The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  Sarah rose to greet Michael. ‘Mr. Ryan…’

  ‘Sarah – you’re most welcome. I just hope the ladies here have been treating you well.’

  ‘They have indeed. And here’s someone else I’m happy to meet again,’

  ‘And I’m happy you could come,’ Luke answered. ‘Pat says you only came to see me off. No other reason in the world.’

  ‘Would you not be minding him,’ Eleanor said. ‘Pat says more than his prayers.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Pat asked.

  ‘Never mind,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘God you’re a silent lot, keeping everything to yourselves. And ye never told me anything in your letters about Murtybeg being over and they’re all gone now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, alanna,’ Eleanor said. ‘We could have told you, but we reckoned you had enough to be worrying about over in Knockanure. And sure they’ll be back often enough. Murtybeg says they’ll visit once a year.’

  Yes, thought Luke. I’m sure they will. I wonder does she even believe that herself.

  The men sat for their dinner. Eleanor ladled potatoes, turnip and cabbage onto their plates.

  ‘Sit down there,’ she said to Sarah.

  ‘I ate this morning.’

  ‘Would you sit down there, like a good girl, and hold your whisht.’

  She put a plate in front of Sarah and a mug of buttermilk alongside. As Sarah started to eat, Brigid came around to her, shyly, holding a small bowl of mashed potato and cabbage with a small spoon. She handed it up to Sarah. Idly, without even thinking about it, Sarah took the child on her knee, and started to feed her.

  ‘Well, tell us this Sarah,’ Michael said, ‘how are things in Knockanure? How’s the Workhouse now?’

  ‘Would you stop it,’ Eleanor said. ‘Can’t you leave the poor girl alone, and let her have a bite to eat.’

  ‘No, Elly, let’s hear what she has to say. Any time we ask anyone else about it, they never say a word, Luke here just looks all strange if we ask him, and as for Pat – or even Ian – you might as well have been speaking to a stone. Come on girl, what’s happening at Knockanure?’

  Sarah looked from Pat to Luke. Neither said anything. She took another spoonful from the bowl, and held it out for Brigid.

  ‘Terrible things,’ she said. ‘You’re better not knowing about them.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that,’ Michael said.

  ‘We’re all doing all we can, but it’s impossible. We’ve a new Master. My father was Master, but he died.’

  ‘Yes,’ Eleanor said, ‘we’d heard. I’m sorry.’

  Sarah looked uncertain, but went on.

  ‘My mother, she’s the Matron, she’s working all the hours God sent in the fever sheds. I’m terrified she’ll get it too and follow my father. We’ve lost two doctors to fever already, and they hardly ever visited the sheds, The rest of us, we’re working from dark to dark, but it’s never enough. The ratepayers, the most of them are bankrupt, the only one with any money is Lord Clanowen.’

  ‘That bastard,’ Eleanor said.

  Sarah looked at her in surprise. She had already been taken by Eleanor’s strong opinions, and she was beginning to understand that there was a lot more to Pat’s mother than Pat had ever told her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The Gort na Móna evictions were a terrible thing. We saw all of that in the Workhouse, took them in as fast as we could, but as fast as they came in to work, they went out the other end to the fever sheds. I reckon most of them are dead.’

  Michael looked up. He dropped his fork to the plate. ‘What’s that you say?’

  Sarah held her breath for a moment, and then she went on.

  ‘Dead, I said. They go to the fever sheds to die. There’s not many come out. But like I said, it’s better now. The fever’s less than it was.’ She stopped again.

  ‘Go on, go on,’ Michael said. ‘You were saying about Gort na Móna.’

  ‘Yes. Well, as soon as we took them in, we’d hold them in the Workhouse, but there were hundreds and hundreds of them, very little money coming in. What could we do? We couldn’t feed them all, but then the fever caught them, and they died. Every day, they were taken out, thrown into the pit we had along the wall, and covered over as fast as they went in.’

  Luke glanced at Pat, but Pat could no longer hold his gaze. He looked at the potatoes on his plate, but ate nothing.

