by Charles Egan
The Exile Breed
Also By
Also by the author
The Killing Snows
Cold is the Dawn
Epigraph
‘Lord John Russell, have you no better occupation for Her Majesty’s troops than employing them in a useless war against the dying people of Mayo?’
The Telegraph & Connaught Ranger
County Mayo, March 1848
Dedication
For Carmel
Preface
The Irish had been emigrating for centuries. Before The Great Famine though, the majority of emigrants were Scotch Irish. These were settlers from Scotland who had settled the northern Irish counties, and then emigrated again, using their own means, because they saw opportunity in North America.
The Great Famine migration was of a totally different order. The starvation of 1845 and 1846 and the devastating epidemics of early 1847, induced a sense of panic in Ireland.
Many other factors encouraged this movement out of Ireland. One was chain migration, where family members already settled abroad, sent home money, or the ‘American Ticket’ to encourage their family members to join them. A second factor was that the Workhouses, desperate to clear their colossal over-crowding, chartered ships to clear out the people. These ships were a very low quality and there was nothing awaiting the people in either cash or work when they reached their destination. The landlords too, cleared out their surplus population in this way, though the numbers here were very much less.
For most of the rural underclass though, none of these options were available. These were the families of men who had no land at all, either freehold or by tenancy. They lived in mud cabins, and they and their families represented a population of well over a million. By the end of the Famine, most had been wiped out. The landless labourers hardly exist as a class today.
For those who left, the story of the Atlantic journey was a horrific one, though not all ships were as bad as the appalling coffin ships travelling from Liverpool or Cork, especially those going to Quebec. Many migrants lost their lives on the ocean. Soon after they arrived, a disastrous financial crash hit both sides of the Atlantic. Few could gain employment, and many of those who had, were soon thrown out of work. Even worse, the famine fevers followed them, and thousands died in the Irish ghettoes of Liverpool, Manchester and London; in the Emigrant Hospitals of Quebec and Montreal; on the back-roads of Canada and the United States; and in the tenements of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New Orleans and many other American cities.
Years later, some of the Irish in America had become farmers, whether in Canada or the United States. In both England and North America, many of the women had become domestic servants, derisively known as biddies or bridgets.
For most of the men, those who gained work were to be found in backbreaking labour, whether as dockers, miners, lumbermen, or railway navvies, still living in the city slums, the mining camps, the forest shanties, and the hovels and shacks along the railways.
The experience of the Irish Famine migrants was a hard one. This is their story.
Charles Egan
Luke’s Family Luke Ryan
Winnie, his wife
Michael, his father Eleanor, his mother Pat, his younger brother Murty Ryan, Luke's uncle Aileen, Murty’s wife Danny, their eldest son Nessa, their daughter Murtybeg, their youngest son Brigid, Nessa's daughter Sabina McKinnon, Luke’s aunt In County Mayo the county towns of Castlebar, Claremorris Westport and Ballina are real, but the East Mayo towns of Kilduff, Knockanure and Brockagh are fictitious, as are the settlements and mountains around them. In Pennsylvania the mining town of Lackan is also fictitious.
A note about italic use in this book. Where the dialogue is in italics, the character is understood to be speaking in Irish.
Prologue
The sea was still running wild, but the wind had dropped. More sails were going up as the ship sailed past the ice. Close enough, a hundred yards perhaps, but the danger was over.
The iceberg’s stillness seemed unreal in the early dawn. All around it, waves crashed into its white cliffs, gnawing in under it. Rivulets flowed down its flanks, running off the skirts of ice at its base, sheets of white water pouring into the ocean. Spume flew high into the sky, caught in the early sunlight and blown on the wind like smoke.
Like white smoke over a white mountain.
He leaned against the rail, watching. His heart had ceased its pounding, but still he felt a fear he could no longer explain.
Remember Mayo?
Two thousand miles behind? Could be more. They were nearer to America now. He was losing track of time too. Hundreds of people crammed into the cargo hold, sickening, praying and dying. More deaths every day. He wondered how many would survive the voyage of the Centaurus.
Would he?
What a fool he had been, travelling on a lumber ship. Another few pounds, and he could have been on a real passenger ship. But he had thought the money would be better feeding his own family in Mayo. Was it? They were depending on him to reach America, and send his money back. Money for food, and money to bring Winnie and the baby out to join him. How many more weeks of fever ’till there would be no one left on board? Then there would be no money from America.
Remember Mayo.
Croghancoe. The snow covered mountain, still and silent. Mud cabins strung across it, white smoke rising. Unseen people, dying and dead from famine, fever and cold.
The endless drifts. The frozen lakes. The killing snows.
The power and the terror.
County Mayo.
Chapter 1
Tyrawly Herald, Ireland, July 1847:
From the promise of an early, and, where the seed was sown, of a plentiful harvest, it was seen as if the Almighty was mercifully to shorten the days of our calamity. But in the sanguine anticipations, which are but natural, wherever the land is cropped, we are debarred from sharing to the same extent on witnessing entire tracts have been left unseeded and desolate in Galway and Mayo, and no doubt in other places.
