Gleanings in the west of Ireland

Front matter

SINGS

'IS THE

WEST Or IRELAND

Preface

Some of the matter contained in the following pages has already been published, in the columns of the " Times" newspaper. I have added to it a good deal of detail, as to the condition of the people, in the West of Ireland ; which I think it important to publish, but which would not have been acceptable to the generality of the readers of a newspaper. I desire, however, to place on record, in a form easily accessible, the results of the inquiries I have made into the nature of the treatment, to which the peasantry of the distressed districts are exposed, within and without the workhouses. A newspaper, when once read, is usually put aside, and then, very often accidentally, or purposely misquoted. Those who may attempt to refute the statements I have felt it my duty to make, and those who may desire to lend their aid to obtain redress for the grievances I have proclaimed, will, I trust, in these pages, find a ready source of reference to those facts, on which I ground my appeal for the consideration of all who love mercy and justice, to the oppression, and the suffering, of the people of this part of the Queen's dominions.

VI

In reference to Irish readers, I will now touch upon a subject, which, had I reason to suppose my readers would only be English, I should have passed over. It has been more than insinuated in Ireland, that in my tours in that country, I travelled as a "Times Commissioner;" one paper pleasantly addresses me as a "penny-a-liner." A gentleman of some rank, has — although he had some acquaintance with me — put upon the books of his " Union," that " I visited the country in the twofold capacity of an anonymous correspondent of the " Times," and an accredited informer of the Government." To any of my readers who may feel any interest in so trifling a matter, I beg to say — that in the inquiries I have made in Ireland, as well as in the very many I have made and published elsewhere — I have ever travelled, wholly at my own expense, for my own pleasure ; in no manner of connection with any public journal, or any public authority.

For many years the Editor of the " Times " has kindly indulged me with space in his journal, when it has pleased me to write, what it has pleased him to publish ; I never yet touched one farthing, or received any personal favour from him, or the Editor of any other journal, beyond that simple favour of making public for me, what I wished to publish.

As to any connection with any Government, my line through life has not been one calculated to win for me any special countenance of that sort. In pur-

Vll suing an object to which, circumstances, years ago, when I thought I had few to live, led me to dedicate my every energy, I have set aside all consideration of whether I might please or displease either those whose private friendship I valued, or whose official position could advance me in life. It is quite true, I have asked, and always obtained, introductions from persons in office, when I have needed them, to give me opportunity to see and judge for myself, as regarded the management of those matters under the control of Government, in which I took an interest ; but I have ever reserved to myself the fullest liberty of opinion, and of right to make that opinion known.

I have no hesitation in avowing, that I am very grateful for the assistance the "Times" has afforded me in my efforts to ameliorate the condition of my poorer fellow-creatures. I feel no shame in being called a "correspondent" of that paper; I do not know one single rank or profession which does not furnish some who write occasionally for the Public Press. Except in the case of one who writes for an avowed philanthropic object, I own I can see no reason why a peer, a bishop, or any one, of any rank, should hesitate to receive pay from a newspaper, when it is well known pay is gratefully accepted by men of all ranks from the " Reviews."

As to the sneers of such little " Union" grandees as my friend, who, as if to make good his nationality, proclaims the writer of a series of letters, the first

Vlll of which had his name at full length, the rest his initials, as an anonymous correspondent, I can easily forgive him ; small minds bear but little disturbance, though they are apt to exact no small amount of deference to the self-magnified value of their cleverness. He will continue great on his own little theatre; and even after the Board he adorns with his presence shall have made their male paupers decent — given them water to drink; I think it likely he may find, that, though holding no official position calling on me to represent the misdoings of the said Board, I may yet take the liberty of doing so, in other equally disgraceful matters ; where there is no resident inspector, he must excuse a traveller, who may think it his duty to expose what no inspector would, I hope, suffer. If he will take a friend's advice, he will devote himself more often to a real inspection of the wards and yards of the parent and auxiliary houses of his Union, and less, to heavy facetiae at my expense.

