by Charles Egan
‘Unproven?’
‘For now, my love. But let’s not worry what might have been. The Brassey contract, that’s all that matters, and I reckon if we play our cards right, we could become Brassey’s preferred Irish labour contractor. And you know what that could mean? More contracts, Irene. A hell of a lot more.’
She shook her head. ‘That might be so. Still – there’s this business of the Ormskirk Cutting with Mackenzie. Then we’d be working with two of England’s top contractors.’
‘I know. But…’
‘You know that Baxendales bank with the Manchester & Salford.’
‘They do?’
‘Yes, and I reckon Winrow would never have told you that.’
Danny was astonished again.
‘But, Irene, how do you know…?’
‘Never mind how I know. But I can understand it. That’s the reason they won’t lend to us. Baxendales are far larger than us, and an important bank customer. The bank won’t support us against Baxendales. What worries me is this. Are we always going to lose out to bigger contractors?’
‘We’ve still got Brassey, Irene. Mackenzie can come later.’
*
The Facility Letter from the Manchester & Salford Bank arrived, but only for the Brassey contract.
‘So now we’ve got to get Brassey’s to approve,’ Irene said.
‘Yes,’ Danny replied, ‘and damned fast.’
The next few weeks were busy ones for Danny.
He wrote to Brassey’s, confirming his acceptance of the contract.
Two days later, he received a letter, requesting his presence. He went into Manchester, and took the train to Chester, travelling first class. He changed onto the Birkenhead & Chester, where he noticed that it was being expanded to take a second line.
When he arrived at Birkenhead, he went directly to the Brassey & Co., head office, where he was received by one of the clerks. They spent the next hour going through the figures in detail, to ensure that both sides were satisfied. At no time did Danny mention the low wages he was paying.
As he was leaving, he saw a man alighting from a carriage.
‘That’s Mr. Brassey,’ the clerk told him.
Danny looked back after him. The biggest contractor in England.
If Brassey could do it, he could do it.
He spent that night at home in Stockport, explaining the details to Irene. The following morning, the Brassey contract arrived, together with a request to visit the site.
‘And who should handle this contract for us,’ Irene asked.
‘Roughneen. Best by far.’
Next day, he visited Roughneen’s site. There were long lines of men with picks, hacking the side of the cutting. Alongside, there were more, shovelling soil and shale onto a line of horse-drawn carts. Every so often, one came out of the line, and drew the cart down to a ramp alongside the rail, where they were off-loaded into wagons. It brought to mind all the long years he had spent working as a navvy himself. Hard work. These navvies were not working as fast, but he was well aware of that, and they were working for very low wages. But he was feeding them well, far better than what they would have in Mayo. Slowly, they would toughen up.
Roughneen came over to him.
‘Everything going well?’ Danny asked.
‘No problems yet, Danny. We’re well on time and should be fine as long as we get new workers over the next week or two.’
Danny changed the subject.
‘I’m going down to Staffordshire tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to join me.’
‘Another contract?’
‘Yes, and it’ll be our biggest. I’ll want you to take it over.’
‘Our biggest!’ Roughneen exclaimed.
‘By far. Are you interested?’
‘Of course. But…where is this contract.’
‘It’s a new cutting on the North Staffordshire. We’re working for Brassey.’
‘Brassey!’
‘Yes, Johnny. No agents neither. Direct. This contract will be as big as all the rest put together. That’s why I want you to handle it.’
‘Of course, Danny, I’d be delighted.’ He stepped aside as a horse drawn wagon passed. ‘But if it’s as big as you say, it must be quite something.’
‘It is,’ Danny said. ‘That’s why I reckon you’re the man to run it, and I’ll be putting you up to eight shillings a day.’
‘Eight!’ Roughneen exclaimed.
‘Eight, I said.’
They walked towards the completed end of the cutting, where the horses were dragging the wagons for tipping onto the rising embankment.
‘The second question is this, If you take it over down there, who is there right here who’d run this site?’
‘Not a sinner,’ Roughneen replied. ‘There’s not one of them would be up for it. There’s only a few have the slightest smattering of English, and none of those have any arithmetic, nor any other book learning. How on earth could they run a site like this on their own?’
‘I see,’ said Danny. ‘We’ll have to think of something. Let’s leave it ’till tomorrow, and you just sleep on it. I’ll see you at Stockport station, say seven o’clock.’
‘See you then,’ Roughneen said.
Next morning, they boarded the Birmingham train, second class.
‘I’ve been thinking of that business of getting a new ganger,’ Roughneen said. ‘I think there’s only one answer. Go back to our old gang around Leeds. Farrelly’s fellows.’
‘Yes,’ said Danny, ‘I was thinking the same myself. It’s a long time since I was on the gang though. I’m sure many of them will have left since then.’
‘Including Farrelly himself. Gone to America.’
‘Not the only one, neither. Though that’s a different matter. So who would you think might be best?’
‘There’s a few fellows could take it over. But of them all, I think Tim Kearney would be the best. Joe Gilligan would be good too, if we can’t get Tim.’
‘Yes,’ Danny said, ‘I think you’re right. And we might have call for more of them in time.’
