Coffin Ship
Page 4
Spailpín of Tim Downs at Dunmore in County Clare.
(The Illustrated London News, 22-12-1849)
While Galway was by no means the worst hit area during the famine, it did suffer its share of disease, starvation and death. It was once said of Rahoon that no language could express the ghastly suffering of the poor and destitute of this district during the famine. It was reported that, ‘On every side nothing but cries of death and starvation are heard. The poor are literally dropping on the public highways from hunger.’ Similar unforgettable scenes of human misery were also witnessed in the surrounding areas. There were reports of the bodies of women and children lying in ditches along the Dangan and Barna roads. One such casualty was Mark Murphy, who attempted to walk from Spiddal to Galway in January 1848. He was in such a weakened state that death overcame him on the road near Barna. This is the only information available about this unfortunate man.[2]
Village on Movren, County Clare.
(The Illustrated London News, 22-12-1849)
Patrick and Mary Sweeney and their eleven children made this journey in early September 1849 to secure passage on the brig St. John. They were from Lettercallow in Connemara. It is believed that they set out on foot, and if so, it would have been a long and gruelling walk. Their journey to the famine ship would probably have begun about a week before the sailing. The Sweeney family had already survived the worst years of the famine, but with so much hardship behind them they had probably begun to doubt the famine would ever end. Patrick obviously felt that the only future for him and his family lay across the ocean, in America. He hoped to find profitable work in Boston. The fare for the entire family would have left Patrick and Mary with very little money to buy food along the way. Using a little imagination, one can picture the youngest member of the Sweeney family, three-year-old Agnes, hitching a ride on her father’s back for at least part of the journey. The beautiful countryside that surrounded them was ravaged by famine and death.
The Sweeney family’s journey to the brig St. John took them along the old coast road, through the villages of Spiddal, Barna and Salthill. When they finally arrived in Galway, they found that accommodation was scarce due to the influx of so many other famine refugees. Of course the locals’ fear of contracting disease from these refugees added to the scarcity of accommodation.[3]
The Sweeney family avoided the workhouse on Newcastle Road. It had opened in March 1842, and was designed to cater for 800 inmates. But by January 1847, 1,143 refugees were being housed there and the number was growing all the time. During the famine, the number of deaths recorded in this establishment each week averaged between twenty-five and thirty. Families were torn apart upon entry to the workhouse, husbands separated from their wives, and children from their parents. For this reason the workhouse was not an option for Patrick and his family; they wished to stay together regardless of the consequences.
The eviction of tenants.
(The Illustrated London News, 22-12-1849)
As a port town, Galway witnessed a daily influx of poor, destitute and emaciated refugees of all ages. It was only those who had absolutely nothing, were starving and half naked, who made their way to the work-house. One little six-year-old girl, Celia Griffin from Corandulla, near Ross, arrived in Galway along with her family. All of them were in a ‘pitiable condition’. Celia survived for a number of weeks on the streets until she was finally given shelter in the Presentation convent. Although attempts were made to feed her it was too late, and within days her little body finally succumbed to the effects of starvation. Celia was just one of thousands of children who died without understanding why.[4]
In the small parish of Bohermore, where the skipper of the brig St. John, Captain Martin Oliver, was living, an average of five people perished every day. A local priest reported that people were so hungry that they had resorted to feeding on nettles and other wild plants. Closer to Galway port, the Claddagh did not escape the clutches of the famine even though it was a fishing village. Cholera struck the Claddagh in 1849, making no distinction between young or old. So many children died that it proved too difficult to record all of their names. The Dominican cemetery book simply kept record of the number of children who died on a particular day.
The day after the eviction.