I will only add, that ill-health, and other unavoidable causes, have forced upon me the putting these pages through the press, with a carelessness as to form and style scarcely pardonable. I am prepared to bow, in these respects, to all the criticism the work deserves; I am equally prepared to defend every statement made, as only made on good and sufficient grounds.

C 0 X T E X T S.

Chapter I. Page

Line of Travel — Unions visited — In-door Pauperism — Limerick — Parent — Auxiliary "Workhouses— Gross mismanagement — Wretched condition of Inmates — Board day— Personality of Debates — Temptation to job — Accusations of jobbing . . 1

Chapter II

Kilrush Union — Admission day— Appearance of Applicants — Famine Cases — Starved Adults — Starved Children — Nature of death from Famine — Mortality in this Union — Kilkee — Journey to Ennis — Evictions — Their cruelty and effect on the People — House-tumbling process — Scalpeens — Kildysart — Inconvenience of charity — Where and how the evicted live 1 4

Chapter III

Ennis— Private sitting room — The Union house — Creditable management — Gort Union house — Wretched condition of Children— Scramble for dinner — Horrors of one yard of Women, etc. — Black Women — Shameful crowding — Loughrea — Appearance of street — Wholesale eviction — Balinasloe — State of able-bodied men — An encumbered Estate — Oranmore— War on dwellings — A fever case . . . . :3C

X

Chapter IV. Page

Galway — Use of big toe — Irish Gibbets — Workhouses — Dying Children — Able-bodied (? ) — Pauper Women — Numbers — Employment — Agricultural School — Godless College — Canal -to Lough Corrib . . 49

Chapter V

A good Landlord — The Fisheries— " Martin property" — Adventures of Salmon — Clifden — Reformationists — The Workhouses— Shameful condition of the Inmates — Another experience of the penalty of charity — A traveller hunt . . 67

Chapter VI

Out-Relief — Mr. Ellis and his Connemara home — English settlers, the " Eastwoods" — Disadvantages to the ordinary traveller . of the fishing season — Thoughts on fishing tackle — A Dialogue— Fishing Accidents — How to get a fish-hook out of your own hand or lip— Author inclined to grumble — A clever beggar — Westport — Its Workhouses — Emigration — Industrial Societies, at Westport and Castlebar . . . .81

Chapter VII

Castlebar— Workhouses — Execution in the Houses — Earl of Lucan's farming operations — Ballina — Seizure and sale of Workhouse property — Rescue by Mr. Gurney — Funeral of Pauper Children — A very cautious Banker . . . .104

Chapter VIII

How does the Poor-law treat Paupers with reference to their moral and social character ?— Population equal to English

XI

PAGE

Towns in Irish Workhouses — Their Treatment — Neglect of the Rules and Orders of Commissioners — Want of sympathy to dying — Tight Officers ! — Want of reverence in Burials — Jobbing in the Contracts US

Chapter IX

Condition of Peasantry out of the Workhouse — Potato culture — Its consequence — The value it gave to land — Landlords — Agents — Drivers — How they get their means of living — Illegal acts of Agents — Deaths in Kilrush Union Houses — The state of the Paupers on admission — A Landlord's Proclamation— Relievine; Officer's Statement .... 140

Chapter XI

Mortality in Union Houses — Peasantry said to be Priest-ridden — Their devotion — Their gratitude — Neglect of their education — Have been made lazy— Taught cunning — Their title to sympathy — Agrarian Murders, not unnatural result of their treatment 185

Chapter XII

Tenant-right Agitation — Will gain force in the West from the oppression of the Tenants —Justice to Peasant as well as to Proprietor — Tenants in the West compared with Tenants in the North — The Proprietor's true interest, speedy Justice to Tenantry 206

Xll

Chapter XIII. Page

Brig- liter Prospects — Consolidation of Holding's — Decrease of small Tenantry — The effect on Labour of Public Works — Agricultural Instruction — Glasnevin College— Absenteeism — The Priests — Their condition — Encumbered Estates' Act . 219

CHAPTER XIY.

