Nuala 1839–1847
James 1842–1847
Éamonn 1844–1847
Victims of the Famine – Never to be Forgotten
In memory also of Kitty McCarthy, wife of Patrick and mother of the above children
May you rest at peace with our Lord
This stone erected by Michael McCarthy, in eternal gratitude for a mother’s sacrifice
I read it in silence. What a lot of children. I counted up – Michael had five siblings, all of whom died during the famine years. And his father died just a couple of years earlier.
‘Wow. What a tragedy. They all perished so close to each other,’ I said. The words sounded trite and inadequate, and yet this was just one family of so many hundreds and thousands of families that must have suffered similar losses.
‘I know. Puts our own troubles into perspective, doesn’t it?’
‘It certainly does.’ I read the names again. ‘Interesting that Kitty’s name is on here. Yet the legend is that he never found her, and never knew what had happened to her.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, crouching down to peer at the engraving, ‘but if you look closely it seems those last three lines are in a slightly different style to the others. I would say they were added later.’
I looked closely and saw what he meant. ‘So the stone originally listed Patrick and the children, and Kitty and the line about the stone being erected by Michael were added later?’
‘I think so. Often a family buy a plot when someone dies, and put a stone up with room for more names. Then other inscriptions are added whenever someone else is buried in that same plot.’
‘But there are no dates for Kitty. That ties in with the idea that he never found out what happened to her. Perhaps he added that when he finally accepted that she must have died.’ I was thinking aloud.
Declan nodded. ‘Yes, that seems quite likely. I wonder what he was referring to by the mention of “eternal gratitude for a mother’s sacrifice”?’
I shrugged. ‘Wish I knew more about it.’ I pulled out my phone and took some photos of the gravestone, from various angles. I wondered exactly what sacrifices Kitty had made for her children. All mothers had to give something up – whether it was as simple and short term as giving up alcohol while pregnant (although I’d not entirely given it up, having had champagne on the night Dan proposed, and a Guinness on my first night in O’Sullivan’s), or the long-term giving up of eighteen years of your life to dedicate to bringing up a child. Jackie had always complained I’d held her back, that she could have done so much more with her life if she hadn’t had me. Parenthood changes you – I’d seen that happen to friends, who’d given up work, stopped going out and spent all their time thinking about their children first, never doing anything for themselves. It could even affect your relationship – the very thing that had brought the child into existence could end up being threatened by it. I was terrified by the idea that might happen to Dan and me – already my pregnancy had driven a wedge between us. Yet again I realised what a life-changing event becoming pregnant was, and I was not sure I was ready for it.
That phrase from the gravestone – a mother’s sacrifice – played on my mind. It was Michael I was here to research, but I was becoming more and more fascinated by his mother. I wanted to know more about her. Perhaps it would help me come to terms with my own impending motherhood. God knows I felt I needed all the help I could get.
‘You should check the church records,’ Declan said, shaking me out of my thoughts. ‘They will tell you whether all the McCarthys are actually buried here or if it is only a memorial stone. They’ll also say whether Kitty was buried in this parish, and if so, when it was.’
‘Good idea. I will do that.’ I wondered how to go about getting access to the records, and was about to ask Declan if he knew, when he spoke again.
‘If you like, I can help you. It’s fascinating, all this, so it is. And you with your book – that’s the perfect excuse to get properly immersed in some research. I’ve time tomorrow, if you like. I’ll meet you in the church. Any time after one thirty.’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘I’ll come after lunch then.’
He nodded. ‘Well, I’ll let you get on. Might see you in O’Sullivan’s this evening, perhaps?’
‘Sure, I’ll be there.’ I waved as he left, picking his way through the overgrown cemetery towards the church car park. Again I fleetingly wondered if I needed to be careful. He was a good-looking man, and in another life I’d have fancied him, definitely. But my life was complicated enough and I most certainly did not need to be adding to it. I put a hand on my slightly swollen belly. These jeans were definitely becoming too tight. There was a Dunnes Stores just up the road. Perhaps they’d have some cheap, loose trousers that would do until I needed to buy proper maternity wear. I pictured myself in a tent-like smock dress and shuddered, resolving to put off the moment when I had to wear that kind of thing for as long as possible.
