In the years predating the famine the parish of Burrishoole had a huge and vigourous population centered mainly in the poorer regions .

All of the land was owned by the Ascendancy class, ( the O'Donnells of Newport, in the case of Burrishoole ). These landlords had almost limitless power over the tenants , who for their part paid high rent for the small portions of land they could afford . Most of the farmer's income of course went to pay the landlord , so there was little money in the economy . This inevitably led to a system of sub-division where land was given to couples as marriage dowries, which of course had the effect of reducing the portions of land even further.

It was clear that the gap between the rich landowner and his poorer counterpart , the peasant farmer, was enormous . By the end of 1850 the true extent of this gap was to become a sad and horrifying reality .This unbalanced system was held together only by the fact that the peasant farmer had a cheap and plentiful source of food , "the potato".

The potato was introduced into Ireland around 1590 and could grow in the poorest of land. Planted in April or May the early crop came into season in late August . The potatoes were then stored in pits until the following May . Crops were generally plentiful and were capable of supporting a large family . On average an adult would eat 12 to 14 pounds of potatoes per day.

Coming of the Potato Blight

First reports of the potato blight began to emerge in September 1845 but were restricted mainly to eastern counties . By the end of December and early January reports were coming in of potatoes rotting in their pits in Mayo and other western counties. Crop failures were not uncommon in the past . However these were due mainly to climatic conditions and crops always returned the following year . Perhaps it was this line of thinking which delayed immediate action. The crops were not to return the following year , this time the potato was attacked by a fungal disease called (phytophthora infestants ) potato blight .

The effects on Burrishoole were devastating as elsewhere in the County. The following years were to reveal harrowing accounts of hunger , disease and eventually thousands of deaths in the parish. At the height of all this misery and suffering Irish corn was still being exported to Britain while its poor and destitute were dying by the side of the road. This was due to the policy of government in Britain at the time which held the view that the free market of goods and trade could not be interfered with at any cost.

There was a public outcry for exports to be stopped and more grain to be imported instead . This would of course have meant a repeal of the Corn Laws , which laid down that large taxes should be paid on imports. The British Prime Minister , Sir Robert Peel , to his credit was in favour of a repeal of the Corn Laws , knowing only too well that large imports of grain were necessary to relieve famine distress in Ireland . There was huge opposition to this within his own party and he was forced to resign as Prime Minister saying '' good God are you to sit in Cabinet , and consider and calculate how much diarrhoea , and bloody flux , and dysentery , a people can bear before it becomes necessary for you to provide them with food ."

Peel became Prime Minister again in June 1846 and eventually forced through the repeal of the Corn Laws. This however was a little too late , because Peel had secretly arranged the purchase of £100,000 worth of Indian corn in November 1845 unknown to his party . The problem with Indian corn was that it was hard to mill and very difficult to digest . Corn meal was later imported and used in a mixture with Indian corn ( one part to three ) which was found to be more palatable.

In 1845 a Relief Commission was set up with the aim to place food depots all over the county . The grain was sold at cost price to local committees who would sell it on to the local population also at cost price .The Relief Commission had only limited success because it was frequently hampered by fraudulent malpractice. For example

Enclosure referred to.

POOR RATE Due by Immediate Lessors in the District of Sir R. A. O'Donnell, Bart , Rate Collector .

Electoral Divisions

Names

Residences.

Newport

Achill

Ballycroy.

Total

Marquess of Sligo

Westport House

£54 4s 6d

£ 14 1s 11d

£ 2 1s 1d

£ 70 7s 7d

Sir R.A. O'Donnell

Newport House

£84 9s 4d

£102 18s 11d

£44 5s 4d

£231 13s 8d

Peter Bourke Esq.

Ballinew,Castlebar

£ 5 17s 7d

£ 5 17s 7d

James Hilles, Esq.

Maryland ,Newport

£ 3 5s 8d

£ 3 5s 8d

Charles McDonnell, Esq.

Moyour ,Westport

£ 2 5s 0d

£ 2 5s 0d

Dominick McLoughlin Esq.

Achill

£ 4 5s 2d

£ 4 5s 2d

John McLoughlin Esq.

Achill

£ 4 6s 9d

£ 22 2s 9d

£ 26 9s 6d

Reps of P. McLoughlin Esq.

£ 28 14s 10d

£ 9 4s 4d

£ 37 19s 2d

Reps of Captain O'Donnell.

