During the Great Famine that affected Ireland between 1845 and 1852, one million people – that is one out of every eight people who lived on the island of Ireland – died of hunger and hunger-related diseases, while another million fled their native land to avoid similar fates. All of the horror and misery and pain of that time is captured in this extract from a new book The Little History of Galway by Colm Wallace.

 

A severe famine had struck the country in 1822 and there were many deaths throughout Galway. Newspapers reported that ‘whole clans were pouring in [to Galway City] from the mountains of Connemara in search of food’. Another source claimed that the people had to resort to ‘eating the bark off the trees, the young wheat in the ear and the primrose leaves’, while references were made to the swollen limbs and naked bodies of the people.

The Freeman’s Journal reported that families in the county had in desperation killed off and eaten their pigs, geese and hens and afterwards faced imminent starvation. This famine also caused various diseases to spread, but fortunately the following year’s harvest was much improved and things slowly got back to normal. However, the Great Famine that struck in 1845 was unlike anything ever seen.
The first sign that something was amiss came when blotches appeared on the leaves and stems of potatoes. These were a result of a fungus called blight that caused half of the crop of 1845 to rot. The overcrowded nature of rural Galway and the poor soil characteristic of the land on the west coast saw the county being one of the worst affected in that year.

There was great hardship, but as it was the first time famine had occurred for several years, many people were able to cope.
Some had food left over from the previous year’s harvest while others were able to fish the lakes and rivers for food. Others picked berries and ate seaweed or sold or pawned their nets, boats and furniture to buy food. The British government, which ruled Ireland at the time, also imported a food known as Indian Meal, which was given out to many poorer people at a low price.

This meal was hard to digest and very unpleasant to eat but did have some impact in preventing deaths. The people who had just about survived 1845 looked forward to a better harvest the following year. Tragically, 1846 proved to be devastating. Very few potatoes could be salvaged from the ground and there was nowhere near enough food to keep tenant families nourished.
Most people had used up their food supply and sold many of their worldly possessions the year before. The poorest people, already weakened from 1845, fell ill with terrible diseases and many died due to hunger and disease. Few had money to pay their rent.

Some landlords were somewhat sympathetic. Many were not. Marcella Gerrard, a landlord from Ballinlass near Mountbellew, evicted nearly 3,000 of her tenants and ordered sixty homes be demolished. The evicted tenants were reported to be sleeping in ditches.
The Gerrards had been advised by neighbouring landlords to give evicted tenants the price of their passage to America. In most cases, they did not do so.

Desperation often led to violence, and in the same village in September 1847 Patrick Costello, a ‘driver for rent’, was murdered and his head ‘literally smashed … to atoms’ for bringing proceedings against people for trespass.

A new British government in 1846, led by John Russell, also proved disastrous, the new regime taking a hands-off approach, believing that the free market would solve all ills, despite growing reports from Ireland that people were dying in their droves.

The exportation of Irish-grown food also occurred from Galway, despite the desperate conditions locally. As 1846 wore on, many of Galway’s poor and starving masses, most notably fishermen from the Claddagh, began to attempt to obstruct the exportation of food.

Continue reading in this week’s edition of Ireland’s Own