Administration of the Earl of Clarendon — Its difficulties — His encouragement of Agriculture and Art — Impartiality — The Queen's visit — The Author's hope, that Justice will yet be done to the Peasantry .... . 246

Chapter I

LINE OF TRAVEL — UNIONS VISITED— IN-DOOR PAUPERISM — LIMERICK — PARENT — AUXILIARY WORKHOUSES — GROSS MISMANAGEMENT — WRETCHED CONDITION OF IN- MATES — BOARD DAY — PERSONALITY OF DEBATES — TEMPTATION TO JOB — ACCUSATIONS OF JOBBING.

Early in the summer of the year 1849, I was much struck with an account I read in the " Times" newspaper, of the very large mortality from cholera, in the workhouses of the Balinasloe Union, in the v^ County of Galway, in the west of Ireland ; I was also, with many others, much shocked with a discussion, which took place about the same time, in the House of Commons, relative to the effects of the famine, in that part of the sister country.

Circumstances, early in life, turned my attention to the condition of the poorer classes in England, and I had for many years taken an active and somewhat public part, with those who were seeking to ameliorate that condition. I could not but feel, that having devoted myself to this task of seeking the good of my poorer fellow creatures ; I had no right to confine my work, to those of my own immediate country, if I could see any prospect of aiding the same class, in a country so closely connected with my own, and so easily accessible as Ireland. I therefore determined to go myself, and see how "ar

B what I had heard to be the case was true ; and if true, to judge how far any individual effort could prove of benefit. The result of the tour I then made was kindly published for rne in the columns of the " Times" newspaper; and I have reason to believe such publication proved at least of this much benefit ; — it brought public opinion to bear on many of those matters of detail, in the treatment of the poor, on which, the effect of that opinion is always most valuable.

I this year again determined to devote my month's annual holiday to a second tour in the west of Ireland ; I was this time accompanied by a friend, who wished to see for himself the state of things of which he had heard so much from myself and others.

Those only who have had to travel in a land, in which they were as strangers, who have had, day after day, to go through lengthened scenes of destitution, death, and misery, in every aggravated form ; doing this alone; spending each day away from home, all its ties, and comforts, many hours, in close contact with the evidence and effects of famine, fever, and oftentimes cholera, besides all the attendant trials, physical and moral, of such a course of investigation ; can enter into all I felt of comfort in this time having a companion, and in that companion, one who had no common powers of discrimination, in addition to a kind and generous nature.

I shall now proceed to give my readers some of the gleanings of my late tour ; my route (I do not relate any part of my travel which was not made with the purpose I had in view, to inquire into the social condition of the people in the western districts of Ireland) was — Limerick, down the Shannon to Kilrush ; thence to Kilkee j retracing our steps to Kilrush; by the northern bank of the Shannon, Clonderlaw, Kildysart, Kilchrist, Clondegad to Ennis ; from Ennis to Gort ; by Loughrea to Balinasloe ; from thence by Oranmore to Galway ; from Galway by Oughterard, through Connemara to the "Fisheries" at Ballynahinch, (on the Martin property) ; thence to Clifden, through Joyce's country by Kylmore to Leenane ; to Westport, Castlebar, by Pontoon to Ballina ; thence returning by Castlebar to Tuam; back to Dublin by Athlone, Mullingar, and the Midland railway.

In this journey, which, with very little exception, and that only on our return, we performed by private conveyance, I visited elevenUnion Houses, and most of their Auxiliaries, and except in one or two instances, I scarce left one department uninspected. It will be seen by reference to a map of Ireland, that, commencing with the capital town of the County of Limerick, we went through the centre of the County of Clare, and a very large proportion of the County of Galway and Mayo ; these being, perhaps, the most distressed districts in Ireland.

