Doolough Valley

It was another rainy and windy day.  We headed south to drive the beautiful and sorrowful Doolough Valley.  Even in the mist, the landscape is lovely and would be striking with additional visibility.  However, this is a sad place, as it was the location of a tragic walk of starving and emaciated human beings in 1849.

During the famine, the starving people of the Louisburgh area, who were receiving outdoor relief, were to be inspected by a vice guardian of the Westport union and by a poor law inspector, on March 30, 1849.  Rather than proceeding with the inspection in Louisburgh, the inspectors went on to Delphi Lodge and instructed the poor to follow them to that location for an inspection on the following morning.

The starving obeyed the order and some 600 people walked the 16 miles to Delphi Lodge through the mountain passes.  If they did not attend the early morning inspection, they would have been struck off the list of those to receive outdoor relief.  Starving men, women and children, walked to Delphi Lodge to attend the morning inspection.  However, the inspection did not take place until noon.

The strain this walk would have taken on emaciated and starving bodies is beyond comprehension.  On the morning after the day of inspection, a mother and her two children were found dead on the roadside.  An additional four people were found dead, and it was reported that nine or ten more people never returned home.  An inquest into the deaths of two of the people, found that they died of starvation and exposure.

A memorial commemorates the tragedy of Doolough and an annual famine walk takes place in May.

As we drove through the valley in the mist, I thought of the people and their struggle to walk through this landscape while in a state of starvation.  This would not have been a place of beauty then, it would have been a place of pain, suffering and death.

Doolough Memorial

Doolough Valley

We drove along to the head of Killary Harbour, which is a fiord.  Because of the high volume of rain, the waterfall that empties into Killary Harbour was gushing.

Aasleagh Falls on the Erriff River

After we left Killary Harbour, we drove to Kylemore Abbey.  Despite the weather, there were many people about.  We did not bother gaining admission to the Abbey or the Abbey gardens.  After taking a few photos of Kylemore Abbey with the mist coming down, we drove toward our home base.

Kylemore Abbey

Kylemore Lough

We stopped off in Westport to pick up a few supplies and went for a walk around the town.  They are celebrating Westport 250 years, and had bands playing with a few people standing in the rain watching.  This band is called Landslide, and they were really good, an energetic group of young musicians playing rock.

Landslide

The History of Ireland continues:  The Famine Part II

The poor law amendment, enacted in June of 1847, provided for the relief of the non able-bodied destitute, either in or outside of the workhouses, while able-bodied were only to receive relief in the workhouse.  If the workhouse was full, then the able-bodied would receive outside relief if they were involved in the hard labour of stone breaking.  The most draconian measure of the poor law, forbade relief to anyone occupying greater than 1/4 acre of land.

In theory, the poor law would prompt Irish landowners to employ their former tenants and farm labourers in the improvement of their estates, if they did not do so, they would pay anyway through the poor rates.  However, the poor law had the opposite effect.  The landowners were to fund the relief by paying the entire poor rate on every landholding valued at less than 4 GBP and half the rate on land valued at more than 4 GBP.  This tax measure encouraged landlords to clear the land of the poor, smallholders, who paid little to no rent.  This clause resulted in eviction, exile, disease and death.  The people did not want to give up their small holdings or they would forever be paupers without a home, and they would lose any opportunity for landlord assisted emigration.

When tenants were evicted, either the roof, or the entire structure was destroyed, rendering the home uninhabitable.  The evicted were then out onto the roads, where they suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation until they headed to the workhouses as a last resort.  The recorded convictions from 1849 - 1854, numbered approximately 250,000, but that does not include voluntary surrenders, which were numerous.

The poor tried to avoid the workhouses as long as possible, as they were an overcrowded vector for disease and had high mortality rates.  The government resisted providing outdoor relief, even though it was cheaper than funding workhouses, as they thought the cost would explode, as more people would take outdoor relief.  Also, they would be only supplied cooked rations, which required the starving families to walk to receive them, including starving kids, the ill and the aged.  For some families, it was a four-mile round trip on foot.

The people suffered severely from starvation.  Typhus and relapsing fever spread via body lice when the people were too weak to maintain hygiene, and overcrowding caused the rapid spread of these diseases.  They also suffered from dysentery and diarrhea, eating any plant available, including grass, added to gastrointestinal issues.  During the famine, the rates of smallpox, TB and measles also increased.  More people died of the diseases which accompanied starvation, than from starvation itself.

The hardest hit areas of Ireland were the far west and southwest.  The highest average annual excess mortality rate was in Mayo, followed by Sligo, Roscommon and Galway.  These areas also had the lowest income per capita, the highest illiteracy rates and landholdings less than 20 acres.  The lowest death rates were in Dublin, Wexford, Carlow and Derry.  Total excess mortality in Ireland from 1846 to 1851 is estimated at one million people, in some areas, the population declined by more than 25%, which is mind boggling.

We will complete the history of the famine in tomorrow's blog.