£20 3s 5d

£ 20 3s 5d

Total due

£402 6s 11d

the relieving officer in Kilmaclasser and Islandeady was requested to tender his resignation for the use of an illegal beam . This was quite a common practice resulting in surplus grain being then sold on to shops at black market prices.

Another function of the local committees was to raise money locally to help the poor and provide some sort of employment . However they found it difficult to raise money , in particular from the rich landlords . For example a letter to the Commissioners in March 1848 highlights this in relation to Sir Richard O'Donnell .

Mr. Lynch to the commissioners :- March 17 , 1848.

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th March , and in accordance with your request , I beg to inform the Commissioners that the sum due by immediate lessors in the district of Sir Richard O'Donnell, rate collector , amounts to £402 6s 11d. I annex a list of the persons by whom it is due , and shall take care to draw the particular attention of the collector to the fact , that he is himself the largest defaulter.

A letter to the Commissioners earlier that month indicates he had a works farm in Derrada which was stopped for want of labourers.

The COMMISSIONERS to the VICE-GUARDIANS :- March 4,1848

I am directed by the Commissioners to forward herewith , for your information , a copy of a letter which the Commissioners have received from Sir R.A. O'Donnell , in which he states that employment had been offered by him to a number of persons who are in the receipt of out-door relief in the Union , who declined to work on the terms proposed.

I am at the same time to forward a copy of the Commissioners' reply.

ENCLOSURES.

Sir R.A. O'Donnell to the Commissioners :- March 2, 1848

My object in writing to you is to benefit the rate-payers and poor of my electoral division. Having received a loan under the Land Improvement Act , I am anxious to employ, as far as lies in my

power , the able-bodied of my district.

The Vice Guardians have directed the relieving officer to give me a list of 50 able-bodied men receiving relief, residing in the neighbourhood of two farms upon which I am anxious to carry on improvements . A portion of these 50 persons attended once at the works at Derrada farm and informed my agriculturalist that they would not work by task , but that if I gave them one shilling per day they would work for me . My agriculturalist is well known in the district as a humane honest man that understands the value of labour well , and he assures me that if the men were only inclined to work they could make at his prices one shilling per day.

My works at Derrada farm are stopped for want of labourers , although we have , I am informed , more than 6000 persons receiving the outdoor relief in this unfortunate electoral division ; and my works at other farms are going on in an unsatisfactory way from the same cause.

I am prepared to give employment to 600 men a day and to take them from the outdoor relief list ; and if other landed proprietors of this district will do the same according to the extent of their properties, the rate payers will be relieved and the poor saved.

Gentlemen you have shown energy and determination in collecting poor rates , I now call upon you respectfully to save our country by protecting the rate payers with the same energy, and using your influence in the administration of the Poor Laws to raise the poor of Ireland out of their lazy habits of dependence upon others , with its immoral results arising therefrom.

Reply to the foregoing : March 4, 1848.

I am directed by the Commissioners to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2nd inst., informing the Commissioners that the Vice Guardians of the Westport Union had ordered 50 of the able bodied men who were in receipt of outdoor relief in the Union to proceed to two farms upon which you were anxious to carry out some improvements , and that the men refused to work unless paid at the rate of a shilling a day for their labour.

In reply , I am to state that the proper course appears to the Commissioners to admit of no reasonable doubt ; and the Commissioners cannot presume otherwise than it has been adopted by the Vice Guardians as a matter of course.

Sir Richard had also employed labourers in the cultivation of flax in the Summer and Autumn of 1847 according to the accounts of Asenath Nicholson (Annals of the Famine).Her accounts of his driver however were not so favourable.

" I saw step by step all taken for taxes and rent ; everything that had life out of doors that could be sold at auction was sold , then everything of furniture , till beds and tables left the little cottage, and the mother was put in jail , and is now looking through its grates , while her children are struggling for bread . Sir Richard O'Donnell is the landlord in possession of most of the land there and his "driver " like other akin to him , does strange things to the tenants , quite unknown to the landlord , who has been called humane . But this fearless driver throws or causes to be thrown down , cabin after cabin , and sometimes whole villages , of which it is said the landlord was entirely ignorant , but the pitiless storm heeded not that , and the poor starved exiles pleading that the cabin might be left a little longer , have no pity , their pot and even the cloak , which is the peasant woman's all by night and by day has often been torn from her emaciated limbs , and sold for auction.