It was dark as he left Carrigard for Liverpool and Quebec.
Luke knew he had left most of his family forever. His father, his mother, his brother and his little sister, these he would never see again. But Winnie would follow on. Their baby too. But the question was when?
It was not as if there was anything unusual about this. Many Mayo families had suffered the same, and now in the midst of famine and fever, many, many more were suffering. America was different to England. Men and women worked the summer season in England. Some returned after a few months, but many stayed for years, working as navvies on English railways. But post to England was rapid. You could expect a reply to a letter within eight or ten days.
America or the Canadian provinces – they were different. Five or six weeks sailing each way – it took three months to even get a reply to a letter, and no one ever returned.
But Winnie would follow him to America. That much was certain. So many men, at least in normal times, travelled to America to settle. They brought out their wives and families when they had the money and a fixed address. The address was crucial. He knew many stories of men who had crossed the Atlantic, and were never heard of again. Men who never made money, who never settled long enough in one place. Men who could not even write. It was a hard thing for any family to be waiting for the American letter for news, or for money to stop the hunger, or to bring wives and families across to America. Often, the letter never came.
*
When he reached Knockanure, the sun had risen. The first houses were only mud cabins with straw roofs. These were the sure signs of the desperate poverty of the West. He stopped in shock as he saw a dead body on the
road, rats already sniffing at it. He was well used to such sights. He pulled it into the side of the road and walked on.
In the town, the Workhouse had the usual crowds outside, clamouring for entry. It was only a few days since he had last seen his brother, but even so, this was his last chance to see him or Sarah. Inside the high gate of the Workhouse, two inmates with sticks ensured that no one climbed the gate. Luke pushed through the crowd to one of the inmates and explained he was Pat Ryan’s brother. The man only nodded, and Luke clambered over the gate, dropping down the other side. He was directed to the back of the Workhouse, and went around, passing the fever sheds towards the mass grave. He saw Pat there, directing the inmates, back-filling soil into the grave. As he watched, two more inmates carried a body past him and threw it in. He shouted at his brother without going closer. Pat waved and came across.
‘I don’t want to go any nearer,’ Luke said, ‘but I couldn’t pass by without seeing you and Sarah.’
Pat nodded. ‘I can understand you not wanting to go closer. It’s awful, but you get used to it.’
‘How are you getting on here?’
‘Well enough, but little else has changed. The Workhouse is in a dreadful way, though better than it was some months back.’
‘How’s that?’
‘The fever is less. They cleared out hundreds on the boats to British America, and hundreds more died, but they didn’t let so many back in. They knew the crowding only killed more from fever. So the Workhouse isn’t as packed, and the fever isn’t killing as many as it used to. They’re still dying, but nothing like it was. I’ll tell you this though, Luke, 1847 will never be forgotten in County Mayo. Black ’47, that’s what they’re calling it.’
They walked over towards the Administration block. Luke was thankful. He had no desire to see the death pit again, nor the inside of the Workhouse either.
Sarah was working, adding long columns.
‘Look who’s here,’ Pat said. Sarah glanced up.
‘Luke!’ She ran and embraced him. ‘How’s Winnie? How’s the baby?’
‘Both are well, though the baby is far enough away. Sometime early next year. March, they’re reckoning.’
‘She’ll join you in the summer, will she?
‘That’s what we’re hoping anyway, if they’re both well enough before the shipping season is ended, and if I’m well settled, she’ll join me. But for all we know, the American ports might still be closed to the ships from Ireland or Liverpool, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want her and the baby to come in by Quebec, and have them travelling down to New York or Pennsylvania by land. And I’d have to be settled enough wherever I’m going so as to make sure I’d still be there whenever she arrives. We’ll see.’
‘But if she doesn’t make next year…’
‘Yes,’ said Luke, ‘it would have to be the year after. God only knows.’
‘1849,’ Pat exclaimed. ‘But you’d be two years apart then.’
‘Don’t I know it, but…?’
‘Why don’t you just go over to Stockport?’ Sarah asked. ‘Work with Danny?’
‘Danny, is it? Our dear cousin, the roughest labour contractor in England. Helping drive Mayo men into the ground with starvation wages? No, I’d never do that. And anyhow, from all we hear, Mikey and the boys are earning good wages out in America.’
‘But Danny would have you as a ganger, surely?’
‘He might, Sarah. Still I reckon I could earn more in America as a labourer than I would with Danny as a ganger. And anyhow, I don’t want it. No, the only future for me – for any of us – is America. Why don’t you come too?’
‘To America? I couldn’t leave mother. And with Pat working here as a clerk, sure, we’re not starving.’
Luke nodded.
‘Fair enough, so. There’s only one thing I’d ask of the two of you. Keep an eye on Winnie and the baby too, when it arrives. And let’s all pray the famine and fever has run its course.’
*
Soon, he was on the road again, heading east out of Knockanure. He saw gangs of men, women and children in the uniform of the Workhouse, repairing roads. There were few of them, and nothing like the many thousands who worked on road building and repair before the Relief Works were stopped. And the weather was warm, with none of the freezing cold of the winter that had killed so many thousands of starving people. The potato crop looked good, but he could see that very little had been planted. He knew starving people had eaten their own seed potatoes. The hunger would go on.