(The Illustrated London News, 16-12-1848)
The question often asked regarding the famine in the Claddagh, and indeed Connemara, is why did the people not eat fish? It seems that the fish stocks mysteriously disappeared during this period. The herring shoals moved some thirty or forty miles offshore, far beyond the reach of a native currach (a small fishing boat). Another problem was that the sale of fish had traditionally helped pay rent and other debts, while the potato had been the main source of food.[5]
The clergy in Galway were feeding some 4,300 people daily, but were unable to reach everyone. Public relief works included the construction of Threadneedle Road (then called Bóthar na Mine) and the Dyke Road. Those unable to find work, or physically unfit for it, had to find alternative means of feeding themselves and their families, and the number of prisoners in Galway jail soared as a result. Many destitute people sought refuge there by committing petty crime. A fever hospital on Earl’s Island, close to the jail, was originally built to accommodate forty patients in four wards, but if necessary could accommodate up to sixty. However, during the famine it became extremely overcrowded. Some of the patients would beg for food on the bridge just outside the grounds, and today it is still known as Beggar’s Bridge.
Some people ardently believed that the scarcity of food was created by the British government, who allowed grain and livestock to be exported out of the country during the famine, a view that became widely accepted after the end of the famine. According to one report, the British government spent some seven million pounds on famine relief – a mere five per cent of its gross national profit for that period.
The following poem appeared in the Galway Mercury on 10 July 1847:[6]
‘The Song of the Famine
(from the University Magazine)’
Want! want! want!
Under the harvest moon;
Want! want! want!
Thro’ dark December’s gloom;
To face the fasting day
Upon the frozen flag!
And fasting turn away
To cower beneath a rag.
Food! food! food!
Beware before you spurn,
Ere the cravings of the famishing
To loathing madness turn;
For hunger is a fearful spell,
And fearful work is done,
Where the key to many a reeking crime
Is the curse of living on!
For horrid instincts cleave
Unto the starving life,
And the crumbs they grudge from plenty’s feast
But lengthen out the strife –
But lengthen out the pest
Upon the fœtid air,
Alike within the country hut
And the city’s crowded lair.
Home! home! home!
A dreary, fireless hole –
A miry floor and a dripping roof,
And a little straw – its whole.
Only the ashes that smoulder not,
Their blaze was long ago,
And the empty space for kettle and pot,
Where once they stood in a row!
Only the naked coffin of deal,
And the little body within,
It cannot shut it out from my sight,
So hunger-bitten and thin;
I hear the small weak moan –
The stare of the hungry eye,
Though my heart was full of a strange, strange joy
The moment I saw it die.
I had food for it e’er yesterday,
But the hard crust came too late;
It lay dry between the dying lips,
And I loathed it – yet I ate.
Three children lie by a
cold stark corpse
In the room that’s over head –
They have not strength to earn a meal,
Or sense to bury the dead!
And oh! but hunger’s a cruel heart,
I shudder at my own,
As I wake my child at a tearless wake,
All lightless and alone!
I think of the grave that waits
And waits but the dawn of day,
And a wish is rife in my weary heart –
I strive and strive, but it won’t depart –
I cannot put it away.
Food! food! food!
For the hopeless days begun;
Thank God there’s one the less to feel [sic]!
I thank God it is my son!
And oh! the dainty winding sheet,
And oh! the shallow grave!
Yet your mother envies you the same
Of all the alms they gave!
Death! death! death!
In lane, and alley, and street,
Each hand is skinny that holds the bier,
And totters each bearer’s feet;
The livid faces mock their woe,
And the eyes refuse a tear;
For Famine’s gnawing at every heart,
And tramples on love and fear!
Cold! cold! cold!
In the snow, and frost, and sleet,
Cowering over a fireless hearth,
Or perishing in the street.
Under the country hedge,
On the cabin’s miry floor,
In hunger, sickness, and nakedness,
It’s oh! God help the poor.
It’s oh! if the wealthy knew
A tithe of the bitter dole
That coils and coils round the bursting heart
Like a fiend, to tempt the soul!
Hunger, and thirst, and nakedness,
Sorrow, and sickness, and cold,
It’s hard to bear when the blood is young,
And hard when the blood is old.
Death! death! death!
