by Charles Egan
‘A long time yet. But I’m going back home in a few days, just for a day or two.’
‘I’ve got forty-five shillings here. Would you take it back for me?’
‘Of course.’
He stayed in Knockanure that evening, sharing a bed with his brother. The next day, Voisey gave him another Union horse, and he led Gallagher’s horse back towards Brockagh.
Following his arrival, work continued for a few days more. As the priest had promised, the Works had been re-established, but in spite of more workers having been selected, the numbers were still down on what they had been at the start of the month. The rolls showed less than eighty at Ardnagrena and only sixty at Lisnadee.
Davitt had arrived with the wages the previous day, but looking through the rolls, Luke could see that many wages had not been paid because the workers had not arrived. Snow still blocked the mountain roads.
When he arrived at Lisnadee, there was already one body in the old cottage. He saw the dark blotchy face. The man’s clothes were infested with lice.
On the Works, more men and women showed signs of typhus. He had these sent home at once. He was certain now that workers carrying fever spread it among the rest. From then, anyone complaining of headache was sent home. After that, no one complained of headache. That worried him even more.
A few days later, the Works closed for Christmas and St. Stephen’s Day. He had thought of riding over to Carrigard, but he reckoned he would have spent all his time on the road, and he saw little point in this.
On Christmas morning, he accompanied the Gallagher family to Mass. There were many gaunt men, women and children in the tight packed congregation, and many darkened faces. And the fox-children.
Christmas dinner was a quiet affair. It consisted of corn, mixed in with turnip and cabbage. Gallagher had brought down a flitch of bacon which had been hanging from the rafters in a hessian wrapping. Mrs. Gallagher cooked two slices for everyone, and brought out a bottle of poitín. Gallagher raised his cup.
‘To better Christmases than this.’
‘Better Christmases,’ Luke repeated.
Winnie started to wash the dishes and pots, as the younger children sat in the corner. Luke stood beside her, drying the plates. At one point, she brushed against him, holding her thigh against his for longer than might have been accidental. It sent a surge through him, which surprised him. He tried to concentrate.
Then Winnie placed her hand on his.
‘You must have courage,’ she said.
‘I will, Winnie. I will.’
He was on the Ardnagréna Works with Gallagher when he saw Davitt riding towards him in the distance. He was followed by two carts carrying corn, and accompanied by six armed militia men on horses.
‘Must have got knocked on the head once too often,’ Gallagher commented. ‘Needs his own army now.’
When the wages and back wages had been paid out in Ardnagréna, Luke went through the wage sheets to see who had not turned up. He worked out the wages still due and left money with Gallagher, with the request that he should pay out whatever was possible.
Two of the soldiers stayed with Gallagher. ‘They can witness the payments,’ Luke told him, unsure whether the Union would accept this or not. He rode towards Knocklenagh, accompanied by Davitt, one corn cart and four soldiers.
‘What are you hearing, Martin?’ Luke asked. ‘What’s happening everywhere else?’
‘Just the usual,’ Davitt said. ‘There’s been food carts attacked, that’s the reason for the soldiers. There’s a lot of talk about killing landlords, but I think there’s nothing in it, they won’t do it. Not that it’d do much good either. I reckon half the bastards are bankrupt anyhow.’
They rode on.
‘This country is cursed,’ Davitt said suddenly.
‘I know,’ Luke said.
‘You know what, I’m going to get out. There’s no point in staying here. Last time I was back in Straide, I was looking at little Michael. He’s only a baby, but he’ll grow up, and I started to think, this is no country for young men.’
‘Where will ye go?’
‘I’m thinking of Lancashire. Somewhere around Manchester. We’ve family somewhere there. But I don’t know for certain, I’m only thinking about it. I haven’t even mentioned it to my wife. I wouldn’t want worrying her yet.’
They left the cart and two of the soldiers in Knocklenagh, and rode up towards Lisnadee. It was getting dark as they arrived. Durcan ran over.
‘By God,’ he said, ‘I’m glad to see you. They were sure I wasn’t going to pay them.’
‘I wouldn’t blame them for thinking that,’ Luke said. ‘It’s late enough.’
He looked at the scene around him. There were far too few workers. Those he could see close up had lice crawling through their filthy blankets and coats.
‘How many have you here today?’ he asked Durcan.
‘Thirty two by my count. Or at least we had. One died this morning.’
‘We’ll be a while getting to a hundred again.’
‘We will,’ Durcan said.
They paid off the workers. Then he closed the Works for the day. It was cold and dark enough already. They rode back to Knocklenagh again, Durcan carrying the corpse behind him on his horse. Neither of the remaining soldiers said anything. Luke and Durcan carried the corpse inside the graveyard. Then they rode to Durcan’s house and brought the money and soldiers inside.
‘You can stay with us,’ Durcan said. ‘We’ll keep you warm anyhow.’ Mrs. Durcan looked doubtful.
‘That’s good of you,’ one of the soldiers said, ‘but hadn’t we better get some corn first.’ They went to find the cart, and came back twenty minutes later with Indian corn and a small bag of rice.