The weather was better again – I was beginning to get the hang of Irish weather. Basically, you couldn’t predict it. You had to wait until it was time to go out, look out of the window and then make a decision about what to wear and what to take. And you always had to take your mac. But today looked like it was going to remain sunny, so I decided to have a quick lunch in a café then head off into the moors for another walk. It had been so glorious on the day I’d walked up to Kildoolin, and I fancied a bit more of that. At the tourist office I’d collected some leaflets showing local walks so I decided to pick out one of those over lunch.
In the café, I ate a massive BLT and downed a huge pot of tea – portion size, I had noticed, was enormous in Ireland, as if to make up for the starvation their ancestors had endured during the famine. I bought a bottle of water to tuck in my rucksack and set off, towards Kildoolin initially but then veering off the track, up a lesser-used path, flanked initially by waist-high bracken, giving way to heather higher up the hillside. The leaflet from the tourist office contained a rough map, which showed that a little way up there was a stone circle that I wanted to see, and also some ruins of old copper mines. I remembered Declan had warned me about uncovered mine entrances on the hills. What copper mining had to do with my research into Michael McCarthy’s life I did not know, but who cared, I was on holiday and might as well enjoy myself.
As the track wound its way up the hill, becoming quite steep in places, I found myself really missing Dan. We’d done a lot of hillwalking during the years we’d been together – mostly in the Lake District, or Snowdonia. We were both fans of that wonderful feeling of putting one foot in front of the other, each step a little higher than the last, each step taking you that bit closer to the summit and the sense of achievement when you reach the highest point. I missed him now – missed sharing the moment with him, the easy camaraderie that comes with sharing a physical challenge. He’d have been stopping every few minutes to photograph the view. We always ended up with dozens of pictures of every walk we did, no matter what the weather was like. Today it was clear and sunny, and as I’d expected, the view over the moors towards the distant sea became better and better the higher I climbed. In places the path was not much more than a sheep-track through the heather, and indeed a couple of times startled sheep scurried away as I approached. Once again I found myself wishing things were as they used to be. Me not pregnant, Dan having not proposed, but here with me now. Us together, young and free, with no worries.
I pulled out my phone. Now would be a good time to talk to him. But there was no signal on this side of the hill. It would have to wait.
Eventually, the path levelled out, though not yet at the summit of the hill. From here it contoured around, past a couple of rocky outcrops, and then suddenly, there it was – the walk’s destination. A ruined building in grey stone, its windows glassless and cold, a tall circular brick chimney reaching to the sky. The old copper mine. I walked around it first, then went inside the roofless building, staring up at the blue patch of sky. T
here wasn’t much left of the place, and no boards or notices to inform visitors about how the building would have been used. The leaflet from the tourist office didn’t say much either, other than that it was one of several mines in the area that had been owned and run in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century by the Waterman family of Ballymor. Outside the building, a sturdy wooden trapdoor was set into concrete – an entrance to the mine, I guessed. The building must have housed a steam engine, perhaps for hauling up the copper ore, or for pumping out water.
Again I missed Dan. He’d have enjoyed investigating this with me. I imagined him taking endless photos and then, back at the pub, going straight onto the internet to see what more he could find out about copper mining in Cork.
This thought prompted me at least to take a few photos to show him. They wouldn’t be any use for my book but good as a reminder of this holiday.
But would I ever get the chance to show them to him? Or had I ruined things completely between us? No, surely not. Our relationship had to be strong enough. We’d sort this out, as soon as we had the chance to properly talk. I checked my phone. Still no signal.
