Local history: Women and migration in County Mayo 1820 - 1850

PART ONE

By Tom Gillespie

THE utter destruction to family life during the Famine years, caused by forced migration, and particularity the hardship endured by mothers and children, was the theme of an article in the Mayo Association Galway magazine in 1988, written and researched by Maureen Langan-Egan.

This is part one of her article.

The 30 years from 1820 to 1850 are dominated by the spectre of the Great Famine and the onset of emigration on a scale previously unknown in Irish history.

Such a spectrum of events tends to avert attention from other phenomena such as seasonal migration, which occurred during this period and which continued well into the 20th century.

Migration occurred in many less well-off areas in the country, but was particularly important to the economy of the depressed western counties, especially Galway and Mayo.

In the earlier years of this period, there was much migration in the county, particularly among men. In 1841, there were 10,430 migrants from Mayo and the total number of migrants from Connaught numbered 25,118. Of particular interest is how women and children came to terms with this fact.

There were many factors which made migration such a live issue in the first half of the 19th century.

In the first decade of the century, there was a growing demand in Great Britain for outside agricultural labour which coincided with lessening employment in Ireland. This extra demand must have been seen as a boon to harassed men and their wives and families.

A new system of agriculture was evolving in England which involved principal figures, the large farmer and the hired day labourer.

Irish migrants were welcomed by the land owners because, besides supplying the farmer with more efficient labour - than the local village paupers - they also relieved men of the onus of supporting the parish labourers, who, when the temporary employment was over, would become burdens on the Poor Rate.

This welcome did not extend to the native labourers on the mainland who felt threatened by Irish migrants, both men and women, who were landed by the steam boats in places such as the very heart of Scotland, near the agricultural districts.

This prejudice against western migrants also occurred at home, especially among the workers of the south east, who regarded them as ‘dirty pool-dwellers, bog trotters, mountaineers without self-respect and manners’. Many a sensitive man or woman who had gone to Leinster to work during the harvest must have cringed in the face of such derision.

Women in Mayo were particularly affected by migration as migrants left the county at the rate of one in 37 of the inhabitants in the year 1851.

Whether wives remained at home with their children or accompanied their husbands, they endured great hardship.

There were great variations within the county however. For example, very few migrated from Lacken or Killala. In other parishes such as Crossmolina and Cong, migration was almost totally confined to unmarried men.

The various witnesses for Doonfeeny give us a very confused picture of the incidence of migration in this parish.

In Kilfian, 61 men migrated, and all of them, except four, were married. When one considers the large number of ‘widows’ in this parish, one cannot but sympathise with the women who had to carry a very heavy burden of agricultural work as well as the ordinary domestic duties.

Along the seaboard, as at Aughavale, it was mainly married man who migrated. Half of the male migrants from Castlemore were married.

In relative prosperous areas of the county such as Ballyhean, Aglish, Ballintubber and Burricarra, approximately one-third of married men migrated.

While it was stated that it was the custom of the harvester’s wife and family to remain in Ireland and beg in the more opulent counties, this practice was not universal.

Many women stayed in or very close to their homes, particularly if their husbands were able to provide for them, even partially, in their absence.

Many men made gallant efforts to provide provisions for their wives and families in their absence. This was difficult in a cash-starved economy and it was reckoned that a migrant from Mayo needed at least one pound for the journey to England before making any provisions for those at home.

In some instances husbands did not make provision for wives and families before migrating, not through malice but because of the fear of failing to meet future financial commitments, as the husband’s earnings were required to pay the rent.

We hear of the plight of men who could not depend on relatives or neighbours to help their families in their absence. In this situation men took as much provisions as would support their families during their absence from some independent neighbour, giving him some 30 to 35 per cent interest and security to pay to the last farthing as soon as they returned. Others managed to leave provisions for a portion of the time they were absent. This was the usual practice in Kilcolman.

When these provisions ran out, women and children resorted to begging. These could count themselves lucky when contrasted with the women for whom no provision was made.

In large areas of the county such as Doonfeeny, Kilmaine and Aughagower, women resorted to begging. In parts of Aughavale, in the absence of men, women and children shut up their houses and took to the roads.

Some resorted to begging only when their potato supplies ran out. Some who stayed in their cabins lived on one scant meal a day rather than beg. Others depended on the help of friends and relatives.

Some women tried to be self-sufficient and provide food for themselves. Some women, particularly in Burriscarra and Ballintubber, lived on the produce of their gardens which in general contained from a rood to an acre. Others lived on the produce of their little farms of con acres.

Some wives in Kilmaclash were left with a sufficient quantity of potatoes to sustain them in the absence of their husbands. In Castlebar and Aglish, wives and children lived on the provisions in store for the year. Formerly these women used to beg.

The position in Balla, just a few miles away, was in stark contrast, as the migrant labourers ‘left their wives in misery at home’.

Some families in desperation resorted to the workhouse as a temporary measure and even pawned their clothes before entering them.

On a visit to Westport workhouse in June 1850, Forbes learned that ‘no fewer that 300 children had gone out of the house in consequence of money received from their fathers in England and Scotland and 21 had gone to America through funds sent home to them by their relations. In fact, when wives left the workhouse to join their husbands on their return, many of the older girls were unwilling to leave them’.

NEXT WEEK: Male migrants were forced to pawn their only clothes.