Late that night Father Nugent came. He told Luke that he had been riding around the mountains, but said nothing of what he had seen, and Luke did not ask him. He agreed though to accompany him again the next day. Luke was depressed at the prospect, frightened again at what he knew they would encounter. But he knew too there was no other way. Another day or two of this, he thought, and I’ll be back in Brockagh. Oh God, Winnie, how I miss you.
He lay on straw with Davitt, the priest and the soldiers. He pulled his coat over his head, and slept for a few hours. By morning, it was bitterly cold.
It was still early when they got up, and Davitt left. ‘You’d better keep the militia fellows with you,’ he told Luke. ‘I’ll leave the money here with you. You’ll need it to pay everyone as soon as you can find them.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll be fine. No one will attack me if I’ve no money.’
Luke counted the money and signed for it. Then he took the moneybags on his horse, and he and the priest set out. The two soldiers insisted on accompanying them, though Luke felt that with the present advanced state of hunger in the mountains, there was little risk involved. The morning was bright, and the mud on the road was frozen hard.
He paid out wages to men and women, including the widows and widowers; mothers and fathers; and even the children of those who had died over the Christmas.
By afternoon they were higher up the mountains, and the conditions worsened. They reached the huts and mud cabins scattered across Croghancoe.
In the first cabin, a dead man lay on the bed, a woman moaning beside him. Her legs were out of joint, and swollen at the ankles. One arm hung loose over the side of the bed. Luke left the money beside her, and signed her X himself before signing his own name. The priest counter-signed without comment.
At the next cabin, there was no answer to their knock. As Luke walked away, he noticed a hand protruding from a mound in a potato patch. The mound had been scrabbled away on one side, a part-eaten ribcage showing.
‘The whole family?’ one of the soldiers whispered.
‘Yes,’ L
uke said, ‘with foxes for company.’ He had no wish to know how many bodies were underneath. From the edge of the mound the priest gave Extreme Unction. Luke turned away. There was no-one left to pay.
At the third cabin, there were six rat-eaten bodies, but again no living person. One of the soldiers vomited. The priest gave Extreme Unction from the door. Luke tied the door shut, and knotted it.
He saw similar scenes in other cabins, his brain hardly registering it all anymore. Hunger. Fever. And the snows, killing anyone spared till now. Whole families frozen to death. No turf, no wood and no chance of getting any. They left Croghancoe.
They rode past the old cottage by the Lisnadee Works.
‘I saw ye got the bodies down,’ Luke said.
‘Whatever was left of them, we got down,’ the priest replied.
Next day, they went back to the lower villages. He signed up new workers, and by the end of the day, he had thirty more. He explained the rules for Selection, and he asked people to notify others in the area of the positions available. There was a time when he would not have done this, since it would only have brought hundreds onto the Works all at once, but now it was different. He doubted if he could bring any of the Works back to a hundred.
When they reached Knocklenagh that night, the other militia men had already departed with the cart and driver. It was very late, and Luke still had money in his saddlebags, so it was decided that the soldiers would stay with him. They slept in Durcan’s again.
The next morning was the first of 1847.
The priest started on sick calls around the lower parts of Knocklenagh. Luke hitched up his horse, and rode down to Brockagh with the soldiers.
They rode under Croghancoe, the mountain still white on the upper slopes. He stared at it, but there was no vastness now.
Only a deep and empty nothingness.
Chapter Eighteen
Mayo Constitution. January 1847:
We have been informed that a poor man at Mayo, near Balla, after having been reduced to the greatest destitution, was obliged to leave his home to beg, leaving his wife, a feeble old woman, after him. In a few days after his departure, some of the neighbours went to the wretched hovel of the old woman, and found her lying on a litter of straw in the corner, with the flesh of her shrivelled arms and face mangled and eat by rats. The wretched creature died in a short time after.
BLACK ’47. The snow returned. For a few days, he was apprehensive as it continued falling. It was not as heavy as before though, and the people beat paths through it each morning and worked on. Every day, he visited Lisnadee and Ardnagrena. Every day, people died of the cold, but he knew he could not close the Works, and the bodies were deposited at the graveyards in Knocklenagh or Brockagh.
But it did not last. He woke one morning to a clear sky. It was still cold with frost, but as the day went on, the cold lessened. That evening there were rivulets of water running down the drains alongside the road.
He was at Ardnagrena when McKinnon arrived.
‘I’ve been expecting you,’ Luke said.
‘Voisey told you, did he?’
‘About the new Works? Yes. But where?’
McKinnon tied his horse’s reins to a gatepost.
‘He says that’s up to you. Whatever you decide, they’ll put it to Castlebar, and they’ll tell Dublin.’
‘What if they don’t approve?’
‘They’ll approve.’
He took a map out of his saddlebag. He unfolded it, and put it over the saddle.
‘Well,’ Luke said, ‘if you’re asking me, I think the best would be Burrenabawn and Teenashilla. They’re both up here.’
He pointed to a blank space on the map.
‘Not even marked,’ McKinnon said.
