Cold Is the Dawn

by Charles Egan

  ‘Éamonn,’ she said, greeting her cousin. ‘What brings you…’

  ‘Lodgers,’ Éamonn said. ‘Murty Ryan. A master from Mayo. He’s looking for a room for two.’

  ‘A master?’ she asked.

  ‘Was a master,’ Murty corrected. ‘I’m a navvy now.’

  ‘That’s a change for you.’ Her eyes were sharp, but welcoming.

  ‘It is,’ Murty replied, ‘but sure what of it? I’m looking for a room for myself and my woman.’

  ‘Well, we can offer you a separate bedroom and a bed to sleep on. Small, but better than the shacks Éamonn and the lads are used to.’

  ‘I know,’ Murty said. ‘The shacks were a tight squeeze, right enough.’

  She brought them in and led Murty upstairs, while Éamonn waited at the bottom. The room she showed him was small. The bed was solid enough, an old striped horsehair mattress on top, cotton sheets folded alongside. There was a single trunk by the wall.

  ‘Not what a master might be used to,’ she said.

  ‘It’s grand. And it’s a year or two since I was teaching.’

  ‘So what happened? Did they evict ye?’

  ‘In a way. The new schools came to Mayo, and the girls and boys had to go to them, whether they liked it or not. So I was left with no school, and no choice but to come to England.’

  She shook her head in sympathy.

  ‘I’m sorry, but you’re here now, so we must all do the best we can. Now you’ll be wanting to know how much all this will cost.’

  ‘Most important, as you might guess,’ Murty said.

  ‘Three shillings the week for the room. But your wife, when will she be here?’

  ‘A day or so. She’s still over near Leeds, where we were last working.’

  ‘She’ll be working soon enough so. The mills have a call for workers.’

  ‘But she has not worked for years. She might not be up to it. And anyhow, I’d heard they aren’t taking on any workers.’

  ‘That was earlier in the year. They’re desperate for workers now. Spinners, sorters, washers, they’re taking people in from all over.’

  She took Murty’s hand.

  ‘Bríd Ó’Ciaragáin is the name to me, or Kerrigan, as the English say it. Bríd ye may call me. We’re Mayo. Like yourselves, I’d say.’

  ‘Indeed. Kilduff and around. And ye – Keel too? Same as Éamonn?’

  ‘We are, though we left well before the evictions.’

  *

  Murty took the train to Leeds and walked out to the new rails towards Bramhope and brought Aileen back to Bradford. On the journey, she said very little, and nothing at all as they walked through Broomfields.

  Bríd greeted her warmly, when she entered.

  ‘Come on in out of that and we’ll get you settled.’

  Murty was grateful for it. Aileen would be in shock already from what she had seen.

  Bríd brought them inside, and they sat around a table, more solidly built than those in the shacks. She took out four cups and splashed some whiskey into each.

  ‘Ye’ll be tired after all your travelling,’ she said.

  ‘We are indeed,’ Murty replied, ‘and Aileen tires easily with travel. Isn’t that right, my pet?’

  Aileen nodded, but said nothing. Bríd was looking at her. Murty knew she had noted her silence.

  ‘You’ll sleep well tonight then,’ Bríd said to her. ‘A day or two, and you’ll be up and working with Máire and Sinéad in the mills.’

  Aileen looked up from the table. ‘Máire and Sinéad?’

  ‘My daughters. And you mustn’t worry about it all. As long as you’re in this house, you’re with us. And Máire and Sinéad will be with you in the mill.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ Aileen said.

  They moved their baggage to the bedroom. Aileen took her clothes out of her bag and sorted them carefully on the floor.

  When they returned to the downstairs room, a man and two young women were there.

  ‘This is my husband Tomás. And these are Máire and Sinéad, like I was telling you. Tomás works as a woolcomber in the mill. Máire is on the spinning, Sinéad on the weaving and for myself, I stay at home and do nothing.’

  ‘Would you listen to her?’ Tomás said. ‘I go out in the morning and there’s all this linen in a heap in our room. Come back in the evening and what do I find? Three shirts.’