  ‘A pit?’ Michael asked.

  ‘A pit,’ Sarah repeated. ‘It keeps on getting longer, God knows where it’s going to stop.’

  Eleanor glanced at Luke. His hands were quivering. Was he thinking of Ellen Morrisroe. Or Sorcha and the old man crazy with fear.

  Sarah had noticed his hands too. She remembered the last time she had seen that at the death pit in Knockanure.

  ‘But it’s getting better,’ she said at last. ‘At least in Knockanure, it is. Early in the year was the worst; we couldn’t take in all that wanted to. But the price of corn has been dropping since then, so we’re able to buy more of it, and so is everyone else. And then the Guardians started this business of sending them to America.’

  ‘Yes,’ Michael said, ‘we’d heard all about that. Seen it too.’

  ‘It was Clanowen’s idea. He reckoned that with no one else paying rates, they was no point in evicting his tenants. The Gort na Móna people, he only had to pay for them anyhow on the rates when they reached the Workhouse. So evicting them all didn’t make him any better off. Unless they died, it saved him nothing.’

  ‘That was nothing to do with money,’ Michael said. ‘That was revenge. You know about his agent being shot?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said, ‘I’d heard of that. But that was a while back.’

  ‘So it was,’ Eleanor said, ‘but we always knew that he would look for his revenge. The night of the killing they lit bonfires all across the Mountain – Gort na Móna and all. Dozens of them, near turned night into day. Yes, we knew he’d get his revenge, it only surprised us he took so long about it.’

  ‘I’d never heard that,’ Sarah said. She looked at Pat. ‘You never told me anything of bonfires.’

  ‘I thought the people would have told you,’ Pat answered, ‘or even your mother, I’m sure she knew.’

  There was a silence for a few moments.

  ‘So tell us,’ Eleanor said, ‘what’s going to happen now.’

  ‘It’s like I told you, Clanowen will keep clearing out the Workhouse, sending them to America. By Westport, Ballina, even Sligo, it doesn’t matter to him, just get rid of them.’

  ‘It’ll be a better life for them surely,’ Eleanor said. ‘There’s more meat in America, that’s for certain.’

  ‘If they get there,’ Sarah said. ‘The Americans aren’t letting them in, they’re all going to Canada. And the stories from the ships are terrible, they die in their hundreds on the crossing, and when they get to Quebec, they die there too. Thousands of them.’

  Winnie was staring at Luke. His eyes were glazed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah said. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that.’

  ‘It’s as well to know,’ Eleanor said.

  Eleanor embraced Sarah as they left. ‘Come back soon, alanna. Come as often as you like.’

  ‘I will,’ Sarah said. ‘I promise.’

  Luke helped her into the cart. ‘I’ll see ye all in a few years,’ he said to Sarah and Pat.

  See us indeed, Sarah was thinking. You’ll not come back, Luke. You might think otherwise now, but you’re not coming back.

  Pat sat in and whisked the reins at the horse. More thin, silent people were passing by. Sarah turned and waved back at Eleanor and Michael, until the cart rounded the corner. Then she sat, watching the horse’s flanks, thinking of everyone.

  Winnie? Tougher than Luke? Now that she knew her better, she reckoned that Pat had been right
.

  Michael was a powerful man, just as she had expected. Strong in body, strong in will. But he was getting old, and a decision would have to be made, the only question was when.

  What of Brigid? Decisions had already been made, and they would be followed through. She thought of the child, the open arms, the little fingers tracing lines across her face. The women’s ambitions.

  But Eleanor was the one who had struck her most. She had realised that all the others, even the men, looked up to Eleanor, and she could see why. Eleanor had an easy nature which masked many years of hard work and suffering, and an inner strength which gave her with the ability to bear it all.

  Knockanure or Carrigard? She had told Pat that it would all depend on his mother. Now she knew the kind of woman Eleanor was. She thought again of the horror of the Workhouse. She had told Pat to wait for her. But Luke would never return.