Inside of the workhouse bound,
Where maybe a bed to die upon,
And a winding-sheet is found.
For many a corpse lies stiff and stark –
The living not far away –
Without strength to scare the hateful things
That batten upon their prey.
Sick! sick! sick!
With an aching, swimming brain,
And the fierceness of the fever-thirst,
And the maddening famine pain.
On many a happy face
To gaze as it passes by –
To turn from hard and pitiless hearts,
And look up for leave to die.
Food! food! food!
Through splendid street and square,
Food! food! food!
Where is enough and to spare;
And ever so meagre the dole that falls,
What trembling fingers start,
The strongest snatch it away from the weak,
For hunger through walls of stone would break –
It’s a devil in the heart!
Like an evil spirit, it haunts my dreams,
Through the silent, fearful night,
Till I start awake from the hideous scenes
I cannot shut from my sight;
They glare on my burning lids,
And thought, like a sleepless goul,
Rides wild on my famine-fevered brain –
Food! ere at last it come in vain
For the body and the soul!
Village on Mienies, County Cork.
(The Illustrated London News, 20-2-1847)
The Sweeney family home at Lettercallow today. (Courtesy of John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection)
Spailpín, Brian Connors near Kilrush, County Clare.
(The Illustrated London News, 22-12-1849)
Notes
[1]Boston Herald: ‘Triumph out of Tragedy – Commemorating the 150 Anniversary of the Great Hunger’ (26-6-1998), p. 3.
[2]Boston Herald: ‘Triumph out of Tragedy – Commemorating the 150 Anniversary of the Great Hunger’ (26-6-1998), p. 3.
Garvey, Fr G., Bushypark Celebrates 1837-1987 (1988), p. 8.
The Galway Mercury: ‘Starvation – Inquest’ (13-3-1847); ‘More Deaths by Starvation’ (22-1-1848).
[3]Garvey, Fr G., Bushypark Celebrates 1837-1987 (1988), p. 8.
The Galway Mercury: ‘Starvation – Inquest’ (13-3-1847); ‘More Deaths by Starvation’ (22-1-1848).
[4] Cunningham, John, ‘A Town Tormented by the Sea’: Galway 1790-1914 (2004), p. 154.
Galway Advertiser: ‘The Workhouse’ (3-3-1994).
Garvey, Fr G., Bushypark Celebrates 1837-1987 (1988), p. 8.
The Connacht Tribune: ‘The Great Famine, Tribune Extra’ (24-3-1995).
The Galway Mercury: ‘Starvation – Inquest’ (13-3-1847).
[5] O’Dowd, Peadar, The Great Famine and the West 1845-1850 (1995), p. 19.
Ó hÉideáin, Eustás, The Dominicans in Galway 1241-1991 (1991), p. 96.
[6]Boston Herald: ‘Triumph out of Tragedy – Commemorating the 150 Anniversary of the Great Hunger’ (26-6-1998), p. 3.
Cunningham, John, ‘A Town Tormented by the Sea’: Galway 1790-1914 (2004), p. 157.
Galway Advertiser: ‘When Galway Starved’ (27-6-1996).
Lecture: ‘The Brig St. John Disaster 1849’ by John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola, Ennis, County Clare (29-1-2007).
Murray, James P., Galway: A Medico-Social History (1994), pp. 50, 51.
The Galway Mercury: ‘The Song of the Famine’ (10-7-1847).
V – Port of Departure and Hope
The new commercial docks in Galway were completed in 1842. The large L-shaped complex gave the town one of the finest harbours on the western seaboard; a harbour that would bear witness to many sad sights following the outbreak of famine. It was from here that the brig St. John would sail on its fateful journey a few years later.
