Liz Gill follows this 100 mile path and discovers the history of The Great Hunger
There are five passengers on the steerage ticket: Martin and Mary Cox, their nine year-old son Georgey, seven year-old daughter Mary and an unnamed baby. They will be sailing from Dublin to Liverpool and then onto Quebec on the ship the Virginius on the 28th of May 1847.
The Coxes will now be ‘my family’ for a few days as I follow the 100 mile path they walked during the Great Hunger from their home in Strokestown, County Roscommon to Ireland’s capital. They were part of a 1490 strong group of starving and destitute tenants being given ‘assisted emigration’ or in other words expulsion from their native land. At the end of the National Famine Way I will find out what happened to them.
Our walk begins at the Memorial Glass Wall engraved with the families’ names outside the National Famine Museum in Strokestown which explains the long and complicated background to the catastrophe. It covers the stark divisions in the country at the time between the wealthy Anglo-Irish, predominantly Protestant, land-owners who lived lavishly and their impoverished Irish Catholic workers.
What brought the situation to a head, however, was the failure of the potato crop. The potato, particularly the widely cultivated lumper variety, was both the sustainer and eventually the ruin of the tenants. It grew easily even in poor conditions and yielded large crops. Although it obviously meant a very limited diet it provided four times as much complex carbohydrate as grain and was rich in Vitamin C and complex B vitamins. So nutritious was it that before the Famine the Irish were on average two inches taller than their European counterparts. It also meant fewer children died in infancy leading to a dramatic growth in population.
The downside was that it was highly susceptible to blight, a fungal disease which causes the tubers to rot in the ground and which destroyed the crop of 1846. Blight caused famine in other countries but their governemnts did more to tackle it with food relief and reduced exports. In Ireland even at the height of the Famine food was still being sent to England.
The disaster was exacerbated by the fact that many of the landlords though apparently enjoying all the privileges of wealth often had massive underlying debts. Tenants were now an extra burden. Such was the case with Major Denis Mahon, the landlord of Strokestown, and the instigator of the assisted emigration scheme He would pay the passage and provide food and clothing for the journey for those who chose to leave.
My friend and I do not have enough time to walk the whole of the National Famine Way. Instead we are going to sample various sections taking with us a passport which we can get stamped along the route which runs alongside the Royal Canal.
In 1847 the canal which had opened 30 years earlier would have been a centre for trade and transport, crowded with people and livestock and heavy horses pulling barges. Today it is peaceful and silent, a facility for walkers, runners and cyclists plus, nearer Dublin, a few recreational boats. We walk for long periods with only sheep and cattle in adjoing fields and the occasional heron for company.
Long, straight stretches make for a terrain that is easy – and impossible to get lost on – but one that can become a bit monotonous. To offset this the creators of the Way have designed a fantastic app which matches up with each of 30 bronze shoe way markers. They are children’s shoes cast from a real pair discovered by a local farmer in the roof of a ruined 19th century cottage. Partly bound by a cloth to symbolise the difficulties encountered as well as the bind to the place they were leaving, the shoes are a poignant reminder that two thirds of the 1490 were children.
We pause at the little sculptures to listen to the imagined voice of a real boy Daniel Tighe who walked with his mother, uncle and five siblings. Although the episodes are unflnching in their descriptions of the horrors, because they are told from a young lad‘s viewpoint they also include his delight in things previously unseen, his larks with other young travellers and his high hopes for the future.
A second section of the app has details about each locality. Some have an accompanying video, perhaps an academic or historian explaining the wider social and cultural contexts or in some cases a performance by a musician or singer. In one a piper playing the Irish bagpipes echoes those that pipers used to play as farewells to the passing emigrants. In another at Enfield a woman sings the haunting The Old Bog Road written by Teresa Bryaton who lived nearby.
The passport offers a paragraph on all the places the route passes through for those who want to take a break. For instance we include pretty Tarmonbarry by the river Shannon, our base for two nights, Cloondara with its ancient graveyard and harbour and Leixlip-Confey, home in the 19th century to a spa said to have had health giving properties.
