by Charles Egan
But it was Luke Eleanor was thinking most about. What Winnie had told her was disturbing, though she knew some of it already, and suspected much of the rest. She had not been able to forget it, every day it came back to her. The horror, the hatred, she could understand that. But Luke, tough and all as he was in so many ways, had been living on the edge. Or beyond it? What Winnie had told her about Luke’s experience on Croghancoe did not surprise her either. She knew it was no vision though. So what now?
Now Luke was out on the broad Atlantic, with no one for company but desperate people fleeing a cursed land. How many had fever? Could he survive it? Even if he did, what would be the state of his mind? Winnie was right to worry, much as Eleanor herself had comforted her. Yes, it was hard to wait, another seven or ten weeks at least until the first letter came. If it came.
Other matters gnawed at her. Michael was getting old, and she knew he would not be able to work two farms for much longer. Perhaps not even now. And two quarries too, patching up roads for the County and the Barony. Almost impossible.
But this put more pressure on Pat. Five days working for the Union at the Workhouse, and then two brutally tough days on the weekend helping his father to catch up. She wondered if he could last the pace. More important, when Michael finally could not work the farm, would Pat become the farmer? Not as long as he had a paid position at the Union. But if he did not work the farm, who would?
She thought of the stories of the death pit at Knockanure Workhouse. And the Union – what if Pat lost his position? If it was bankrupt, how long could they keep him? What if the price of corn went up?
What if the potato failed again?
Chapter 5
London Daily News, August 1847:
The Railway Mania, and railways were in the field long before short food crops were heard of, or suspected; and in fact, but for the enormous disbursements occasioned by the imports of food for a starving population amounting probably to some thirty millions in all, freights included, during the last year and the present, the capital required for the railways might all have been supplied with little comparative inconvenience.
England. Danny put down his pen, and looked out at the driving rain. In the distance he could see the high red arches of Edgeley Viaduct leading from Manchester into Stockport Station. He felt uneasy.
An envelope lay on his desk. It had been hand delivered, addressed simply to Daniel Ryan, and marked ‘Most urgent. Attention addressee only’.
At length, he opened it, not knowing what to expect. He read it with stunned amazement.
Brassey was asking Edwardes & Ryan to enter a contract.
And what a contract!
The envelope contained a detailed map, which illustrated plans for a cutting on the North Staffordshire Railway, together with a series of calculations.
Attached was a brief letter.
‘For the attention of Daniel Ryan.
We have determined that Edwardes & Ryan might be an appropriate labour contractor to undertake the attached contract. A price of £22,000 has been determined.
Please confirm that you are willing to undertake this work, and address your response to Mr. Simon Johnson, senior clerk, acting on behalf of Thomas Brassey & Co. at Birkenhead.’
Danny had known about Thomas Brassey for many years. He knew that Brassey was the biggest railway contractor in the world, said to be employing fifty or a hundred thousand men, mainly in Britain, but also across Europe and further afield.
Long before that, Danny had been working for Brassey, though in a different way.
Since he was twelve, Danny had been one of Martin Farrelly’s gang of ten or fifteen men from the Kilduff area, who worked up and down England for various different railway and labour contractors. But the contractors varied, and often the gang had found themselves working with men they truly despised. But whenever they worked with Brassey’s managers, they knew they were working with honest men.
The only difference was that he had been a navvy then. Now he was a labour contractor himself, and Brassey wanted to work with him.
He knew that if he signed this contract, it would be the greatest break he would ever get. But it would also be the greatest risk he would ever take.
How long was it since he had come to England? 1838. So long? He had not been back to Mayo in that time. He thought of all the years working as a navvy with Farrelly and the others. Great years, but he was the only one with the ambition to break away to form his own business.
England was where the future lay. It gave a man chances – the chances to fight all the way to the top as a contractor. Not even two years in business, and he, Daniel Ryan, was employing four hundred men.
Anderson & Sons had been his first customer. Andersons were railway contractors, handling local contracts in the Stockport and Manchester area. The firm was owned by Roy Anderson, who had become a friend.
Anderson was building a number of stretches of railway in the Manchester and Stockport area. This was where Danny’s main sites were. Up to now, Anderson was his only customer. Danny had just finished a contract near Gatley two weeks ahead of time, and precisely at the price agreed. He was now working on three more contracts for Anderson, one on the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, another on the Liverpool & Bury Railway and a third on the Leeds, Dewsbury & Manchester Railway.
Danny intended to finish these contracts ahead of schedule, and preferably at an even lower cost and higher profit.
These three were straightforward. More contentious though, were the Works Danny was carrying out at Oxford Road, in Ancoats, which was almost in the centre of Manchester City. This again was a contract from Roy Anderson, though Anderson did not wish anyone to know of his own involvement. He was perfectly happy therefore to let Danny front the operation for him.
Oxford Road was part of the Manchester South Junction Railway. It was to be driven straight through ‘Little Ireland’, which was known as the worst ghetto in Manchester, and perhaps in all of England. It had developed a reputation in countries far beyond England too, and had become a major embarrassment for Manchester. The city fathers were delighted at the prospect of demolishing it, and the Manchester South Junction Railway gave them a perfect excuse.
