, written about the presence of Westport House and the legacy of the Marquess of Sligo.  I suppose that Westport House, currently a somewhat cheesy amusement park playing on its connection to the Pirate Queen Grace O'Malley, would not appeal to me for general reasons - it's tacky and touristy, has carnival quality food, and its homely attractions have little appeal to someone whose standards would tend to be set by experiences at Disney parks.  So, I would normally have avoided visiting this Grand Old House and its spacious lands.

But, there's another reason really.  And one I've certainly not come by through interactions with Irish friends.  Westport House and its ruling family played a significant negative role during An Gorta Mor - the Great Irish Potato Famine.  I've read a little bit about this; I'm certainly no scholar.  And I am aware of the existence of differing opinions - or perhaps, differing facts, regarding the family's role.  I've noodled through the Westport House website, certain to present a flattering portrait of the family.  And I've read some contemporaneous accounts as published in the Mayo News during that very time.  I invite you to read the somewhat long passage that I've cut and pasted below.  I suppose it's this passage that has me reflecting on my feelings about all of this.  Islandeady is where Marion grew up.  Kilmeena is the home parish for the Madden family, where they still play their Gaelic games.  Ballinrobe is where, last year, I attended the Ladies Night at the Racetrack and reported in about the beautiful young lasses in their "fascinators," and where, this year, I found a favorite new golf course.  Rosbeg is where the Maddens currently live, filled with beautiful, expensive, and expansive homes looking right down Clew Bay toward the Atlantic.  Castlebar is where we've attended both of the Gaelic Football matches this year.  Belmullet is where I've played the extraordinary Carne Golf Club. We've visited the Corrib to Mask canal.  And, of course, we've come to regard Westport as our adopted home.  Somehow, this has become close, and personal.

I really don't know the details, and I certainly shouldn't hold this family, the Browne family, to account - and most certainly not for actions that may have been taken well over 150 years ago.  But one fact cannot be ignored.  Individuals such as the Marquess of Sligo willingly accepted and participated in a system that depended for its very existence on the dehumanization and exploitation of the "inferior" Irish people.  And all because of belief in a God-given, and very convenient, sense of superiority.

Westport House

The Great Famine in Co. Mayo (1845 - 1849)

The first reports of blight appeared in September 1845. For one third of the country's population, the potato was the sole article of diet. In County Mayo it was estimated that nine tenths of the population depended on it. Any other crops or farm animals a smallholder had, went to pay rent. A potato famine was a great calamity. However, the damage to the crop in 1845 was only partial and most had enough to get through that winter. Government relief measures and local charity also helped. 1846 brought disaster. Most of the crop was destroyed by the blight, particularly in the west. In August, The Telegraph newspaper in Castlebar reported:

'The dreadful reality is beyond yea or nay in this county. From one end to the other the weal has gone forth that the rot is increasing with fearful rapidity. We regret to say no description of potatoes have escaped. One thing is certain, the staple food of the people is gone: and the Government cannot too soon exert themselves to make provision to provide against certain famine'.

As the death toll mounted, the countryside was seized with panic and despair. There were mass gatherings throughout the county where lamentations went out to landlord and government. One such public demonstration was held in Westport in August 1846. The Telegraph reported:

'About mid-day some thousands of the rural population marched into town to have an interview with the Most Noble the Marquis of Sligo: he talked with them: deplored the visitation with which God had afflicted the land: told them he would instantly state their condition to the Government, in order to obtain them relief; and that as to himself, he would go as far as any landlord in the country to redress the grievances of his tenantry. The Noble Marquis assured them that no exertions of his should be spared to obtain for them, from Her Majesty's Government immediate employment'.

As a relief measure, the government imported large quantities of maize from America which became known as 'Peel's brimstone' because of the ill effects it had on the digestive system. Local relief committees were established. Under the Poor Law Act of 1838, Mayo was divided into five areas or unions which administered relief: Ballina, Ballinrobe, Castlebar, Swinford and Westport. Each union was required to maintain a workhouse where local paupers could be fed and housed.

Workhouses soon became overwhelmed by numbers seeking admittance and many starving people were turned away. Relief schemes introduced in 1846 included giving employment on public works such as road making, breaking stones, drainage works, pier and bridge building. The Corrib to Mask canal was one such scheme. Men were paid 8 to 10 pennies a day, while women and children got 6 pennies. Some unscrupulous overseers favoured relatives in granting employment, often at the expense of the most needy. Gaining employment did not guarantee security. In February 1847 the Tyrawly Herald reported an inquest at Coolcran:

'The deceased was employed at the public works, and on Saturday morning he went to the hill of Gurteens to meet the pay clerk where, in company of other labourers, he remained until night, but no clerk making his appearance, the others went off and he remained behind. Having got quite weak, he requested a girl who was passing to tell his wife to come and meet him, and upon the wife's arriving at the place, she found him dead. A verdict of "death from starvation" was returned'.

Such reports were common. Great work in helping the poor came from many organisations and individuals at home and abroad. Clergy of all denominations were prominent in relief measures. The Society of Friends (Quakers) opened soup kitchens in many areas, distributed seed and also clothing, as many people were in rags, having pawned whatever clothing they had. At Christmas in 1846, the rector of Crossmolina received a donation with the following note:

Rev. Sir - We the children belonging to the Moulton National School, in the Parish of Davenharm, (Cheshire) having heard from our beloved patroness, Mrs Harper, of the distress that is so prevalent in our sister Island, have given up our annual treat to the relief of our suffering sisters in Ireland; We humbly trust that our offering, (small as it may appear) will be accepted by those who have kindly undertaken to alleviate the sufferings of our brethren.