The only way of performing the journey, so as to see with the greatest convenience, into those matters into which I went to look, we adopted, viz. hiring outside cars, and thus travelling at the hours, and in the directions we thought best.

The population remaining in the west of Ireland are studied with more ease at this moment, by a traveller seeking to read man in men, women, and children, than perhaps in any country in the world ; so large a proportion of the population being actually in the workhouses. I will here give a table of the population, according to the census of 1841, of the Unions we visited, with a return of the average number of persons relieved weekly in the workhouses, in the quarter ending March 30, 1850.

Union.

Limerick . .

Population

in

132,067

Kilrush . . .

82,353

Ennis . . .

77,840

Gort ....

71,774

Balinasloe . .

99,026

Galway . . .

Clifden . . .

88,973 33,465

Westport . .

Castlebar . .

77,952 61,063

Ballina, includ-

ing Belmullet,

DromoreWest,

Killala . . .

120,787

Tuam . . .

74,974

Relieved on an average each week

in the Quarter ending March 30,

1850, in the W orkhouse.

. 2,627

Population 920,274 In the Workhouses on

an average each week 34,621

The above table shews, that in the quarter ending March 30, 1850, nearly one-third of the whole population of these Unions were on an average in the Workhouse ; but I would have the reader bear in mind, that the population has decreased in these districts, by death, and by emigration, not less than 25 per cent, since 1841 ; and also it must be borne in mind, that the quarter ending March, is not nearly so bad a quarter as to the pressure on the workhouses, as that which ends in June. We found in these eleven Unions indoor paupers to the amount of 44,000.

When then, the traveller has walked the wards and yards of these Leviathan workhouses, he has had the advantage of seeing, in the, for him, most convenient form, by far the largest portion of the peasantry of the several Unions ; for, from the Population Census, we must deduct those classes who as yet are not come upon the Poor-rate.

The Irish workhouses are large, and in general well-built ; of handsome outward appearance, and contrived with a good deal of care to meet the end for which they were erected : however, such, since the failure of the potato, and the progress of wholesale eviction, has been the increase of pauperism, that the Original Workhouses have been found quite incapable of meeting the demand for in-door accommodation. A very large number of places, called Auxiliary Houses, are now rented by the Guardians ;

and into these they place different classes of their paupers, under officers appointed for each house.

I am quite satisfied in my own mind, that could any statesman have contemplated the possibility of the present pressure of pauperism, he would have hesitated before he passed a law, which in effect should have to find food and shelter for the numbers that are now to be fed and sheltered. The population of the whole of Ireland, taken in 1841, was 8,168,632; the estimated workhouse accommodation, March, 1850, was for 273,076 persons; the average number relieved weekly in the Union houses in the quarter Ending March, was 227,627-

In the districts to which I am about to call the reader's attention, the estimated amount of accommodation, i. e. that relative proportion of inmates to the space in the houses, which the Poor-law Commissioners had sanctioned, was almost in every instance overstepped ; the houses in many instances are most cruelly and disgracefully crowded.

The first Union-house we visited was that at Limerick. Last year, when I went over it, 1 found it clean and in good order ; I now found it every way the reverse. In the parent and auxiliary houses there was no less a number than 8,000 paupers; every department, except the fever hospital, shewed evident symptoms of gross neglect. I have no words with which I can give any real idea of the sad condition of the inmates of two large yards at the parent house, in which were a very large number of young female children ; many of them were clothed in the merest dirty rags, and of these they wore a very scanty allowance ; they were in the dirt collected on their persons for many weeks ; there was not about them the slightest evidence of any the least care being taken of them ; as they filed before me, two and two, they were a spectacle to fill any humane heart with indignation : sore feet, sore hands, sore heads ; ophthalmia evident in the case of the great proportion of them ; some of them were suffering from it in its very worst stage ; they were evidently eat up with vermin — very many were mere skeletons : I know well what the appearance of a really famine- stricken child is ; there were, it is true, some here who had brought their death-like appearance into the house with them ; but the majority were as the type in which the one word neglect was printed, in no mistakeable characters— the neglect of their latter state, not the consequence of their former state.