Whatever of Ancoats, it was through the other Anderson sites that Danny was developing his reputation. Word had begun to spread among the larger contractors too. Brassey, Peto, Mackenzie and the rest of them, were forced to deal with Irish labour contractors, but most of those were semi-literate, if that. At a time like this, Edwardes & Ryan could be invaluable to any main contractor who had little desire to deal with Irish navvies directly. Danny was literate, highly numerate too, as were his most senior gangers. They would know well how to deal with the agents working for the big contractors. He had always intended to approach Brassey directly, but he had never dreamt that Brassey might approach him first.
The Railway Mania from 1844 to 1847 had created a bewildering profusion of railway construction, as new railway companies built lines in a frenzy of competition all over England. Many said there would be no end to it until England was crossed and criss-crossed by railways, connecting every city, town and village.
It was surprising to Danny that such a boom should continue in England while Ireland was starving. The two countries were detached to a massive degree – a roaring boom contrasting with a murderous famine. A voracious demand for labour against an endless supply of men willing to work for starvation wages. And this gave Danny his greatest opportunities.
The question was – how long would it all last? Could the boom collapse?
Up to now, he always had sufficient workers, which meant he could always bring contracts in on time. If they were running late, he could just hire more workers, and pay them as little as he liked. He did not supply shacks on the Works, and most of the navvies built their own mud cabins alongside, much as they did in County Mayo.
Edwardes & Ryan could undercut any bid from the other labour contractors, and guarantee time of c
ompletion. So long as he had a supply of cheap labour.
Unlike the other Irish contractors and gang-masters, Danny read the newspapers obsessively.
Until he met Irene, he had little concern for the outside world beyond the railways and railway contractors.
But that had all changed when he started living with her. For a woman, she was highly educated.
Also, she came from Manchester, and now every day the Manchester Times arrived in the house. Then Danny ordered the main Liverpool and London papers too. He had never read newspapers before. On the gangs, no one else cared, and back in Carrigard, no one could afford to buy papers. Sixpence was too high a price.
Danny took it as a great opportunity to broaden his horizons. News of parliament in Westminster absorbed him, and the wider reports on political developments in Europe and America fascinated him. The Kaffir Wars intrigued him too. He wondered how much rail building there might be in southern Africa.
The Manchester and Liverpool papers covered mainly the North West of England. The London papers covered the world. He had started reading the financial pages through his interest in the railway companies, the banks that supported them, and the trading companies that supplied them. There were many words he did not understand at first, but he had learnt a lot. Literacy was a major advantage, and Danny’s quick mind grasped the key concepts rapidly.
But railways were his key concern, which all the newspapers covered in depth.
Railways, railways, railways.
Some papers claimed Railway Mania was over, but Danny was not convinced either way. If it continued he did not want to miss out. But if the market crashed, he could be highly vulnerable.
The problem was, how to finance it all. From the start, he had the backing of the Manchester & Salford Bank. He had the strong support of Anderson & Sons in all his dealings with the Bank, and Roy Anderson had accompanied him to the early meetings with the Bank. Now he would have to deal with the Bank on his own. If he was to run gangs with other contractors, Danny’s dealings had to be confidential to each contractor and the Bank. He would have been stretched financially if he won any new contracts. Now this massive opportunity with Brassey would stretch him even further. It was essential to talk to the Manchester & Salford before he accepted the Brassey contract.
Best talk to Irene first.
He observed her sharp profile. A beautiful woman, no doubting that, but a tough one too. Wasn’t that what had first attracted him to her? The toughness showed in the way she dealt with everyone.
As English as they came – he admired her for that too. His lover, soon to be his wife.
She had come to Edwardes & Ryan as his secretary, but now she was far more than that. Everyone had at first thought of her as some kind of clerk, or perhaps an assistant to Danny, but they soon discovered otherwise. She was a hard woman, working now in a men’s world.
All dealings with the main contractors and with the Manchester & Salford Bank, she left strictly to Danny. But dealings with timber merchants, builder’s providers, horse breeders, wagon makers and quarrymen were increasingly Irene’s own responsibility, as they soon found out. Edwardes & Ryan had a ravenous appetite for shovels and picks for the navvies’ horses and wagons for the cartmen and graded stone to prepare the permanent way for the main contractors. Irene knew well that the smaller local suppliers were more dependent on Edwardes & Ryan, and she was well able to push prices down, particularly with the quarrymen.
Her ability with accounts also amazed him. She could glance through accounts – payrolls, trial balances, profit & loss statements, balance sheets – and pick the key figures out at once. And her speed of reckoning, that surprised him too. He had thought he was able to reckon numbers, and he knew his gangers could, but Irene could out-reckon them all.
‘You know,’ Danny said to her, ‘there are a lot more contracts coming. Which could well be a problem.’
‘I thought you said to be careful.’ she replied. ‘You said railway construction was dropping.’