They got off before Birmingham and found where the North Staffordshire railway was being built. Using the Brassey map, they located where the cutting would be. They walked the length and breadth where it had already been marked out. Danny measured distance, as he had trained himself to do for so long, by the simple method of counting his own steps. Roughneen did the same, and they compared their estimates. They estimated the depth of the cutting at different parts, confirming the estimates by talking to navvies and gangers further down the line. It was essential to understand, not only the number of cubic yards involved, but also the type of material to be removed – soft soil, clay or rock.
‘This’ll be one hell of a contract,’ Roughneen commented.
‘It will.’
‘How many navvies will we need?’
‘Three or four hundred, I’m guessing.’
Roughneen nodded. ‘Yes, I think that’d be about right. And already we’re short of men.’
‘I know,’ Danny said. ‘I know.’
It was the following night before Danny arrived back in Stockport.
‘Well?’ Irene asked.
‘I’ll tell you this,’ Danny said. ‘There’s money in that cutting. A lot of it. Contingencies or not.’
Again, they worked through the accounts.
‘I think you’re right,’ Irene said. ‘We’ll make a lot of money on this one. And do you know something, Danny? By the middle of next year, we’re going to be rich. Really rich.’
‘Far beyond anything I ever dreamed of,’ Danny said. ‘We make a strong combination, you and me.’
Over the ensuing days, Danny visited his worksites for further discussions with his gangers, McManus in particular. His site was falling further behind, and Danny was concerned.
‘It’s the lack of workers, Danny,’ McManus told him. ‘The less workers we have, the slower we are.’
‘We
’ll sort out something,’ Danny said.
His last visit was to Newton, where he finalised negotiations for the purchase of the site for his new house. Here they would, at last, live as man and wife, away from Manchester, but close enough by train. It was beside Earleswood Junction, where the Grand Trunk Railway from Birmingham joined with the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.
‘Fifty pounds!’ Irene exclaimed that evening. ‘For three acres. Pricy.’
Danny laughed. ‘Maybe I should send you to do the talking next time.’
‘Maybe you should,’ she said, derisively.
‘But don’t forget, it’s close to Earleswood Junction. Links us into the whole rail network.’
‘But when do we start building?’
Danny hesitated.
‘I’d like to say at once, and it’s not as if we don’t have the money, but we’d have to hire an architect, and for the kind of house we want to build, he’d have to understand what we have in mind. It’ll all take time. I think it might be best to leave it ’till after the wedding. Where we’re living isn’t so bad. What do you think?’
‘I’d agree with you,’ she said. ‘Not that I want to put it off much longer, but it would be mad to start it while we’ve so little time.’
‘I know. And it’s not just for one house. It’s for the cottage too.’
‘Yes, the cottage. I wanted to talk to you about that too. We’re building a cottage for your parents.’
‘So? They have to live somewhere.’
‘Why not leave them in Mayo? This idea of bringing them over here. It’s mad.’
‘It’s not mad. They’re my parents. I have to support them. They’d only starve in Ireland.’
‘Couldn’t you just send them over the money, they’d have been happy enough.’
‘And get no return on our money? Is that what you want? No, don’t forget what I told you. My father ran his own school. He has a brain in his head and we’re going to use it.’
‘The Board of Education didn’t think much of your father’s school. They’re opening proper schools right across Ireland. English speaking schools. That’s what you told me. That tells you what your Education Board thinks of the Irish language and Irish schools.’
‘Maybe you’re right. But my father can still have a role to play in this business. A very important one. He can read, write and reckon, far faster than most. Dealing with the gangers too – he’s taught them all. No, he’ll have his work cut out for him here. Don’t you worry about that?’
‘And Aileen? Your mother, what about her? Can she read or write? Add or subtract?’
Danny thought about that. Aileen had been brought up on the Mountain. No one there had ever gone to school, and he had never seen his mother with a pen.
‘I don’t know that she can,’ Danny answered. ‘They had no teaching where she came from.’
‘And your father? All those years married, couldn’t he have taught her. She was married to a schoolmaster. What a chance they had.’
‘I know,’ Danny said, ‘and I agree with you. At that time, it wasn’t seen as a woman’s place to have book learning. Her duty was to take care of her family.’
‘And what will her work be here?’
‘To look after father.’
‘And not earn any money?’
‘Earn? Where could she earn?’
‘There’s a mill just across the way.’
‘Weir Mill! Are you serious?’
‘Why not?’
Danny shook his head.
‘You’re a hard woman, Irene.’
Chapter 6
London Standard, August 1847:
This scarcity of labour is easily accounted for. First from the deaths which occurred during the past winter among the migratory hordes that previously poured in at harvest from the counties of Mayo, Galway, Sligo and Roscommon; secondly the vast emigration to America and England of the same and rather higher classes of labourers; and thirdly the vast increase of tillage in their own localities which offers employment at home.