  So Pat would have to farm at Carrigard. Though he’d be a fool if he did. And damned if he didn’t.

  Marry him anyhow? Carrigard and the poor life of a tenant farmer’s wife? Put up with the years of hunger. Pat was right. It was impossible. Yes, he could have a respectable position if he stayed working with the Union, but how many more famines would they have to face, how many more fevers? She thought of the pit. They would have to face that. Again and again and again, and for how long? Or face starving themselves. No.

  Better an office in a poorhouse than a field of rotten potatoes?

  A week later, Luke left Carrigard for Liverpool, Quebec and America.

  He slept little the night before. He was nervous, thinking. Winnie pretended to sleep, hoping he would sleep too, but knew that he would not. She had her own fears.

  ‘Are you still awake?’ she whispered at last.

  ‘Sorry, I just can’t sleep. Can’t you?’

  ‘All those people dying going to Quebec. That frightens me.’

  ‘I won’t catch fever.’

  ‘You’ll write…’

  ‘The minute I land in Quebec.’

  ‘Promise me.’

  ‘I promise. But it’s you I’m thinking about. How will you get on, and me in America?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘I have your mother, don’t I. Another few months, and we’ll meet up again, and I’ll have a little baby for you.’

  The comment startled him. He thought of Nessa and Brigid’s birth, but it was better to forget about that. Winnie was a stronger woman, it would be alright, and he knew it.

  ‘Yes, my love,’ he said. ‘It won’t be long now.’

  At last she slept, but for a long time he lay awake, staring through the skylight at the quivering leaves of an ash tree outlined against the faint glow of the Milky Way.

  They rose early next morning. It was still dark. Michael lit the rush light, as Winnie and Eleanor prepared breakfast.

  ‘It’ll be great, I know it,’ Eleanor said. ‘It’s a fine country, from all accounts.’

  ‘I know, Mother,’ Luke said.

  They sat down to a quiet breakfast. Eggs, well cured rashers and brown bread. He wondered how long it would be before he saw his mother’s bread again. He put the thought out of his mind.

  ‘You’ll write as soon as you get there,’ Michael said.

  ‘Of course I will. I’ll post it the moment we land.’

  He finished his breakfast, and stood.

  ‘Good luck to you now,’ Michael said, grasping his arms.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back.’

  ‘I still have the right to say goodbye to my eldest son.’

  Then Eleanor embraced him. ‘God bless you, Luke.’

  He kissed her on her forehead.

  ‘Now ye keep yourselves well. Just look after Winnie here, and she’ll look after you.’

  Winnie was crying.

  ‘Go on, Luke, go on. I don’t want you seeing me like this.’

  He hugged her, holding her head into his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll see you in America, a ghrá.’

  He walked through the early dawn, all silent but for one lone dog howling on the Mountain. Images he could not forget kept haunting him. People’s eyes accusing him; people he knew, people he didn’t. Sorcha’s eyes when he left her and her mad husband in the Workhouse, all the bewildered pain of an old woman unwanted. Ellen Morrisroe too, eyes blazing with anger and hate. Matt McGlinn, eyes watching his betrayal and the end of an old friendship. The empty eyes of men and women on the Works, not caring enough to hate him anymore. Dead frozen eyes at the old cottage in Lisnadee. The man at Lord Sligo’s wall, eyes of sudden pain and shock, of blankness and death. The bodies in the pit, no eyes at all, all gnawn out.

  Try to forget it. All in the past.

  All an illusion?

  No illusion.

  What had he done to help them? What had any of them done? Built roads? Yes, they had done the impossible. Built roads with starving people. Broken stones with broken people. Put money in their pockets, but damned little. Money to feed them, but never enough to fill them. Money for clothes, but never enough against the killing snows. The Roads were built. The Kitchens were opened. Where had the money come from? Vast sums of it. The money that brought food into Westport when food was leaving. But yes, the food came. Ships lining up, waiting to feed Mayo. Corn piled in huge amounts, all along the quays and in the warehouses. Thousands of tons of food pouring in. But hundreds of thousands starving in Mayo.