  ‘Hard work making shirts,’ Murty said.

  ‘But sure what else would I be doing,’ Bríd said. ‘It’s not that it pays much, though there’s families that live on it, God knows how. It’s just that I have to keep the house and stay at home, so I might as well be doing something. It earns enough to pay for the whiskey!’

  *

  Next morning, Murty left Adelaide Street and walked to the Broomfields Cutting. In many ways, Adelaide Street was no different to the rest of Broomfields. The hard, gritty dirt and the unending stench of smoke was enough to remind him that they were living in a mill town.

  What surprised him though, was how easily Aileen had accepted the offer of working in a mill. He was grateful that the two young women were friendly, helpful and delighted to look after Aileen. They too had noticed how quiet Aileen was. He wondered what working in a mill would be like. He had never even been inside one. How would Aileen find it? He would find out tonight.

  It was raining when he reached the cutting. But first, he fetched his shovel from the shack.

  ‘Well, how was it?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Just as you said,’ Murty replied, ‘but we have our own room. And better than that, my wife will be working in the mill.’

  ‘That might be hard on her.’

  ‘It might,’ Murty said.

  For the rest of the morning, he considered the matter. If Aileen could stay working, it would solve their money worries. He would not have to beg for a clerical position with Murtybeg, and he did not want that. The only question now was – what had happened to Aileen today?

  When he returned that evening, Sinéad was cooking, with the rest of the family sitting around the table.

  ‘You never told us she could spin,’ Máire said, as soon as he walked in.

  ‘Spin? But I…’

  ‘Yes, spinning.’

  ‘But…but that was linen. Years ago. That was before the machines came.’

  ‘And so it was. But what of that. I’ve got her working with me on one of the spinning machines. She knows what it’s all about. Another few days, and she’ll be working her own machine. She’ll be up to half a crown a day without any bother.’

  Murty was stunned. Half a crown! Two shillings and sixpence. Soon Aileen would be earning more than he did. That would most certainly be a change.

  They sat down to dinner.

  ‘You keep a good house here,’ Murty said.

  ‘We do,’ Tomás said. ‘Not like the rest of the houses around here.’

  ‘I’d guessed as much. Not that I’ve been inside any others.’

  ‘Nor would you want to,’ Sinéad said. ‘Right hellholes they are. Twenty to a house…’

  ‘Twenty! But…’

  ‘Twenty is right. And I know what you’re thinking. How do you fit twenty into a house with only three rooms? It’s one hell of a crush, that’s how. And some of them sleep in shifts. Some of the miners work that way. They come home with the sun, straight to bed and sleep half the day.’

  ‘A hard life. How do they put up with it?

  ‘They don’t’ Bríd said. ‘The anger is always there. You heard of the riots here before Christmas?’

  ‘I did,’ Murty said. ‘I wasn’t there, but I saw enough of what followed. Dragoons in the streets.’

  ‘Not just in any streets either,’ Tomás said. ‘Right here where we live. The Battle of Adelaide Street, they call it. In the worst of the riots, they came right here, smashing in doors. Bríd saw it all.’

  Murty looked to Bríd.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I did,’ she said,
‘and I’ll never forget it. It was that one of the ring leaders lived two doors down. But there were hundreds of us to resist. The police came in with cutlasses, and all the special constables, they had their sticks, slashing at the people.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  ‘Terrible enough. But even then, they were unable to force their way forward, as we drove them back with stones and pikes. In the end, they ran. They ran from Adelaide Street; can you believe that? But we lost the next battle when they sent in the dragoons, a whole squadron of them, fully armed. That’s what it took to break Adelaide Street. And Bradford.’

  ‘It sounds like war,’ Murty said.

  ‘It’s war, right enough, outright, bloody war,’ she said. ‘How else could they keep us down?’

  ‘So who’s fighting this war?’

  ‘We are,’ she said, sharply.

  ‘And that’s the right answer too,’ Tomás said. ‘The newspapers, the police and the politicians will give you other answers. Some will say it’s the Charter lads are behind it, fighting for Parliamentary Reform. Others say it’s the Unions fighting for Union Recognition. More will say it’s the Repealers fighting for Irish Independence. The government are terrified of them all. But what they can’t see is the real reason for the riots.’