Danny’s parents were already on the road to England with Murtybeg. Danny had spared no expense. And, unlike Luke, they had travelled across Ireland in some comfort. Murtybeg had rented a private coach to take them from Carrigard through Castlebar and Ballaghaderreen to Castlerea, where they met the Bianconi coach service and travelled through Roscommon to Athlone. Aileen being tired, Murtybeg had booked two rooms in the Prince of Wales Hotel, the best in the town. The following day, they travelled by Bianconi coach as far as Enfield, where they stayed in the Royal Oak Inn. It was not the quality of hotel that Murtybeg might have liked, but it was certainly adequate, and the following morning they left for Dublin. This time they travelled by rail. As Murtybeg explained, the rail service had only just reached Enfield. His father was intrigued by the train, since he had never travelled on one before. Murtybeg explained how the railway itself was constructed, and Danny’s part in it as a railway contractor.
When they arrived at Kingsbridge Station in Dublin, Murtybeg called a cab and asked for the Gresham Hotel.
‘Best again, I presume?’ Murty commented.
‘Of course.’
‘And this is what Danny insists on.’
‘It’s what he’s used to himself.’
Murtybeg left his parents in the hotel, took a cab down to the docks and bought tickets for first class on the City of Dublin Steam Packet to Liverpool. That night, he slept soundly in the Gresham.
*
The crossing was a calm one. Aileen stayed in her cabin, while Murty and Murtybeg stood at the stern, watching Dublin receding. As with the railway, Murty was fascinated by being on a ship.
‘I was expecting sails,’ he said to Murtybeg.
‘This is a steam ship, father. Times are moving.’
‘They are indeed.’
They arrived at the Clarence Dock in Liverpool and stayed that night at the Adelphi, the best hotel in the largest port on earth, as Murtybeg explained it. That evening, he and his father ate alone.
‘Where’s Ma?’ Murtybeg asked.
‘Up in the room. She says she isn’t hungry.’
‘She’s always that way. And she hardly ever talks.’
Murty put a hand on Murtybeg’s wrist.
‘Don’t be worrying about it. All the business about the school closing. That worried her. And she’s fearful of all this travelling. The big hotels like this, they’re far better than she’s used to. They frighten her too.’
Murtybeg sipped his wine.
‘Yes, I can understand that. It takes a little bit of getting used to, doesn’t it?’
‘It does,’ Murty said. ‘Even for me.’
‘But there’s more than that, isn’t there?’
‘Maybe there is, but whatever it is, it’s in her own head, and there’s no way any of us will ever understand that.’
Murtybeg decided not to pursue the matter. He said nothing, as his father cut into a steak.
‘Damned good,’ Murty said. ‘I wonder where they get their meat.’
‘On the hoof from Ireland, I’d say. They bring them over on the cattle boats. And you can just thank God you weren’t on one of them.’
‘Yes,’ Murty said, ‘I’d heard about them. There’s a lot of cattle coming into Liverpool then?’
‘Not just cattle. Potatoes too. And I’d wonder how much of that was coming from County Mayo.’
‘And little enough of either there are in Mayo.’
‘I know.’
‘But enough of that,’ Murty said. ‘Tell me about this Irene woman. What’s she like?’
‘In one word – tough. That’s not to say that Danny isn’t, he wouldn’t make it as a contractor otherwise. No, Danny is really tough. Works everyone hard, pays them little and makes sure everything is on time. But I thought I’d seen everything until he took up with Irene. I’ve never seen a woman like that in my life. She tells Danny he’s too easy on everyone and paying them all too much. She knows how t
o deal with the suppliers too, a tough dealer, she is. She leaves the big contractors and the banks to Danny, they don’t know anything about her, but she’s always there in the background. She knows to the penny what the railways will pay, and she knows how to squeeze the suppliers ’till they squeal. And as for the workers, they’re lucky if they get over a shilling a day.’
‘A shilling!’
‘Tenpence halfpenny when they start.’
‘And all of them coming from Mayo?’
‘Most all of them. Danny reckons he can get the lowest wages of all from the Mayo men. That’s the very reason he won’t hire from around Kilduff. He doesn’t want paying that kind of wage to our own people.’
‘But what about Bernie Lavan? That Roughneen fellow? McManus too?’
‘They’re different. They’re gangers.’
‘But surely…’
‘They learned early on which side their bread is buttered. It’s the fellows from out Erris and the rest of West Mayo, they’re the ones who do the navvying for Danny. They eat what they’re given and get paid damned near nothing. They don’t speak English, so what chance have they? And Bernie and the rest of them, they know where they’d be, if it weren’t for Danny. Six shillings a day, they get.’
‘Six shillings!’ Murty exclaimed. ‘And the workers only get tenpence halfpenny. That’s one hell of a difference. What will they think of that?’
‘I don’t think Danny or Irene care much what the navvies think. And that’s the reason they don’t want navvies from around Kilduff. They don’t want stories getting home about that kind of thing.’
‘And this is the kind of business Danny is running?’
‘It is.’
‘And this Irene woman is tougher?’
‘A lot. She’s one hell of a lot tougher, as Danny is going to find out.’
They took a train from Liverpool to Manchester, changing for Stockport.
‘Not a bad looking house,’ Murty said when they arrived.
‘It is, but we’re only renting’ Murtybeg said. ‘They’ll be building a new house for themselves out by Newton. A cottage beside it for yourselves. I don’t know when it’ll be ready though.’
