by David Rees
The boat people, she assumed, wished to land before the storm caught them. Maybe they wanted to find out where they were and if the mooring was adequate. As she approached she saw that this was not the case. She was confronted with a crew of skeletons dressed in rags, six emaciated men who were nothing but bones and skin, their eyeballs bulging and wild. “They looked,” she said, “as if they had just stepped out of their coffins.” They begged her for food. A seventh man, near death, lay in the bottom of the boat; he was calm, just able to breathe, but already unaware of what was going on around him.
“Follow me,” she said, but pushing the boat ashore was the last act the crew was, for the moment, capable of doing. Three of the men found they could not walk at all; the others tottered a few steps, then collapsed on the beach. Mrs Peacock hurried away, indeed almost ran, to Eagle Lodge, where she poured out her tale to Anthony (Michael’s father had repaired the bell months ago).
Anthony told Michael to make a cauldron of soup, then he went out to fetch the nearest tenants, the Sullivans and the O’Learys. It was snowing; the rising wind was hurling the flakes into their faces, but the adults of the two families did not pause. They rushed down to the beach, picked up the skeletons and carried them to Eagle Lodge. The man in the bottom of the boat they left where he was. He was dead. He was buried, a few days later, in Clasheen cemetery.
The kitchen of Eagle Lodge was packed. Inside it were the entire Sullivan and O’Leary clans, agog with curiosity and amazement; Anthony, frowning; Michael at the stove ladling out soup while Mrs Peacock instructed him in recipes superior and less expensive, to her mind, than the one he had prepared; and the six skeletons at the table eating so voraciously “you would think,” Mrs Peacock said to her husband that evening, “that they had never seen a bowl of soup in their lives before.” They had come from an island some way up the coast; there was no food left there ― even the stinging nettles and the sea-weed had all gone. To stay was certain death. They had rowed to the mainland in desperation; with a little food inside them they could probably walk to the nearest workhouse. But there was no food. The villages towards Clifden, they found, were starving; people were grubbing for berries, roots, moss. The Sullivans and the O’Learys marvelled, and blessed their good fortune. To be tenants-at-will at Eagle Lodge was luck indeed.
The six men went on their way. They were polite, very grateful, and would not think, they said, of putting people to any further trouble. They could walk now, and the snow had stopped. Barefoot they might be, but it was only twelve miles to the workhouse at Coolcaslig.
Anthony, eventually alone with Michael, was still frowning. “What is the matter?” Michael asked.
“We shall have many unexpected visitors before things improve; we must watch ourselves and be on our guard. Keep the bed in your room made up, though I don’t want you to sleep in it.”
Their life-style changed. It had to, with Anthony allowing the rent to hang. Roast meat dinners with bottles of wine were now an infrequent luxury. Repairs to the house ― replacing a cracked window, mending broken gutters, papering the dining room, carpentry on the staircase (some of the wood was rotten) ― were left indefinitely.
They were not the only ones to feel the pinch. Father Quinlan gave food to many families. As a result his own diet, much to his housekeeper’s concern, had become little more than that of the most distressed people in the parish. “I miss my cheese,” he said to Mrs Tangney. “I am exceedingly fond of cheese!” The Lenehans’ dinner table was spartan too; the doctor worked for nothing when his patients could not pay. Shopkeepers tightened their belts ― few of their customers had anything to spend, yet prices were tumbling. The fire in Mr Tangney’s forge was allowed to go out, and he dipped into his savings. But the Peacocks, though their contribution to the Relief Fund was generous, continued to live as they had always lived.
Michael kept his promise to his sister and took her out dancing on one of the few warm nights that spring. His parents didn’t approve of their children attending cross-road assemblies; “you don’t know who will be there,” Margaret Tangney sniffed.
“Only the people I’ve known all my life,” Madge said.
“Every Tom, Dick and Harry!”
Several girls had eyes for Michael, which made him uneasy. He enjoyed dancing ― he had a natural sense for it, rhythm and gracefulness; but, during the first hour or so, he would only dance with Madge. Eventually she wanted to be with others, in particular with Dan Leahy. Dan was still very attractive, an adult now, looking for a wife. Michael felt jealous.
“What is it with you and Leahy?” he asked.
“Should I tell you?” Madge said. “Or not? I… love him.”
Michael drew in his breath. “And he?”
“He loves me too.” Michael stared at her, amazed. “You will not utter a word of this to a living soul! My father would kill me if he knew … Dan Leahy, a barefoot, ragged peasant!”
“This is not good, Madge.”
“It is not your business.”
“Are you thinking he’ll marry you?”
“Yes.”
He was silent for a while, then said “If he does, you will need me at the wedding to give you away. I doubt our father will want to do this.”
“Michael!” She was grateful, beyond words for a moment. All she could say was “Thank you.” Then “He’s handsome, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes, he’s handsome all right!”
He turned to poteen after that for Dutch courage, then found he was able to dance with Nora O’Donovan, a red-haired girl who had been looking at him the whole evening. It was dark now. She led him away, into the trees at the road-side. He held her in his arms for some time, and kissed her.
“Did you enjoy it?” Anthony asked, when Michael told him.
