Harrowing descriptions of Black ‘47 in County Mayo

By Tom Gillespie

IN a 'Telegraph Special’ in April 1942 an article under the heading ‘Black '47 in Mayo - era of trial and tragedy' appeared, giving a harrowing description of the Famine in Mayo.

It read:

In the Irish Famine years of 1847, the late Matthew James Higgins, best known in literature by his nom-de-plume ‘Jacob Omnium’, spent some weeks in Co. Mayo, where he witnessed first-hand the appalling conditions of the people who, while clinging indifferently to life with all its attendant horrors, readily welcomed death as the only medium of escape from their wretched plight.

Higgins was for over 20 years a contributor to the London press, where his writings were remarkable for point of terseness of style.

He was born in Benown Castle, Co. Meath, in 1810. Having received an education near his native place, he travelled to the Continent for some time and in 1845 contributed his first essay to magazines.

In 1846 Ireland was plunged into the depths of starvation and misery, caused by foreign misrule and the failure of the crops.

Matthew Higgins was unceasing in his relief of his unfortunate countrymen, and as a special correspondent of the London press went to Ireland to report the misery of the people.

He died on August 14, 1868.

In a letter to the London Times, April 22, 1847, Mr. Higgins thus pictures the terrible condition of the unfortunate people:

“I have been a resident for the last few weeks at Letterbrick, Co. Mayo, the capital of the barony of Arderry. The barony contains a scattered population of 30,000 souls.

“The little town of Letterbrick is situated in the bight of a deep bay, one of the many noble harbours which the west of Ireland abounds.

“Two-thirds of this vast extent of land is divided between two men - Mr. Black, of Kildare, and Mr. Mulligan, of Ballymulligan. The tenants are not in arrears. They have been driven, ejected and sold up with incredible severity.

“To give you an idea of what the people here endure and the landlords perpetrate, I will state that last week, accompanied by two credible English witnesses, I met several emaciated cows driven by two men and followed by their two more emaciated owners proceeding towards Letterbrick.

“I stopped them and inquired whither they were going. The two men said they were taking them to Letterbrick pound for rent owing to them. The owners declared that the rent was not due till May 1. Their landlord admitted this, but added that the fair was on April 12 and he feared unless he pounded his tenants’ cattle before that they would sell them at the fair and be off to America. So he did pound them for a debt that was not yet due.

“Of Mr. Mulligan’s exertions and ‘charities’ to meet the present crisis, it is needless to speak; he has given no money for food, while he has extracted all he can from the soil.

“He pays no taxes, builds no cottages or farm buildings, supports no schools or hospitals.

“The only duties which he attempts to perform are those which he considers he owes to himself.

‘He and his family own about 40,000 acres of land. A variety of small and sub-landlords, whose lives are spent in watching the growing crops and cattle of their tenants and pouncing upon them the moment they are ripe or fit for sale, occupy the rest of the barony and complete the misery of the people.

“At this moment there is no food; neither have the people any money, save what they earn on the public works, which are to be stopped in May.

“The land is unsown - there will be no harvest. A vessel, when she was here selling seed under prime cost, sold out £100 worth, and that almost to one small landlord, a Dublin lawyer, necessarily an absentee, whose kindness is but a drop in the ocean of human iniquity.

“At Killala, where the people clamoured loudly for seed, a vessel was sent with 350 sacks of seed, of which one was sold; and at Killybegs another vessel had no better market.

“There is at the moment fever in half the households in Arderry. I call them houses by courtesy, for they are but hollow, damp and filthy dump-heaps.

“The people sell their last rags for food, and are forced to remain in their hovels until the weakest sting from hunger; their festering corpses, which they have no means of removing, then breed a fever which carries off the rest.

“Efficient medicines or medical aid they have none and, if they had, what but good food could be prescribed with success to a starving man?

“During the short stay I have been here I have seen my fellow creatures die in the streets. I have found the naked bodies of women on the roadside and piles of coffins containing corpses left outside the cabins and in the market-place.

“I have met mothers carrying about dead infants in their arms until they are putrid, refusing to bury them, in the hope that the offensive sight might wring charity from the callous towns people sufficient to protect for a while the lives of the other children at home.

“During the last two days I have buried at my own expense 20 bodies which, had I not done so, would be still infecting the living.

‘The people here, naturally docile, become uncontrollable at the sight of provisions - not a bag of biscuits can be landed or leave the town without an armed escort; not a vessel can anchor in the bay without imminent risk of being plundered.

“Yesterday three vessels, bound to the north, were becalmed off the coast; they were instantly boarded and cleared by the famished and desperate people.

“I purchased a little seed myself, which I gave in small quantities to the people chiefly to gain some insight into their position. I found them utterly hopeless, almost indifferent, about sowing, because they are aware that any crops they may sow will be seized on for rent by the landlords.

“They preferred buying turnips and parsnip seed, although they appeared quite ‘ignorant’ how to cultivate them, because the perishable nature of these roots rended them less convenient for seizure than barley or oats.

“On my arrival here I found the soup kitchen, on which the lives of hundreds depend, stopped, not for want of funds, but because the ministers (Protestants), having $650 entrusted to them, had quarrelled and preferred seeing the people starve to making soup for them.

“Lest I may be suspected of caricature or exaggeration, I will set down what my eyes have seen during the last half-hour. I have seen in the courthouse an inquest held on the body of a boy of 13, who being left alone in a cabin with a little rice and fish in his charge, was murdered by his cousin, a boy of 12, for the sake of that wretched pittance of food.

“A verdict of ‘wilful murder’ was returned. The culprit was the most famished and sickly little creature I ever saw. Driven from the court by the stench of the body, I passed in the street two coffins with bodies in them, in going from the courthouse to my lodgings, a distance of a 100 yards.”