  ‘Which is…?’

  ‘Hunger.’

  ‘Hunger!’

  ‘Look, Murty, what the people want is food on their tables. Parliamentary Reform and the rest of it, they’re big words, but they don’t mean nothing to anyone with an empty belly. All the beggar women you see around, with their scrawny brats on their laps, they’re the real threat to the government. And if you don’t believe me, look what happened right here in Adelaide Street.’

  ‘We’re not all beggar women, mind you,’ Bríd said.

  Tomás laughed.

  ’Ye’re not. Still, if they paid us right, there’d be no riots. We’re fine with three in the family working. But think of those trying to live on one wage. The mills and the mines pay damned little. And look at what they’re paying on the Colne Extension – who could live on that? And the poor devils who’re being evicted for the railway works. They’re starving.’

  ‘I know,’ Murty said, impassively.

  ‘They’re terrified of us, the government are. And even if you see less of the soldiers now, we all know they’re there, hiding away in their barracks. The army works in the mill owners’ interest. Never forget that.’

  *

  After dinner, Murty sat by the fire with Tomás, talking quietly, now in English.

  ‘What you were saying about hunger is surely true,’ he said. ‘But tell me Tomás, this Charter business. Is it really so weak? They frighten the hell out of the army.’

  ‘Damn the lot of them,’ Tomás replied. ‘They were supposed to do great things for us, but now they’re finished. Feargus O’Connor, he’s Irish, and having him as a Chartist leader was a big mistake.’

  ‘A mistake?’

  ‘Most surely. You might find it strange to hear me saying that, but mixing Irish Repeal with Chartism was mad, and something they would never have considered if O’Connor hadn’t been with them. If the Repealers want to repeal the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, that should be done in their own way, though for my part, I reckon it’s a waste of time anyhow. Ireland would starve without the Union.’

  ‘They’re starving, anyhow,’ Murty said.

  ‘True enough, but we’re in England now. And it isn’t the Union of Britain and Ireland should concern us. Trade unions to take on the mill owners, that’s what we need. And that’s what the Charter once promised.’

  ‘It did?’

  ‘It did, but that was before Feargus O’Connor and his gang of Repealers joined in, and started to turn to violent ways. Thousands of pikes they had in Bradford then, the long ones, enough to skewer the dragoons and drive them off their horses. The Irish in Bradford, they weren’t thinking of easy protest, more of revolution. Not just the trawneen of a revolution we had in Ireland last year. 1798, that was what was driving them, that and the slaughter of ’98. The Repealers of Bradford wanted revenge for that.’

  ‘They’ve long memories,’ Murty said.

  ‘They have, right enough, but little good it did us. They gave the government a fright, but they gave them an excuse too. Once the Repealers were mixed up with the Chartists, they could call the whole movement a revolutionary organisation, and bring in the dragoons to put down the terror in Bradford. No, no, they should have gotten rid of O’Connor and had nothing to do with Irish Repeal.’

  ‘But what had any of this to do with Trade Unions?’ Murty asked.

  ‘Not a lot,’ Tomás replied. ‘In some ways, you might say that the Charter started out as a Trade Union movement. The other general strike back in ’42; it was understood to be a Charter thing, but afterwards they got into this talk of Parliamentary Reform. Great talk, but nothing to do with Trade Unions. Then the Repealers killed it. I was a Chartist myself, believed in it all, but what did we end up with? The army in Bradford, nothing more.’

  *

  Next evening, Murty wrote a letter to Carrigard, giving his new address in Bradford. He felt it was best not to say anything about the conditions in which he found himself, and simply mentioned that Aileen was well. He did not wish to tell them about her new job, in case she could not keep it. And if she did, then there would be good news.

  He walked down to dinner. There was a heated discussion going on.

  ‘Wakefield. I tell you it’s in Wakefield,’ Sinéad said.

  ‘I’d heard it’s in Liverpool, right enough,’ Tomás said. ‘No question of it coming over the mountains yet. They haven’t even got it in Manchester.’

