Debut novel sheds new light on Clew Bay boating tragedy
MAYO author Padraig McLoughlin’s debut novel is a story of how love can blossom even in circumstances of extreme hardship and poverty, and it will be launched in the Achill Sound Hotel on Sunday, September 19.
Only the Stones Never Die tells the story of Kate Grealis and Eoin Gallagher, two Achill islanders forced to emigrate to Scotland in order to pay their families’ debts to the British State.
While a work of fiction, McLoughlin’s novel is closely based on real events, and is the result of the author’s life-long fascination with the subject. The book succeeds in shedding new light on the lives of west of Ireland ‘tattie-hokers’, how they were forced to flee appalling hardship, and the racism and sexism they often experienced when they arrived in England and Scotland.
Mayo people have a particular reason to remember 1894, of course, the year Only the Stones is set in. It was the year of the Clew Bay boating disaster.
On the morning of Thursday, June 14, at Darby’s Point at Achill’s southern edge, 126 people boarded a hooker called the ‘Victory’, and set sail for Westport, where the SS Elm was waiting to bring them to Scotland. Tragically, the boat capsized off the coast, with 32 perishing in the water, many of them trapped under the collapsed canvas sails.
Their deaths were all the more tragic as the hooker had been packed well beyond capacity. The ‘Victory’ was built for 30 people, not 126.
What isn’t widely understood is the reason so many people were emigrating to Scotland from Achill that year, and this is something McLoughlin explores in detail in his novel.
In 1890, the British State introduced the Seed Potatoes Supply Act, prompted by potato crop failings and the risk of starvation. The Act, as McLoughlin explores through the eyes of his heroes Eoin and Kate, allowed people to purchase potato seeds on credit from the local Board of Works. The catch was the credit had to be repaid in two instalments.
As McLoughlin describes vividly in his novel, the inhabitants of Achill struggled to make their repayments, and the state, represented by the Local Government Board, ordered bailiffs to confiscate their property in lieu of their loans - cattle, sheep and pigs were taken and houses were ransacked by sheriffs and bailiffs. As a result of this hardship, families were forced to send their children, some as young as 12, away to work in potato fields in Scotland.
This was the background as to why, on that fateful morning, 126 were squashed into the ‘Victory’.
With Ireland’s population reaching five million for the first time since the Great Famine, there is renewed interest in how the country has struggled with hunger, and how it has touched so many aspects of our history. McLoughlin succeeds in illuminating the historical and social factors behind the Clew Bay tragedy. He also succeeds in bringing the past to life in a way only a novelist can.
The front cover features an illustration by Padraig McLoughlin’s daughter Alice McLoughlin. The painting captures all the poignancy of the novel.
Launch event
Padraig McLoughlin will be launching his book on September 19 at the Achill Sound Hotel, between 4 and 7 p.m. Speakers include Vincent English of Achill Heritage Centre and the author himself. Everyone is welcome, and all current public health guidelines will be upheld.
Only the Stones can be purchased at McLoughlin’s Bookshop on Shop Street, Westport (online and in-store), Seamus Duffy’s Bookshop on Bridge Street, Westport, and the Castle Bookshop, Castlebar (online and in-store).
The book is on sale from September 20, price €18.