“I… don’t think so.”
“Then why do it?”
He wasn’t sure. “It excited me,” he said. “A little. It was the drink. You have nothing to fear.”
“I know that.”
“Well… the reputation it may give me could do us some good.”
Anthony nodded, then said “That’s true.”
AS people expected and feared, evictions in many parts of the country followed non-payment of the rent. Families were thrown out of their cabins by force, and then the cabin itself was destroyed ― the thatch set on fire, the walls pulled down. The worst kind of landlord used the current distress as an excuse to get rid of unwanted tenants even when they could afford to pay ― at Tullala, not far from Clasheen, seventy-two families, ready with their rent, were evicted because the proprietor wanted the land for cattle to graze. These people had no one to turn to; they dug holes in the ground which they roofed with sticks or reeds and lived like that: thousands of Irish people did so.
Anthony, when he heard what had happened at Tullala, wrote indignantly to the owner, and persuaded nearly everyone at Clasheen who could write his or her name to sign the letter. The owner did not reply. Charles Trevelyan, the British civil servant in charge of relief plans, thought from the safe distance of London that no real hardship existed yet. “Dependence on charity is not to be made an agreeable mode of life,” he said. Like most Britons, he knew more of the realities of Hong Kong (recently acquired for the British Empire) than he did of the realities of Ireland.
Everything now depended on the potato crop of 1846. The spring had been mostly wet and cold, but the summer was warm; the plants were scrutinized as frequently and with as much care as sick children watched by anxious mothers. “They have never looked better,” Patrick O’Callaghan said to Anthony. “It will be a grand harvest! A vintage! See the leaves, how green! How strong the growth!”
“Luxuriant,” Anthony said.
“Plenty follows scarcity,” said Michael, and he smiled. He was thinking it would not be long now before they could eat roast beef and drink wine again. Living with Anthony had given him expensive tastes, which was dangerous: his position in the house was so ill-defined. Anthony
’s lover he might be, but he had no share of ownership in anything. Anthony fed him, bought him clothes, paid him for his work. Decisions and orders, in the last analysis, were not Michael’s, and he resented this at times. Only in their thoughts and feelings for each other was there equality. It was a relationship of unequal dependencies, therefore easy to walk away from. They both knew that, and, paradoxically, it made them closer; they were held by each other’s vulnerabilities.
Patrick O’Callaghan’s next words reminded Michael of that. “There is a problem,” the old man said, “and few have thought of it. If the crop is good, and surely to God it is, it will not feed us all. The hunger next year will be worse.”
“How is that?” Michael asked.
“Not enough has been planted. So many have eaten the seed potatoes. They had no choice: do that or starve.”
The moment of shock in Anthony’s eyes made Michael say to himself: I could never leave him. Even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.
“The Government should have given us seed,” Anthony said. “Not Indian corn.”
But the Government was busy with a particularly difficult problem ― its own survival. The prime minister, one of the few people in Britain to understand the extent and consequences of the potato failure, decided to repeal the Corn Laws ― the statutes which protected home-grown produce from foreign competition ― in an attempt to bring food prices down. His own party was split on the issue, and though the repeal measure was forced through, the Government lost its majority. Peel resigned; the Tories went into opposition, and the Whigs formed the new administration with Lord John Russell as prime minister. “Rotten potatoes have done it all!” the Duke of Wellington complained.
Irish policies altered immediately. Everything was to be left to private enterprise ― there was to be no more distribution of Indian corn except in the worst-hit places in the rural west, and the public works would be stopped. The outcry against the latter was so great that Russell changed his mind. Road-building was allowed to continue, but the expense would not be borne by the taxpayer: it would fall on the local property-owners. The Whig government’s treatment of Ireland turned out to be mean, shortsighted and cruel, incomprehensible by any standards. It virtually left the country to starve.
In July there were reports of disease in the potatoes. During the first week of August the crop failed entirely. From Kerry to Antrim, from Donegal to Cork, all was lost: the leaves were scorched black; whole counties looked as if burned by fire. The stench of rotting vegetation was universal from one end of Ireland to the other. It was a week of tremendous storms: lightning flashed over the blackened potato patches; dense, chill fogs followed the thunder, and rain fell in walls.
By the end of the month people were walking for miles in search of food; in some towns there was nothing to be obtained, not even a loaf of bread. The new Government was deaf to appeals for help, which were regarded merely as entreaties from beggars who had begged once too often, even though the catastrophe was fully known. A “total annihilation” The Times called it, a disaster without parallel in modern history.
CHAPTER FOUR
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ANTHONY was faced with a very difficult choice — let the rents hang again, or evict the tenants. He could not, from his own pocket, make up a second time the deficit in the money coming in. He had little left: barely enough to feed himself and Michael for twelve months. If he waived the entire rent, it would be impossible to buy sufficient seed, do even emergency repairs to the house, and generally run the estate — everything would collapse.