As the famine continued many other coffin ships sailed from Galway, carrying with them thousands of poor and destitute people. Among them was The Barbara owned by R. D. Persse, The Wakulla, Cushlamachree and Alice. Exactly how many people had sailed from Galway by 1 May 1847 is unknown, but the figure is estimated to be in excess of any full season of emigration in previous years. Some ships also sailed to St Johns, Quebec and New Orleans. Three-quarters of the Irish emigrants setting out on this journey travelled via Liverpool. By 1847, as the situation became increasingly desperate, about one thousand famine refugees were pouring into Liverpool every week. This influx was concentrated within a few square miles of the waterfront. The immigrants were described as ‘passive, stunned and mute’. Liverpool’s notorious cellars became the popular home for the refugees who did not continue on to America, with as many as forty people at a time sharing a space no more than twelve to fifteen feet wide. A Dr Douglas in Canada stated that one of the main causes of ship fever was the ‘filthy slums in which poor emigrants lodged’ before embarking on their voyage.[1]
The brig St. John arrived in Galway port during the first week of September 1849. The captain, Martin Oliver, was living in Bohermore at the time, which was only a short distance from the Galway docks. Some sources indicate that Captain Oliver was originally from Scotland. The ship was owned by Henry and Isaac Comerford. One of Henry Comerford’s five children, also called Henry, was appointed first mate of the St. John. The Comerfords had quite a number of business interests around Galway, including two timber yards, a grain store, a large farm, two offices and a large supply shop where most commodities of the day could be purchased. Henry was married to Margaret, the daughter of Donald McDonagh of Ballykeale House near Kilfenora.
Two-Masted Brig.
(Courtesy of Tim Collins)
According to Lloyd’s Register of Shipping of 1845, the St. John was built in St John in New Brunswick, Canada, in 1844. This document records the owners as Owens & Company.
It was listed as weighing 985 tons but this is incorrect as the ship was actually around 200 tons. The Comerfords purchased the St. John from Owens & Company in 1849 at a cost of £1,500. It served as a passenger vessel departing Ireland and as a cargo ship on its return journey. Henry Comerford also owned another ship called the Sarah Milledge which he used in the same manner. Other sources state that the brig St. John was built and owned by Tony Conneely of Lettermullen in Connemara. These sources indicate that the ship was built at Long Walk in Galway. They also state that Tony Conneely was the first captain and that her maiden voyage took the ship to St John, after which city she was probably named. According to one source the ship was old and well travelled by 1849, having completed many voyages between Ireland and the continent. This would make sense if later reports are correct in stating that the timbers of the overworked ship were rotten and that the old ‘hulk’ was not seaworthy at the time of the disaster. Nevertheless, it is highly unlikely that the ship was built in Galway given the information recorded in Lloyd’s Register of Shipping.[2]
Among the crowd assembled at Galway docks on the morning of 7 September 1849 were twenty-seven-year-old Honora (Mary) Burke and her three children. She was pregnant with a fourth child at the time. It is not known why, but her husband remained behind in Galway. Perhaps he was to follow in due course. Twenty-eight-year-old Honora Cullen and her three children were also patiently waiting to board the ship. There is no mention of her husband accompanying her either. Nearby lurked a fourteen-year-old boy, who was trying to camouflage himself amongst the supplies being loaded on to the ship. He did not have the money for his passage and was awaiting an opportunity to slip on board without anyone noticing. The boy had two sisters travelling on the St. John and he was determined not to be left behind in Galway. Another passenger, Peggy Mullen, was also preparing to board the ship with her sister’s little daughter who she was taking with her on the voyage. The baby’s mother had travelled to America on an earlier voyage and was now anxiously awaiting their arrival in Boston. The Egan family, a father, mother and child from Dysart, County Clare, joined the others at the docks. In fact, there was a large gathering from County Clare, with Ennistymon, Lahinch and Kilfenora well represented as can be seen from the passenger list. Natives of Connemara and Galway made up the remainder of the passengers. The thirteen-strong Sweeney family represented the largest family travelling that day. Isaac Comerford, who is listed as one of the sailors and was possibly a son or nephew of the owners, survived the tragedy; he is likely to have been a relative of the owners of the ship.