  The impossible done. Real ships. Real food.

  But not enough.

  Never enough.

  All the pain, the suffering and dying. Dead bodies, dead souls. The smoke rising over Croghancoe. What had he seen there? The endless power behind the mountain. Was he mad? All an illusion? He thought of the priest and the tale of a man who came to Brockagh because he wanted to. A man who spurned comfort. A man who believed in it. Believed in what? ‘Then I might see…’ he had said. See what? Was it the same as he himself had sensed and feared behind Croghancoe? The power and the terror? Do I believe in it? In what?

  No way to describe it. But it happened.

  What happened? I don’t know.

  I don’t believe in it anymore.

  There’s no way to believe now. People not able to lift a pick. Haggard faces, living skeletons. The dying screams, the stink of gangrene. The pit, the pile of half buried bodies. The rats. What kind of power did this? I did what I could though. Did I? Refusing tickets to desperate men. Bringing women to the Workhouse to die. Bringing workers to the mountains to die. Closing the Works. Closing the Kitchens. Killing a man. Guilty? Yes, guilty as charged. He was trembling. The death pit again. Rats clutching at him, dragging him in, clawing his eyes out. Stop it. Think of Winnie. Will she stick with me though? Follow me to America? She will, she promised, we both did. Till death do us part, that’s what we said. Death? Why stop there? Death wins if you do. How long so? Longer than death? Much longer.

  Till there’s no mountains left anymore.

  That’s how long, Winnie.

  A time beyond mountains.

  Glossary of Words and Expressions

  A ghrá: My love.

  Alanna: Dear child or My love. From A leanbh (child).

  Amadán: Fool.

  Arra: Implies No or Don’t be silly. Might be from Aire (care).

  Boreen: A narrow road or track.

  Clochán: A tiny settlement of primitive houses.

  Eejit: Idiot. From the English word.

  Gossoon: Boy. From Garsún.

  Lumper: A large potato.

  Molly Maguires: A 19th century Irish terrorist group, which also spread to the United States at this time.

  Outshot: A bed built into an inside wall, often in the kitchen.

  Poitín: An illicit spirit distilled from potatoes. Moonshine.

  Rath: The remains of an anc
ient fort or settlement.

  RIC: Royal Irish Constabulary.

  Sceilp: A primitive lean-to shelter made of branches and sods.

  Shebeen: A small or unlicensed bar or pub. From Síbín.

  Sleán: A special spade for digging turf.

  Spailpín: A seasonal or migrant harvest worker.

  Townland: A rural sub-division of land.

  Turf: In Ireland, peat dug from a peat bog for fuel.

  Union: The organization for relief of poverty in a barony. Often applied to the Workhouse too.

  Whisht: Silence. Be quiet.

  About the Author

  Charles Egan was born in Nottingham, England, of Irish parents.

  When he was five, the family returned to Ireland as his father had been appointed Resident Medical Superintendent of St. Lukes, a psychiatric hospital in Clonmel, in County Tipperary.

  Every summer they visited his father’s family’s farm, outside Kiltimagh in County Mayo for a month, where his grandmother and uncles spent many evenings talking about family and local history.

  The family subsequently moved to County Wicklow, where Charles Egan initially attended the De La Salle Brother’s school in Wicklow town. He then went to the Jesuit’s Clongowes Wood College (James Joyce’s alma mater), and subsequently studied Commerce in University College Dublin, graduating in 1973.

  After an initial career in the private sector, including Marubeni Dublin, (where he met his wife, Carmel), he joined the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) in Dublin. After a few years, the desire to be his own boss led him to resign and set up his own business, which has now been running for over 30 years.

  Apart from business, his main interests are history, film and worldwide travel. Find out more at www.thekillingsnows.com.

  Copyright Notice

  First published in 2008 by Discovered Authors

  Re-published in 2010 by CallioCrest

  Third edition (revised) published in 2012 by the author using SilverWood Books Empowered Publishing®

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