The Famine Museum Part I

The Famine Museum - this is where Ireland's history gets real.  This museum was so incredible.  It is located in the stable yard buildings.  It is loaded with letters and other documents that were obtained in the sale of the house.  It was thorough and thought-provoking and it was a huge juxtaposition from touring the Big House.   What an incredible difference in the lives of the various people who populated this part of County Roscommon.  It was interesting and not just a little humbling, to see how people were treated and viewed by those who had everything they needed or wanted.

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I have included many of the informational signs from the museum.  I found it very helpful to read these things and put the history of the famine into it's greater context.  It also is helpful in giving some insight into what it was like for my ancestors, who sailed from County Limerick to the United States in 1846 - at the height of the famine years.  I am thankful that they succeeded in getting overseas safely, and that my great-grandfather survived being born on the ship.  It feels like it's a miracle we exist at all.

The Cromwellian Plantation was an effort to rid Ulster, Munster, and Leinster, of the Irish gentry.  They were forced to move to Connaught and if not gone within the time allotted, ran the risk of being killed if found on the wrong side of the River Shannon thereafter.  The saying "To hell or to Connaught" derives from this action.  The people were barred from practicing Catholicism, and were not allowed to live within 4 miles of the sea or the River Shannon.  The poorer peoples, farmers and such, were allowed to stay in the other counties as the new landed gentry would need them to run the farms and perform other labors.  Women and children were rounded up and sold as slaves to work the sugar plantations in the West Indies.  Cromwell mapped the country and allotted land to those Protestants who were faithful to his cause.  Nicholas Mahon was once such recipient, obtaining the lands in County Roscommon from Oliver Cromwell.

The innovation and development of the Strokestown Estate, under Thomas Mahon, unfortunately did not seem to continue under the management of Major Denis Mahon. 

Again, this is where the history gets real.  To think that these lands were taken from people who had lived and worked on them as their own, and given out to others on the basis of political fealty, and that then those leaders who were put in place voted themselves out of power in return for titles, is simply mind-numbing.  Obviously, they would feel comfortable with their actions as they were in "favor" and could expect rewards in return, but "favor" is a fickle thing, especially when given, or taken away, at the whims of a King.  It also shows the complexity of the problems in Ireland, as there were Irish protestants and Irish Catholics who were interested in Irish independence.  There was a prejudice against Irish generally, whether Catholic or Protestant, as they were seen as lazy and of poor moral character by those who came to take over the lands.

The large numbers of poor Irish was seen as a social menace in England.  They were seen as taking jobs from English and Scottish laborers, and were blamed as having a damaging  effect on the "superior character of the Scottish and English poor."  Attempting to limit the migration of poor Irish workers, they established a government commission to investigate the state of the poor and develop ways to alleviate poverty.

In 1840, the British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, set up a Relief Commission  which worked separately from the Poor Law System.  Through their work, they were able to purchase corn from the US.  He altered import laws to allow importation of grain that could alleviate the food shortages in the country and to help provide for those unable to find work in the shrinking economy.  His commission was unable to meet the demand and their ideas were met with staunch resistance from free trade groups. 

The number needing help far exceeded 100,000.  By 1845 over 500,000 people were actually eligible for Workhouse "assistance."  There was clear under-estimation of the extent of the poverty problem in the country, and there were battling ideas as to how best to deal with those who were destitute.  The battles and arguments, sadly, sound much like those that are made today when dealing with the issue of poverty.

The above picture is of women in County Galway carrying stones to build walls in order to "earn" their assistance. They are creating the walls that I wrote about when we visited Galway.  The walls just meander up the hills and have no purpose.  They don't connect anything, and they have no benefit.  Essentially they were given this difficult, arduous, meaningless task so they didn't get lazy and reliant on government handouts.  When I saw this picture, it almost made me cry.  The stones are huge, the women are suffering from a lack of nutrition, and yet there they are, trudging toward a wall that is being built for nothing.  It is galling.

This spade  cultivation, planting in ridges rather than traditional plowing, allowed more potatoes to be grown in a smaller area.  Then in 1843  the blight  first appeared in the eastern United States.  In 1845 it was found in Normandy, Holland, and southern England,  and then at the Dublin Botanical Gardens.  It spread rapidly and once begun, destroyed entire crops of potatoes.

Prime Minister Peel and his Commission are unable to meet the demands for assistance, and there is not enough employment available for all those seeking to work.

In June 1846, Peel is ousted and the Whigs take over, pushing the idea of free trade and no government assistance.

With-holding government assistance and then actually exporting the food that the poor of Ireland greatly needed is certainly a policy guaranteed to leave many people starving and forced to emigrate if they can afford to do so.  It should be noted that the policies also adversely affected many landlords, but those with money could at least get out of the country in an attempt to survive.

Charles Trevelyan was working for the British Government, responsible for overseeing the distribution of emergency food supplies to Ireland during the famine.  He believed that the famine was God's punishment of Irish Catholics, and thought the resulting emigration of so many Irish Catholics from the country was a good thing.  His view of the Irish people, as summed up in his heartless statement, has been immortalized and vilified in song - The Fields of Athenry.