The dirt and general filthiness of the yards, in which these barefooted, ill-clad children had to spend so many hours, made the whole affair more painfully offensive ; dogs would have had more attention paid to them. The women, and those I saw of the men, looked, as far as clothes and flesh went, in far better condition.

I was kindly allowed to attend the sitting of the Board the following day, when I had the pleasure of hearing a very eloquent address made by a Guardian to his brethren, founded on a report he read of the condition of their poor ; a report, which really almost did that horrid condition justice. I had also the amusement of hearing an eloquent, personal, hardhitting debate carried on, in connection with the simple question — whether the paupers being without clothes, and the contractor unable at once to supply them, the Board should study the paupers' need, and get calico at once elsewhere — or the contractor's convenience, and wait his time ? I had the pain of afterwards hearing the contractor's interest won the day.

I went from the Board-room in company with the Medical officer, to visit an auxiliary -house in Clare-street, Limerick, there were about 800 able-bodied women in it— a few days before there had been 822 — for whom the Guardians had provided 267 beds! Let me here observe, that a considerable space in the dormitories was occupied as an infirmary — very many of the cases were of a description which in any decent public asylum would be rigorously separated from communication with the other inmates ; these beds had only, as far as I myself observed, one person in each, so that the division of the rest of the beds amongst the inmates must have been very minute indeed. The sick ward, including all cases, had, however, according to the Board's own admission, 115 patients in 88 beds, so that there were left

179 beds to 707 people, all adults ! ! It was acknowledged that many of the inmates had slept for weeks without beds or covering.

One would have supposed, with such crowding of the majority, and with such a number of sick, that sanitary measures — so far as regards the cleansing of the wards and linen, if not the persons, of the paupers — would have been strenuously enforced. Reader, it is but too true, that for weeks together neither soap or candles had been allowed to this house ; for one month, at least, no linen was washed; for many months the matron had not been allowed any brushes, or any of the absolutely necessary articles to cleanse the wards. With regard to the house itself, it has already been the scene of one sad catastrophe ; on an alarm of fire, a rush by the inmates was made to the staircase of a dormitory, and a great many lives were lost ; such was the evident state of the walls, roof, and floors the day we visited it, that I did not let another day pass without communicating to the highest quarter my apprehension for the safety of the inmates; prompt inquiry was made, and, I believe, instant measures for safety ordered. I have read since, in the public papers, that an architect had informed the Board, he thought the roof might stand through August, perhaps September.

The violence of the language of the inmates, their evident moral degradation, was too apparent ; but who can wonder if human nature, even of the softest

b 2 natural character, should become hardened as brass, under a state of things which treats large bodies of women as mere animals, except in the matter of apparently caring less for their lives than most men do for their dogs.

At another auxiliary-house, called I believe Mount Kennet, I found a very large number of boys ; here there was a state of things nearly as bad. Since I was at Limerick these youths broke into open rebellion, and the police force with fixed bayonets had some difficulty in subduing them. At another " auxiliary" the state of things amongst an immense body of children was most disgraceful ; for weeks the bed linen had not been changed or washed, in fact, no soap had been allowed; the poor children had from time to time to lie naked in bed whilst their shirts, &c. were washed, when they were fortunate enough to have even this chance of cleanliness ; we found some thus naked, and this was the excuse made. The infirmary, or sick ward, was a most piteous sight ; to see these poor children suffering from dysentery and other diseases, the direct result of physical depression from want ; in this suffering left so dirty, and so evidently neglected, was no small aggravation of the sense at which I had already arrived of the wanton abuse of their office shewn by the authorities of this union. The rain, as I stood by the side of one poor sufferer, called convalescent, was coming through the roof on the bed in which he was laid.