  ‘What’s all this?’ Murty interrupted.

  ‘Arra, nothing,’ Tomás said, ‘There’s stories about cholera in Wakefield. Sure there couldn’t be. It’s all stuff and nonsense.’

  ‘But Wakefield…?’ Murty asked.

  ‘It’s twenty miles away.’

  ‘And isn’t that what I’m telling you,’ Sinéad said. ‘Twenty miles is nothing. If it’s in Wakefield, it’ll be in Bradford soon enough. You just wait and see.’

  Chapter 16

  Manchester Times. February 1849:

  The people of South Lancashire and the West Riding have lately been called upon to support a whole army of Irish paupers, who have been driven from their home by the oppression of the landed aristocracy, many of whom are seeking to escape from bearing their fair share of the national burden, by hunting the peasantry off their estates and stocking them with black cattle. In the Union of Kenmare, it is stated, that one thousand dwellings have been levelled to the ground within the last 12 months. The starving inmates were turned adrift, the feebler proportion of them to die by the wayside, the hardier ones to beg their way to England, and swell the amount of poor rates in Liverpool, Manchester and the surrounding districts.

  Murtybeg found it a relief to be running the business without Irene. Over the previous weeks, her sullen presence had irked him. Also, the question of bribery was always in his mind. He had ordered it stopped, but he was not certain that it had been. Now Irene was gone, how many smaller contracts might he no longer get? He would have to wait and see. In the meantime, he was certain that the larger contractors were not involved in bribery. Brassey was certainly not, and he was sure that Mackenzie himself would not do so either. Mackenzie would not have known of Ackroyd accepting bribes.

  His parents would be relieved to hear that he was rid of Irene. He would have to write them a letter, but there were other things on his mind.

  The Mackenzie contracts were running well, and he was confident he would get more, even without Irene. But now it was time to bid for more Brassey contracts. It was essential to get back in on the North Staffordshire. Over the next few days, he visited the proposed new works, and walked where the new cuttings and embankments would be. He also discussed it in detail with Brassey’s managers there. They knew of
Edwardes & Ryan from the previous works that had been carried out, when Danny was still alive.

  Then he returned to Stockport and spent long hours costing the work. He was confident he could under-bid any of the other excavators, since his labour was far cheaper than any of them. His one concern here though was that he might be bidding far too little. It would be useful to know how much the competition was bidding.

  When he was confident of his costings, he visited the Manchester & Salford Bank again. Winrow was far friendlier than in the previous negotiations. He quickly agreed a further £2,000 lending against the new North Staffordshire contracts, on the understanding that there would be part payments from Brassey over the short period of each contract.

  Murtybeg sent his bids to Brassey’s, requesting a meeting. Two days later, Mr. Simon Johnson of Thomas Brassey & Co., wrote, requesting his presence in Birkenhead.

  *

  He travelled from Stockport into Manchester and took the Liverpool train. He had had no time to book a hotel, but decided to stay at Buckleys’. Couldn’t he have gone to Brown’s again? It would have been the safer thing to do. Danny would have stayed at Brown’s. Or better again, the Adelphi. Whether or not he could afford it, Danny always kept up appearances.

  But Danny was dead, and Murtybeg knew he was responsible for Edwardes & Ryan now, and there was no point in wasting money. He had no one to impress. Buckleys’ was cheap, but what of it?

  He found a porter, who got him a cab just outside the station. He threw his pack in on the seat.

  ‘Where to, gov?’

  ‘Scotland Road.’ The cab stopped.

  ‘Sorry, gov, don’t go near it.’

  Murtybeg swore. ‘Double fare.’

  ‘Treble.’

  Murtybeg took his pack out of the cab, and walked away.

  ‘Fine so, double fare,’ the cabbie shouted after him.

  Murtybeg mounted the cab again. He gave the street number.

  ‘Buckleys’?’ the cabbie asked.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Not many stay there these days. Dangerous place.’

  ‘Fine,’ Murtybeg said, annoyed.

  He looked out at Liverpool. England’s greatest port? The cab passed lines of marching troops. Then cavalry.