I put a hand over my belly. Hillwalking was just one of the things that would have to take a back seat when this baby came along. I sighed. At what age can children walk up Lake District fells? Seven? Eight? Older? Would I really have to give up doing something I loved, something Dan and I loved doing together, for eight or more years? Or even longer if we had a second child, I realised with a jolt. Dan would no doubt want more than one child. If we sorted out this mess and I said yes to him, I was saying yes to a potential whole brood of children, and many years in which we could not go walking in the mountains, or spend evenings in the pub without having to pay a babysitter, or go on holidays wherever we wanted. Small things, really, but all were examples of things to be sacrificed. Everything would need to revolve around the child or children – putting their needs first – doing what would suit them rather than what we wanted. It was a huge step and once again I felt terrified that I would not be able to do it. But once you became a parent you couldn’t just run away, could you? With a jolt I realised that already I could not simply run away and ignore it. I was pregnant. It was happening, whether I liked it or not.
Suddenly the ruins of the copper mine held no appeal for me. I wanted to be back in my room in O’Sullivan’s, with a cup of tea and one of Aoife’s wonderful cakes, and my phone in my hand with Dan on the other end of it, friends again, me apologising, him comforting me and telling me it’d be all right and we’d cope, and we could do this thing, together.
I turned and began walking back down the hill. My mind was focused inwards and I was barely looking where I was going. After a while I realised I was not on the path I’d taken on the way up. I’d veered off on a narrower sheep-track, or possibly just a rabbits’ trail, which was petering out amongst the heather. I carried on, heading downhill, struggling through the knee-deep heather and occasional prickly gorse. I knew I’d find the path eventually or, at worst, pop out onto the road a little further out of town.
After a few minutes struggling through the heather it thinned out and gave way to bracken and some gorse bushes, which I had to carefully pick my way around. Away to my left I could see the stone circle, so I headed over in that direction. I was concentrating so hard on avoiding the gorse I almost fell straight into it – a mine entrance set into a rocky outcrop, leading steeply down. A few shreds of rotted wood showed it had once been boarded over but not any longer. I felt my heart pound – it had felt like a close escape. Another step and I might easily have stumbled into it. I crouched and peered into the gloom, carefully pushing back a branch of gorse. It was impossible to see much but it certainly wasn’t the type of place you would want to fall into. I wondered if I should report it to someone, so they could come up and replace the rotten boards. But whose responsibility was it? Who owned the land? I realised that as it was not actually on a path it was unlikely anyone else would come this way and fall in.
My mind automatically turned to Declan. I’d mention it to him. He would know what I should do. Funny how after only a few short days in Ballymor I was already beginning to think of him as a good, close friend, someone I could rely on.
I straightened up and began making my way downhill again towards the stone circle, keeping a very careful eye out for more mineshafts. Only a few metres further on I found myself on a track that led downwards, directly to the stone circle. So the open shaft was not that far away from where people would walk. It was worryingly unsafe.
The stone circle itself was not as interesting as I’d thought it might be. It was about four metres in diameter, ten stones each about waist height situated in a rough circle. A Bord Fáilte sign declared it to be an ancient monument under the control of the Irish tourist board. Although the gorse and bracken had been cleared from around it, they were gradually reclaiming the area. Tall purple foxgloves added colour, and I took a few snapshots that I hoped were vaguely artistic. Maybe because it was so much older than the Kildoolin cottages and the mine workings, I did not get as much of a sense of the people who’d built it and used it, as I did amongst the other ruins. Or maybe it was because it had no association, that I knew of, with my ancestors.
CHAPTER 10
Kitty
Kitty had scraped together enough money to pay the rent by selling furniture and spare clothes. The little family now only owned the clothes they stood up in and a blanket each to sleep with. The cottage was even more sparsely furnished than before. Michael had insisted they kept one chair. ‘Grace and me can sit on the floor to eat, sure we can, but you, Mammy, you must have a chair to sit on properly,’ he’d said. She’d acquiesced, but only because she’d managed to raise enough this month, and they weren’t yet starving, and the chair could wait to be sold to pay the next month’s rent. Not that she liked to look ahead.