I had heard the excuse made at the Board in the mornings for the evident want of clothing at the parent house, amongst the children; "that they had none to put on them ;" and yet, I found on strict inquiry, that shirts and shifts had been sent to one of the other auxiliaries, in which the children were, whilst I was at the Clare-street house. Can it be, that children were stripped at one establishment, and their clothes sent to hide from the visitor, the nakedness in another? If eloquence could clothe, I could easily believe in the power of this Board, with words to cover the naked ; but in the absence of this extraordinary means, I am yet at a loss to know, whence came the shower of little shirts and shifts that afternoon.

As to the state of dicipline in which these 8,000 paupers are held, a short time before I was in Limerick, the women and children broke out of several of the houses, and actually marched bodily into the streets of the town ; to the great disgust and terror of the quiet inhabitants.

I would wish now to state, that this Limerick Union, is by no means in any real financial difficulty ; as a proof of it, at the time the " Rate in Aid" bill was passed, before it had received the royal assent, the Guardians actually struck a rate to carry them over two years, that they might thus evade the provisions of the Act. I will not argue on the honesty, or the policy of this measure ; but I do argue from it, that a Union which has now a very large amount in the course of collection, notoriously collecting the rate with little difficulty, has no right to plead poverty against an accusation of an amount of neglect of duty, to which any amount of poverty would be no answer. At the end of last March, they had still £33,435 of the rate struck, yet uncollected.

I took some pains to ascertain, how such a Union, with a resident nobleman for chairman, could get into such a state of shameless disorganization. I could get no satisfactory answer ; my own impression, from all I heard and saw, is simply this — To feed, clothe, &c. 8,000 paupers, at the expense of a solvent 1 Tnion, creates so large a demand, for the necessaries required; that a primary object of large firms and others has been to get themselves, or their friends, elected into the Board, with a view of influencing contracts for the supplies.

The open way in which I heard parties accuse each other, by what could scarcely be called insinuation, of gross jobbing, shewed me, the practice was pretty generally admitted to exist. The Board Room has, I fear, been mainly used as an arena for able debating on the merits of contractors ; such merits being weighed in a balance, the equilibrium of which owed its disturbance, more to the friendship, or hostility, of the parties, who were to decide on the acceptance of the tenders, than on the comparative quality or value, of the samples tendered. I should much like to see the result of an inquiry into the receipts and disbursements of this Union, for the last two years ; I only know one power which could be applied, with any hope of success, to such an investigation — the same Committee, or the same accountants, employed on the great Hudson railway inquiry.

To give the reader some idea of the spirit in which the Board business is conducted, I will quote from a published Report of a meeting of the Board, Lord Clare in the chair, held, I believe, the very day after I left Limerick ; the concluding sentence of the concluding speech of the day, being in continuation, or rather in conclusion of a spirited debate, in which accusations of jobbery were freely exchanged, it simply was — " it is a d — d infernal he."

It is indeed time that some public notice should be taken of the manner in which a Board, entrusted with the responsible duty of supervising the relief of 8,000 poor, wholly at their mercy, abuse their position and neglect their duty ; to the detriment of the ratepayer, the disgrace of the law, and above all, to the wanton injury of their poor fellow-creatures. Heavy will be the guilt of the Poor-law authorities if they do not quickly interpose, to secure the interest of those who can ill afford to pay rates, and those whose relief at best, is so narrowed, that they can less afford any further restriction to it.

Chapter II

RILRUSH UNION — ADMISSION DAY — APPEARANCE OP AP- PLICANTS—FAMINE CASES — STARVED ADULTS — STARVED CHILDREN — NATURE OF DEATH FROM FAMINE — MOR- TALITY IN THIS UNION — KILKEE— JOURNEY TO ENNIS — EVICTIONS— THEIR CRUELTY' AND EFFECT ON THE PEO- PLE— HOUSE TUMBLING PROCESS— SCALPEENS— KILDY- SART — INCONVENIENCE OF CHARITY — WHERE AND HOW THE EVICTED LIVE.