In the spring of 1847, The Mayo Constitution reported:

The preparations for the tillage of the land has been completely overlooked. There has not been 100 acres prepared for seed in this county by 'the poor farmers'.

After two successive years of blight, many people chose to eat whatever seed they had rather than risk planting. Ironically in 1847, there was no blight, but there was no crop either. 'Black 47' saw the advent of fevers such as typhus which rapidly spread through the weakened population. Workhouses were crammed with fever patients. Auxilary workhouses were opened and fever sheds erected. Dr Daly reported from Newport in May 1847:

'Fever, dysentery and diarrhoea are greatly on the increase, beginning with vomiting, pains, headache very intense; coming to a cnsis in about seven days, relapsing again once or twice, from which death occurred through mere debility or diarrhoea, caused and kept up by bad food, principally Indian meal, supplied to them in small quantities, and which they invariably swallow after only a few minutes boiling and sometimes cold and raw. The greatest mortality is among the labourers, men and women, on public roads, in cold, wet, boggy hills'.

In March 1847, a large body of starving people gathered in Louisburgh seeking assistance from the relieving officer. He informed them that they would have to apply to the Board of Guardians who were to meet next day at Delphi Lodge, ten miles away. Having spent the night in the open, they proceeded on foot to Delphi. When they reached Delphi, the Board were at lunch and could not be disturbed. When they finally did meet with them, assistance was refused. That day it rained and snowed and there was piercing wind. On the return journey to Louisburgh, many perished.

In June, 1847, The Mayo Constitution reported that fever and dysentery were committing ravages in Ballindine, Ballinrobe, Claremorris, Hollymount, Ballina, Westport and Belmullet.

Many who cared for the sick and hungry caught fever themselves. In April 1847, The Telegraph reported the death of Rev Patrick Pounden in Westport of fever, caught in the discharge of his sacred duties, and rendered fatal by the exhaustion of mind and body in the course of his unremitting labours for the relief of the poor and needy - the famishing and the dying - in his extensive district'. In September Dr Lavelle of Shrule died of fever.

The starving sick crowded into towns in the hope of securing help. The Telegraph reported the situation in Westport in September.

'From the town to the Quay, on the Workhouse line, the people are lying along the road, in temporary sheds, constructed of weeds, potato tops . . . . on the road to Rosbeg, similar sheds are to be met with, with poor creatures lying beneath them. On the Newport line, the same sickening scenes are to be encountered'.

In the area around Shrule, the Reverend Phew described how about three or four hundred of the most destitute have crawled to Ballinrobe every Friday for the last month, seeking admission to the workhouse or outdoor relief and though they remained each day until night, standing in wet and cold at the workhouse door, craving for admission, they have got no relief'.

People weakened by hunger and fever were unable to give proper burials to dead neighbours and relatives. The Tyrawly Herald described the situation at Leigue Cemetery in Ballina:

'in some places the graves are so shallow that portions of the coffins are visible above ground'.

Often coffinless bodies were carried through streets for burial. Workhouse dead were buried in mass graves. Some dead were buried where they died, in fields, on the side of the road. Often to avoid contracting fever, neighbours simply tumbled a victims cabin around the body.

THE LANDLORDS

At the beginning of the famine in 1845 and 1846 many landlords reacted with compassion, some reducing rents. Even Lord Lucan involved himself in relief measures but by 1848, he was enforcing wholesale evictions of tenants unable to pay rents on his lands around Castlebar and Ballinrobe. Equally infamous was Sir Roger Palmer who owned 90,000 acres in Mayo. In July 1848, The Telegraph reported how at Islandeady his 'crowbar invincibles', pulled down several houses, and drove forth the unfortunate inmates to sleep in the adjoining fields. On Thursday we witnessed the wretched creatures endeavouring to root out the timber of the houses, with the intention of constructing some sort of sheds to screen their children from the heavy rain falling at the time. The pitiless pelting storm has continued ever since, and if they have survived its severity, they must be more than human beings'.

In contrast, other landlords like George Henry Moore, were more caring. In June 1849, Fr James Browne, PP of Ballintubber and Burriscarra wrote:

'I never heard of a single tenant being evicted, either by himself or his agent; he sent over from London at an early stage of the famine, a sum of £1,000 for the poor on his estates, as a free gift, besides orders to his steward to give a milch cow to every widow on his property'.

The potato failed again in 1848 and there was partial failure in 1849. For many, emigration had become a means of escape. By 1851, it is estimated that one million Irish people had died and another million had emigrated, many leaving from Mayo ports for England, America and Australia. The 'Elizabeth and Sarah' sailed from Killala in July 1846 for Quebec with 276 passengers. By the end of the voyage, 8 weeks later, 42 persons had died due to overcrowding, lack of food and water and insanitary conditions. Such voyages were common.

Over the period 1841-1851, the population of County Mayo fell by 29% from 388,887 to 274,499. Emigration became a long term legacy of the famine with each successive census showing a steady decline in the population of County Mayo to a low of 109,525 in 1971.