Things were becoming desperate. Without the goat, without Michael’s wages, without the autumn crop of potatoes, food was extremely scarce. The chicken ceased laying eggs, so Kitty had no choice but to butcher it. At least it provided them with meals for two days, and broth for a third. The store of potatoes was almost gone. Very few had been salvaged from the disease-ravaged potato plot.
Michael came home one day battered and bruised. He’d taken part in a march, protesting at the lack of action from the government.
‘They have to do something to help the people,’ he told Kitty, as she tended to a cut above his eyebrow. ‘They can’t just let us all starve again, like last winter. ’Tis inhuman.’
‘But how can they give charity to so many people?’ she asked. ‘And there are many who’d be too proud to take handouts, no matter that they were starving.’
‘More fool them, I say.’ Michael stared at her. ‘If there’d been handouts last year, maybe we could have saved young Pat and the little ones.’
He was right, Kitty realised. She must not be too proud herself to take charity, if it was offered, not if it could keep her remaining children alive. ‘Tell me, how did you come by the cut on your head?’
He sighed. ‘There was a rally, in Ballymor. We met in the square in front of the church. All working men – or we would be working men, if there were any jobs. The fellow at the front of the march had stuck a loaf of bread on a pitchfork, and he held it aloft. It’s all we want – work and a wage to buy our bread. We marched through the town, to the grain store. Word was out that there’d been a delivery, and there were sacks of cornmeal, imported from America, but there’d been no decision on how to distribute it. We went along to help them make that decision, if you get my meaning.’
Kitty nodded. She’d seen crowds building up around the store the last time she’d been in town, but on that occasion there’d been nothing in the store, and the crowd had dispersed, unwilling to waste its energy when there was nothing to gain from it.
‘At the store, the constables and warehouse workers were defending the door. They had sticks and clubs, a
nd were beating anyone who came too close. The marching men charged, and forced their way into the store, then an unholy battle took place with everyone lashing out at everyone else, and no one knowing who was on what side, though to be fair the warehousemen look as starved and thin as everyone else. I tried to get out once I saw what was happening, but caught a blow on my head as I ducked through the crowd.’
Kitty shuddered. She could imagine the scene all too well. Thank the good Lord Michael had not been more seriously injured. ‘And was there any grain in the store?’
He shook his head. ‘A few sacks is all I saw. Not enough to warrant fighting over. They’d either hidden the delivery somewhere else or it was all an untrue rumour. Mammy, if there’d been any food, I’d have got my hands on it and brought it back, sure I would. I’m sorry to come back empty-handed.’
‘I’m just glad you’ve come back in one piece,’ she replied, dabbing at the cut which was finally beginning to stop bleeding.
‘What will we eat tonight?’ Grace had been sitting silently, watching and listening. Her voice sounded weak and plaintive.
‘Ah, my sweet colleen, there are potatoes still. I will put some in the pot.’ Kitty didn’t add that they were down to the diseased potatoes, the shrunken, foul-tasting ones they’d salvaged from the autumn harvest. She’d add herbs to the pot to try to disguise the taste. It was eat those or starve.
If only Patrick was still here. Unbidden, memories of that terrible day, before the famine, before the deaths of the little ones, came rushing into her mind.
*
It had been Martin O’Shaughnessy’s eldest, Daithí, now gone across the ocean to America, who’d brought the news. He’d come running down the hillside behind the village, tripping over himself in his haste.
‘Mrs McCarthy, Mrs McCarthy, come quickly! ’Tis your husband Patrick, so it is. He’s been in an accident, in the mines. Come quickly!’
Kitty had dropped the potatoes she’d been preparing – fat and white they’d been, and plenty of them in those days before the Hunger – and quickly passed baby Éamonn to Grace to mind. She’d gathered up her skirts and run up the hill after Daithí, her thighs burning and her lungs heaving as she forced herself to keep going, faster and faster. What could have happened? Was Patrick badly hurt? She had to assume he was, or else why would Daithí have been sent to fetch her?
The Girl from Ballymor Page 9