His brother urged eviction. “If what I hear of conditions in Ireland is true,” Richard wrote, “it cannot be that any significant rent will be collected in 1847. In that eventuality, we will need to get rid of delinquent tenants. I would like to see the whole estate cleared of small-holdings; a grazing farm would be much more profitable. Income from cattle should be our future, and if all the land were put to grass I could furnish you with the wherewithal to buy a considerable quantity of heifers and steers. You are in medias res so to speak and I am not, so you must judge for yourself. It would of course be an act of charity not to press the most unfortunate cases just yet, but we have to look to our own interests. The harvest is poor this year the world over.”
He added, in a postscript, that he would probably be returning to London for a long leave next spring, and that he might visit Ireland to see for himself how the situation was progressing.
“What do you think?” Anthony said. He passed the letter to Michael, who read it through twice.
“I cannot say, surely! It is nothing to do with me.”
“But how would you act in my position?”
Michael was silent for a long time. “You ask a hard question,” he said.
“And I need a hard answer.”
“Whatever your decision I will accept it.”
“You don’t say what you would do!” Anthony sounded impatient.
“How can I know what I would do? What you will do is more to the point.”
“There is no choice.” Anthony took the letter back and tore it to bits. His face was creased with worry; the blue eyes were angry, and frightened. “I cannot evict the tenants,” he said, pacing up and down the room. “If they die ― if some die ― I can pull down their cabins and put the land to grass. Not otherwise. You realize what this means? When Richard comes here, we will be evicted. It’s his estate; he’ll say I have grossly mismanaged it. And he will be right.”
“What will you do then?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect you to burden yourself with the hardship of it.”
“Why not?” Michael suddenly blazed with fury. “How dare you say that! I would go with you anywhere, whatever our fortunes! How dare you!”
Anthony stopped pacing. He touched Michael’s cheek, but Michael pushed his hand off. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I put it badly.”
Michael averted his eyes; he did not want Anthony to see tears. “I consider myself as married to you as my father is to my mother. In sickness and in health. For better for worse. There is no exception for the subject of failed potatoes.”
Anthony stood looking at him for some while, then kneeled beside him, holding his hands. “I was not sure,” he said. “That was wrong of me … You are… a marvel. A revelation. But we’ll go hungry.”
Michael smiled, then leaned forward and kissed him. “Then we’ll go hungry together.”
AS they did not have to pay the rent, Anthony’s tenants were able to eat their pigs and their dairy produce, and sell their oats to buy food ― when they could find it. There was little for sale in Gasheen; they often had to go as far as Galway to obtain anything. Anthony, deciding to stock up on his own supplies, went to Dublin to see what was available. He found, unlike in the west, that trade was brisk, and though there was not plenty, there was some variety.
But the cost of everything had risen since the new Government came to power, thanks to the private enterprise in which Lord John and his ministers so fervently believed. Rapacious little dealers ― the gombeen men ― were buying up everything they could, Indian corn in particular, then selling it in minute quantities at vastly inflated prices. Though food existed, many starved because they could not afford to buy. In the west, the gombeen man was not so much in evidence: almost nobody there could afford to buy.
Anthony returned, having spent more money on fewer goods than he had calculated beforehand. Last year he had been able to eke things out with potatoes; but this August his own crop, like everyone else’s, had been destroyed.
His tenants, because they could eat, were not popular with the less fortunate; the Keliher children, for instance, had stones thrown at them one afternoon. So the families stuck together: the Eagle Lodge estate became a sanctuary in a hostile land, though Clasheen was faring better than any other district nearby.
It was when they ventured further away, to Coolcaslig or Gifden, that they witnessed horrifying sight
s they could scarcely put in words, so moved, or so angry, did they feel ― miserable, ragged, evicted men and women, their children shrieking with hunger; once respectable elderly widows who had nothing left, men still able-bodied but who had no work; half-naked women with crying babies; all scratching at plots that had been scoured again and again for one small potato, only half-diseased, that somebody might have overlooked. Families of ten or twelve dined on a turnip or three or four cabbage leaves, or stinging nettles. People lay dead on the roads or in ditches where they had crawled, in such numbers it was not possible to bury them quickly enough, and their bodies were sometimes mutilated or half eaten by starving dogs.
The Sullivans found in one derelict, rat-infested hovel seven corpses, grey, ashen, and naked except for a few filthy rags about their waists. Dan Leahy was accosted by a woman wearing nothing but an old sack, a baby just born in her arms, screaming at him for food, anything, anything she could eat. The O’Learys found that the dying in cabins lay beside the dead: no one had the strength to lift the bodies.
Coolcaslig Workhouse was besieged by hordes of living scarecrows, yelling to be allowed inside, women demanding that at least their children be taken as it was impossible to feed them. The homes of people who still had food were often surrounded by the famished poor, staring in through the windows at dinner on the table, groaning, weeping, pointing fingers at their mouths. Mrs Peacock, as a result, kept her curtains permanently shut.
Animals had almost totally disappeared; in vast tracts of the country not a pig, a sheep, a cow, a chicken, even a cat or a dog could be found: they had all been eaten. Weeds, berries, roots, even limpets and mussels became luxuries. The landscape began to look more and more like a desert. Yet Charles Trevelyan, still directing Relief operations from Whitehall, and aware of all this, said in December 1846 “The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.”