‘That was back in April, but it’s back up now. Parliament has been pushing railways hard. The past few months alone, there’s been eighty Royal Assents for new railway lines. Eighty! Can you believe it?’
‘Looks like Railway Mania again to me,’ she said, sharply.
‘Might well be.’
‘We have plenty or orders though?’ she asked.
‘We have.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘Hard to know. There’s a lot of contradictions in what they all say. Sure, there’s lots of new lines to be built. But can they afford it? The government has spent a fortune on the Irish Famine. So now there’s a money shortage. Railways fighting everyone else for cash. The ironworks have to pay cash on the nail. No cash, no iron ore, no rail. Worse than that, the saw-mills are really in trouble, especially the fellows importing lumber. If they can’t get bills of exchange from the Liverpool banks, the Quebec banks won’t pay out in Canada. No cash, no lumber, no sleepers. No railways to be built.’
‘I think you read the papers too much,’ she said. ‘They’re always in a panic.’
‘Maybe. Or maybe not.’
‘So what can we do? What of Andersons? That’s where our money comes from.’
‘Indeed, and I’d like to finish off our contracts there as quickly as possible. Two reasons. First to get the money.’
‘Naturally.’
‘But there’s a second reason,’ Danny said. ‘There’s some question of some of some of the Liverpool & Bury Works being suspended.’
‘Suspended!’
‘Nothing certain, only a rumour, and even if it happens, they’re saying it’ll only be for the rest of the year. But I’m not sure that I believe that. If it’s suspended, it could be for years.’
‘So what then?’
‘Finish our contract on the Liverpool & Bury as soon as possible. At least we’ll have cash in the bank.’
‘Does Roy know about this? Will he have any of his contracts suspended?’
‘I don’t know. He should know though. Roy’s smart enough.’
‘So what now?’ she asked.
‘Brassey. We’ll work for Brassey.’
‘Brassey!’ she exclaimed. ‘Stop dreaming. We’ve a business to run.’
‘Take a look at this.’ He placed the letter on her desk. Quickly, she read it, eyes opening.
‘Twenty two thousand!’ she gasped. ‘Are they serious?’
‘Deadly serious. This is the biggest chance we’ve ever had. We’ve just got to get it.’
‘But…how do we bid?’
‘We don’t. Brassey has approached us to act as a labour contractor. And you don’t bid with Brassey on this level. He decides what the contract is worth, and it’s our decision to accept or not.’
Irene shook her head.
‘I don’t understand all this,’ she said.
‘It’s up to us to check his figures, and see the site. Decide if we can make money on it. If so, we accept.’
‘But…will we have the money?’
‘We’ll have to ask the Manchester & Salford.’
‘Where Roy will support us.’
‘I’m not so sure of that. Up to now, we’ve either been working for Roy, or other small contracts around which were of no interest to him. If we work as a direct contractor for Brassey, we’re becoming a competitor. I’m not sure Roy will like that.’
‘He won’t.’
‘So I’ve got to meet the Bank myself. On my own. Prove to them we’re worth lending to.’
‘How will you prove that?’
‘Two ways. One is the very fact that Brassey has approached us on a contract of this size. That speaks volumes. The second point is to convince them that our ways of doing business are superior to anyone else. In our normal business, we can undercut most of the other fellows. On a contract like this, I think it might be even better. I think we might be able to make an enormous profit. And that would certainly interest the Manche
ster & Salford Bank.’
‘It would,’ Irene said.
‘But there’s another thing that worries me. Getting the workers. We’re already running short with the work we have. We’ll need more, and with a Brassey contract, we’ll need them damned fast.’
‘But Liverpool…? Isn’t the Workhouse supplying us with enough?’
‘They are. Or they were. The problem is to get Mayo fellows. But the Workhouse see no reason to sort them out. Murtybeg says it’s nearly impossible to get that type of gang now. They’re insisting we take all kinds of fellows – Kerry, Donegal and the rest of it.’
‘And what’s wrong with that?’ she asked.
‘First, we’re trying to keep them together as gangs, and if they’re all mixed up, there’s no loyalty to each other, and they’ll drift off in ones and twos. Second, they can’t understand one another. Donegal and West Cork Irish are different enough. It’s hard to give orders, the gangers are complaining of it. And third, they’re insisting we take English speakers, and by God, we won’t have that.’
Irene shook her head.
‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘you’re right. We can’t have English speakers, can we?’
‘Under no circumstances.’
‘So what then?’ she asked.
‘Damned if I know.’
‘You know, Danny, the real problem we’re going to have here is one of time.’
‘I know. We’ve got to deal with Brassey, deal with the bank. Find more workers too, and that’s getting tough. We’ve all our existing sites to run. And in the middle of it all, we’re to be wed? How’ll we have time to organise a wedding? We haven’t even booked a hotel yet.’
‘I know. And it’ll have to be a top one too. The Midland Hotel at the very least.’
‘I agree, and there’s no way on earth we’re going to be able to do all that over the next few weeks.’
‘Are we committed though?’ she asked. ‘Have we booked the Registry Office?’