We break for lunch one day in Keenagh with its beautifully modernist church and sight of a giant dovecote which at its peak housed 400 pigeons kept for meat and eggs. Another day we stop at Maynooth, home to Ireland’s first seminary, built to educate priests at home rather than their having to go to the Continent where they might be exposed to revolutionary philosphies.
We stay in Mullingar a couple of days and follow the Way’s loop out to the Famine Graveyard with its single headstone Sacred to the memory of the Starvelings of 1845 – 1850. It is a sombre moment. We also pass the old workhouse with its forbidding front door, a place of last resort for only the most desperate.
We are glad, by contrast, of the liveliness of Mullingar with its beautiful cathedral (the first in the world to be dedicated to Christ the King), independent shops, cafes, restaurants and pubs. We have a great evening in one of the latter, Danny Byrne’s, whose open mike night is featuring a range of talented musicians.
Here, as on many occasions, we fall into conversation with the locals. One of the sweetest aspects of our trip has been the friendliness and helpfulness shown to us: from the man on the train who, over-hearing our discussions about where to eat, gives us a list of suggestions plus the vital information that booking the next train journey online saves 50 per cent, to the fellow swimmer in the hotel pool who turns out to be a genealogist and offers to assist my friend in tracing her Irish ancestors.
The Way ends by the heart-wrenching Famine Statues on Dublin’s Custom House Quay. It is time to go across the road to EPIC the Irish Emigration Museum to find out the fate of the Cox family.
I know already that for the walkers the nightmare was only just beginning. For the conditions in the ships that were to take them across Atlantic were so appalling that they became known as ‘coffin ships.’ Dreadfully over-crowded and cramped, insanitary, poorly provisioned for both food and fresh water and riddled with vermin, the already weakened passengers perished in their hundreds from disease and malnutrition, either at sea during the weeks long crossings or in the quarantine sheds of Grosse Ile.
I also know that the Virginius was the worst – The Times later said that the Black Hole of Calcutta was ‘a mercy’ by comparison – so I am partly prepared for bad news. Even so when I learn that William and Mary and their unnamed baby died at sea I find myself choked by tears and even nearly two centuries later enraged by the fact that these tragedies were entirely preventable. It seems appropriate that EPIC stands for Every Person Is Connected.
But there is good news. Georgey and Catherine survived and were taken in by .a Quebec family. And although his parents and three siblings died, little Daniel Tighe whose voice has become part of our experience also survived along with his sister Catherine. Both were adopted – and loved – by a childless couple who bequeathed him their farm. His great grandson Richard still lives there and returned to Ireland a few years ago to meet up with his long lost family.
There is also perhap a grim satisfction in knowing that after word of the cruelties of the ships filtered back to Strokestown Major Denis Mahon was assasinated.
We are also cheered by a visit to a replica of the Jeanie Johnston ship which made 16 trans-Atlantic journeys taking passengers to the New World and never lost a single soul by the simple expedients of more space, fresh air, better hygiene and decent provisions including molasses to ward off scurvy.
We end with an afternoon in EPIC, one of the best museums I’ve ever been in, well deserving all its accolades and awards. It tells the tough tale of Irish emigration, not just the push of poverty and famine but the pull of better jobs and new opportunities; it also celebrates the achievements of the Irish diaspora. There are now 70 million people world-wide of Irish descent, including, I was surprised to learn, one million in Argentina – and their achievements have been extraordinary.
Through inter-action and inventiveness the museum tells of their contributions to construction, medicine, religion, education, music, literature, sport, social care, science, dance, cinema and politics including an astonishing 23 U.S. presidents. Their triumphs and successes are a heartening counterpoint to all the sadness.
Fact Box
The National Famine Way pack with maps, personalised ship ticket, passport and other information costs £15 https://www.nationalfamineway.ie
Walking Ireland Tours offers a ten day trip including bed and breakfast accomodation, luggage transfer, museums entry. maps and routes. From £1210 per person sharing. https://walkingirelandtours.ie/
Keenan’s, Tarmonbarry B and B from £105 https://www.keenanshotel.ie
Bloomfield Hotel, Mullingar B and B from £99 https://www.bloomfieldhousehotel.ie
Expressway runs a bus from Dublin airport to Strokestown £15.40 https://www.expressway.ie
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