Many times he passed impoverished groups of men, women and children walking towards Dublin. Some talked of the Dublin Workhouses, but most were travelling to Liverpool, and then on to America. Luke wondered how many would get to Dublin, let alone Liverpool or America.
He was walking the same road on which he had returned from England, just over a year ago. Seven years working on the English railways, but then he had to come back to farm his father’s farm. Even before he left England, Mayo had frightened him. When he arrived, he could see why. Even then, he could see the early signs of hunger following the lesser potato failure in 1845. But no-one had expected the terrible starvation and cold of the bitter winter of 1846, nor the savage fever epidemics of 1847. Connaught had been devastated.
Oh God, Winnie, when will I see you again?
Knockanure to Ballaghaderreen to Frenchpark. Everywhere, the abandoned mud cabins, their people dead or gone. Sodden thatch collapsing on sodden walls, returning to the earth. He remembered how many of those he had seen around Brockagh, Ardnagrena, Knocklenagh and, worst of all, the mud villages strung out across Croghancroe. The dying and the dead.
Belllinagare and Tulsk. Strokestown. He walked down the wide main street, the Big House at the end of it. There was a strange silence in the town. He stopped at a bar outside the town, and it was here he heard stories of a mass eviction. Fifteen hundred people sent to Dublin and Liverpool, and on to Quebec, only two months before. Nothing had been heard from them since, though, as Luke reflected, it would have been too early to cross the Atlantic and expect letters back in that time. There were also rumours of more evictions to come. He thought of the Lucan evictions at Gort-na-Móna, just above Kilduff. How many of those might have been sent to Quebec out of those who were admitted into Knockanure Workhouse, or any of the other Workhouses. They might have been lucky to be sent to Quebec instead of the mass fever graves in the Workhouses.
He reached Termonbarry and crossed the Shannon, leaving Connaught behind. There was less devastation in the Leinster counties, fewer mud cabins to abandon, but there were still crowds outside the Midlands Workhouses, and more crowds of people walking towards Dublin. Luke noted from their accents that most were from Connaught. County Mayo and County Roscommon sending their people to England and America.
Longford, Edgeworthstown and Mullingar.
Kinnegad, Enfield and Kilcock.
After five days of hard walking, he reached the edge of Dublin, herds of cattle streaming toward the Cattle Market at Smithfield. On the other side of the Liffey was the huge Guinness brewery with its greedy appetite for thousands of tonnes of barley to brew the black beer. How many thousands upon thousands of families could be fed from that barley?
He walked along the quays, all wet and stinking from the cattle manure. At the North Wall Docks, three cattle boats were tied up at the pier. He watched the flow of cattle into the boats, hundreds of ragged people squeezing in with them. At first he considered taking one of the cattle boats – thruppence only to Liverpool. He saw a passenger ship though and considered the matter. He knew he had to save as much cash as possible for when he arrived in Quebec, but even so, he did not want to arrive in Liverpool streaked with cattle manure. He went to the passenger ship.
A man with a table was collecting fares.
‘Six shillings.’
‘Six shillings,’ Luke exclaimed. ‘It was only…’
‘Forget what it was. It’s six shillings now.’
Luke hesi
tated, and the next man pushed him out of the way. It had only been a shilling and sixpence when he had crossed from Liverpool last year. A quarter the price. Reluctantly, he walked towards the cattle boat.
‘A shilling!’ The price here had quadrupled too, but there was little he could do. He paid.
As he joined the long line of families waiting to board, he took off his shoes and rolled his trousers up. He knew well the conditions he would find inside a cattle boat.
The crossing was pathetic and disgusting. Walking barefoot through manure was bad enough, but even so, he could not protect his clothes from the filth. The low keening of the women, mixed with the bellowing of the cattle, left him no opportunity to sleep, even if he could have found somewhere to do so. It was the keening that upset him more than the cattle. He had heard it many times before, as the women scrabbled through the potato fields, though they already knew from the colour of the leaves what they would find.
The crossing was calm enough, so he was not seasick, though many around him were.
It was strange, he reflected, that he had never travelled on the cattle ship before. Even when he first crossed to England in 1840, it had been on a passenger ship. When he had been working on the railways, nothing less was acceptable. But this Famine was even worse than 1840. The shipping companies were taking advantage of the enormous demand from the Famine refugees by packing them in and multiplying the prices four times over.
Three days later, they arrived in the Clarence Dock in Liverpool. The gangplank dropped. The police were waiting at the end. Beyond them, more police surrounded a crowd of hundreds of tattered people.
As the people disembarked from the ship, two men in civilian clothes stood forward and started watching the crowd. From time to time they pointed passengers out, and these were dragged away by the police, their families following. Whenever anyone protested, they were clubbed.
Neither of the selectors glanced at Luke, and he walked past the crowds. Across the road from the dock he spotted a bar and was surprised to see a statue of Saint Patrick outside. Curious, he crossed the road and saw the bar was crowded. Two men were standing outside, drinking ale. Luke recognised the Irish accents.
