The Great Famine

 

By 

 

Joseph M. Lalley Jr.

 

For centuries much of Ireland’s population had lived in rural areas.  In places where a small number of families lived near each other, these communities were classified as townlands.  

 

The townland is the smallest geographical unit in Irish land administration.  Above it in the hierarchy are the civil parish, district electoral division barony, county, and province.  The civil parish and barony are now obsolete as administrative units.   Today there are 62,205 townlands recorded by the Ordinance Survey.  The townland is still used for census-taking, land ownership records and postal services.  Above all, these rural villages constitute important social units characterized by good community spirit and a strong sense of caring.[1]

 

At the time of the Great Famine, the occupants of a townland were primarily engaged in farming, but family members, especially women, were engaged in yarn spinning, weaving, and other home enterprises.  Like the whole of Ireland, and especially its western provinces, the regions around the small farming town of Headford were devastated by the famine years. Until the famine, its population had increased steadily.  In the decade between 1841 and 1851, the population of the town of Headford declined 25%. The population in the sixteen rural townlands southwest of Headford in the vicinity of Luggawannia dropped an average of 33% during this time period.  [See  table below]

 

Over a million persons died of starvation and famine related diseases throughout Ireland.  Nearly another two million had emigrated to North America.   The table below illustrates the magnitude of the impact upon sixteen townlands southwest of the agricultural town of Headford, Co. Galway.  Almost two-thirds of the residents of Carrowbeg and half of those residing in Luggawannia either perished or emigrated during the decade of the Great Famine. 

 

Less publicized than the statistics associated with the Great Famine are those related to continuing difficult hardships experienced by the Irish during the second half of the 19th century, and especially by those in Connaught.  

 

The correspondence of Stephney St. George, Chairman of the Headford Relief Committee, to the Relief Commissioners Officers at Dublin, reveals the heroic yet increasingly futile efforts of his committee to care for their starving and disease-ridden community.

 

In his 14 February 1847 letter to the Commissioners, he wrote,

 

... I am also well aware of the onerous & most difficult task they have to perform in carrying out the benevolent intentions of our Parental Govert- therefore I have hung back in making applications to them.; but I must respectfully call on them to look to us; we are now one & all, the few resident gentlemen amongst us, the farmers, small shopholders and even the distressed peasantry themselves have nobly responded to the call made on us in these perilous times- I beg to state on my own responsibility that many of the names that now appear on the list of subscribers to our funds are at this moment recipients of the carefully doled out charity proceeding from the funds which they so generously subscribed & even more, several of those who have given their shillings and half crowns have actually died of starvation believe me Sir this is not an overdrawn statement, I am ready to prove it on oath if necessary...

 

If necessary I can send a full account of our state here, taken personally cabin by cabin, & when I inform you that out of a population of 15,980 persons, at least three quarters are in a state of absolute destitution...  This very day I have seen ten corpses of young persons in our own little village...

 

Stephney St. George wrote a second plea that was received 24 April 1847.

 

I can no longer delay in laying the following statement before the Board who have control over Relief Measures.  As long as I found that from our own private subscriptions we could in anyway stem the torrent of distress, I was unwilling to press the Govert, knowing of the difficult task they had to perform but now our resources are at an end...  The district of which I am Chairman extends over a distance of 13 Irish miles in length and nearly 8 in breadth, moreover we have the misfortune of having an immense number of non resident proprietors who have not subscribed to our funds, not withstanding these disadvantages we have raised a sum between seven and eight hundred pounds; and under Divine Providence have been enabled for more than three months to give food to more that 3,000 persons daily...  I wish it to be particularly understood, that we have from the very first given relief to the tenants of the non subscribers as well as to those who joined us in this act of Christian charity; & our books which are open to public inspection will show that at least two thirds of the persons receiving relief are the tenants of non subscribers; had we confined our money to our own people, we should never have occasion to call on the Govert for assistance.  I forwarded the necessary documents containing the list of our Subscribers, and the receipt of the Banker in Galway that the money had been actually lodged for the Relief Committee...& two months ago I received a letter from Sir R. Roth saying that he had kindly recommended the Ld. Lieut. to grant a sum of  £ 500 in aid of our funds; for this we should have been most grateful altho’ it did not amount to anything like the sum we had subscribed;  from that day to this, we have not received one penny...  the demand on our funds has increased tenfold; ... hitherto we have been able to keep our poor people better off than others, we can do so no longer our funds are completely exhausted, disease is raging amongst us & our people are dying daily...; as a proof, that we have not been negligent I beg to state that I have killed whatever cattle I had, even to a favorite bull... & others have done the same...  I do not state this to gain credit for myself or my friends who have assisted me, but to make a strong claim for the favorable consideration of the Board... & at the same time most respectfully implore the Board to send us immediate relief...  

 

I conclude by again imploring you to send us relief without delay, if you wish to save thousands from the horrible death from starvation, & ourselves from this no less painful one of falling sacrifice to our unavailing endeavors to save our fellow creatures...

 

Mary P. Donnellan in her commentary on these letters notes that they “become poignant when we realize that in 1847 Stephney St. George died.   His wife predeceased him in 1845.  As an army man he would have had the necessary training for organizing personnel but nothing in his army life would have prepared him for this tragedy.”[2]

 

The census figures illustrated below, for example, reveal that the population for the same sixteen townlands declined 69% from 1841 to 1911 at a time when population worldwide was generally increasing. 

 

 

Population Changes for Civil Parishes of Cargin and Killursa, County Galway