‘Too small, I’d guess,’ Luke said, ‘but they’re there alright. There’s a track leading across from Lisnadee to both of them. It’s solid enough, but could do with some widening. But there’s another reason too.’
‘What’s that?’
Luke pointed at the Works in the distance. ‘Look at them there. Do you know, half of them are from higher up the mountains. Every morning they tramp down here, and every night they tramp back, God only knows how they do it. I reckon these past weeks some of them haven’t even made it back. I don’t know what they’ll think of that in Knockanure or Castlebar, but I’ll tell you this – they need work up there, and they need roads.’
McKinnon folded his map.
‘Burrenabawn and Teenashilla so. You just tell me what you want, and I’ll see you get it.’
A week later, both sites were open. Luke asked Gallagher to take responsibility for them, while one of the gangers at Ardnagrena was promoted to take over Gallagher’s position there. Father Nugent agreed to assist once again in locating the workers. As the snow cleared, and the bitter cold lessened, the numbers on all four Works started to climb.
Through it all, he was meeting Winnie. One day, they were spotted, and their friendship was a secret no more. Whenever they had met away from other people, Young John always came with them, but he was discreet. ‘Near, but not too near,’ as he had said. Luke was concerned about the consequences of all this, since Gallagher must now know of their relationship. Winnie was less concerned though.
‘He’s coming to accept you. I told you that before. He respects you now. Give him time, it won’t be long, I promise you.’
‘But if he knows we’re meeting? Surely he knows that?’
‘He does, but he knows too about Young John being with us. And Ma, she’s on your side too. She’ll convince him.’
He thought about that. Gallagher already knew they were meeting. But he had never mentioned it. Was that odd? Perhaps, or perhaps he had not yet made up his mind, and did not wish to discuss the matter with Luke until he had. But at least he had not decided against him. He was sure of that now.
But he still felt guilty about it all. He felt his own happiness when he was with Winnie was wrong in the middle of suffering. He mentioned this to her one night.
‘But isn’t that it?’ she said. ‘It’s at a time like this we most need each other. It’s the same with everyone. Family and friends. It’s all that keeps us going.’
In the evenings, they spoke of many things. He found it healing, a way to deal with the shock of Croghancoe and the rest of it, a way to shun madness. It eased too the pain of witnessing the suffering and misery every day on the Works. He wondered if it was right to burden Winnie with his pain. But she never objected, and when he arrived back at Gallaghers in the evenings, she always asked him what had happened that day.
And what she heard, horrified her. His description of people dying on the Works and in the cabins during the blizzard had shaken her, though she was strong enough not to allow him to see that. But even now, when the blizzard was over, the horror continued. She could see the skeletal people walking through Brockagh every day. One morning while Luke and Gallagher were away on the Works, she had to assist in removing the corpse of a woman she had known from the side of the street, and carry it down to the church.
Just as bad, was her growing isolation. Because she was Gallagher’s daughter, and now known to be walking out with Luke, people were avoiding her. The desperate consequences of piecework were being blamed on Luke and on her father, and she was associated with them. Young women she had known all her life as friends now avoided her. In some ways, seeing their thin, pinched faces, she felt it was for the best. Family and friends – that was what she had told Luke. Family yes. Friends – no.
But who else was there? Perhaps her future lay in Kilduff and Carrigard. Perhaps it was her only future, the only place where Luke and Luke’s wife would be accepted. Or perhaps not. What he had told her of Selection in Carrigard might mean that they would not be accepted there by anyone beyond Luke’s own family. But it was all speculation. She would have to wait and se
e.
One afternoon, they went for a longer walk than usual. For some time, Young John chatted along with them. He already saw Luke as his elder brother, and a way into a wider world. He questioned him on England, the railways and the cities he had seen. But then, as always, he dropped back, and followed them at a distance.
‘There’s something worrying you,’ Winnie said.
‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s nothing. And everything.’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
‘It’s like I said before. I just can’t take this. You think I’m a tough fellow, but I’m not. During the day, I’m fine, I do what I have to do, but it’s at night it all gets to me. I wake up, and I feel terrified. I just think of everything, and I can’t sleep again. The fever, the hunger, the cold. Watching them dying on the Works.’
They walked along in silence for a while.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘I was going to go back to England. There’s a desperate shortage of good workers on the railways right now. Four shillings, even five shillings a day, no problem if a man can work. My cousin Danny, I told you about him.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘He’s starting his own business contracting on the railways. He wanted me to come in as a partner. I never told you that.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘Yes, he reckons that there would be good money to be made as a railway contractor, and do you know, I believe he can do it. He’s very determined, is Danny.’
‘So why didn’t you go?’
He thought about that. He thought of mentioning Danny’s intentions – making money from hungry Irish labour. But he no longer wished to explain it all.
‘Father said I should stay on here,’ he answered her. ‘They hadn’t enough people to work as clerks and supervisors on the Works around Carrigard. He told me it was my duty. Maybe he was right, but I’m earning two shillings a day. And people say I’m making too much, though I could do far better in England. No matter what I do, it’s wrong.’
‘If you’d gone back to England, we’d never have met, would we?’