Perhaps in no instance does the oppression of the poor , and the sighing of the needy come before the mind so vividly , as when going over the places made desolate by the Famine , to see the tumbled cabins , with the poor hapless inmates , who have for years sat around their turf fire , and ate their potato together , now lingering and oftimes wailing in despair , their ragged barefooted little ones clinging about them , one on the back of a weeping mother , and the father looking in silent despair , while a part of them are scraping among the rubbish to gather some little relic of mutual attachment.

Then in a flock, take their solitary , pathless way to seek some rock or ditch , to encamp supperless for the night , without either covering for the head or the feet , with not the remnant of a blanket to spread over them in the ditch where they must crawl.

Are these solitary cases ? . Happy would it be were it so ; but village upon village , and company after company have I seen ; and one magistrate who was travelling informed me that at night fall the preceding day , he found a company of who had gathered a few sticks and fastened them into the ditch , and spread over what miserable rags they could collect (for the rain was fast pouring ; and under these more than two hundred men , women and children were to crawl for the night . That day they had all been driven out , and not one pound of any kind of food was in the encampment."

The famine was at its peak in 1847 . this was the year which would become known as Black 47 ; peasants flocked to the already overcrowded workhouses, bringing with them many diseases like typhus which spread through the workhouse like wildfire.

The Newport workhouse had not been built at this time ,many perished on the roadsides ,while others who did make the journey to Westport were forced to wait outside for hours and were often turned away.

This was also the year of mass emigration . A ship called the "Argyle " , chartered by Mr Flanagan, Ship Agent, to convey passengers to Quebec dropped anchor at the harbour of Inishgowla between Newport and Westport in June 1847. Many peasants , weary of the human misery and suffering , availed of the opportunity to escape, in the hope of a better life in another land. Pitiful sights were witnessed as families were torn apart , never again to be seen by the loved ones left behind.

One account tells of a family who set out on their journey to catch the emigrant ship at Inishgowla . It was customary to leave one child behind to look after the elderly. When they reached the boat they turned around to find the young boy who had been left behind had followed them . This young lad was later to become a prominent official at the Treasury in New York . Many of the emigration ships bound for America were less than sea worthy . One such ship left from this parish with a full cargo of emigrants and was never seen again.

In the meantime terrible accounts were still emerging . A man by the name of Michael Gorman born in 1868 recalls , " A man in Lettermaghera was sick of the fever. He died and there was nobody in the house with him except his wife. It seems the neighbours avoided the house for fear of the fever . The wife dug a grave by the bedside and rolled her husband's body out of the bed and into the grave. Then she covered it in ."

Asenath Nicholson also recalls : " The state of the Famine here might be illustrated by a few facts which come under my observation . The chapel bell tolled one morning early , when a respectable young woman was brought into the yard for internment . No bells tolled for the starving , they must have the burial of an ass or none at all . A young lad improved his opportunity while the gate was open , and carried in a large sack on his back , which contained two brothers , one seventeen , the other a little boy , who had died by starvation. In one corner he dug , with his own emaciated feeble hands , a grave , and put them in uncoffined , and covered them while the clods were falling on the coffin of the respectable young woman.

I never witnessed a more stirring striking contrast between civilised and savage life - Christianity and heathenism - wealth and poverty , than in this

instance ; it said so much for the mockery of death, with all its trappings and ceremonies - the mockery of pompous funerals and their black retinue . This poor boy unheeded had stayed in the dark cabin with those dead brothers , not even getting admittance to the gate , till some respectable one should want a burial ; then he might follow his procession at a suitable distance , with two dead brothers upon his back , and put them in with his own hands , with no one to compassionate him."

Asenath Nicholson later recalls another terrible account in a house not far from Newport .

" A cabin was seen closed one day a little out of the town , when a man had the curiosity to open it and in a dark corner he found a family of the father , mother , and two children lying in close compact . the father was considerably decomposed ; the mother it appeared had died last , and probably fastened the door , which was always a custom when all hope was extinguished , to get into the darkest corner and die , where passers by could not see them.

Soup kitchens were set up in the parish to relieve the terrible hunger which grew by the day . One such kitchen was set up just above Newport on the Westport road at a place still known as the Colony . A huge pot was also erected in the farmyard of William Mairs (grandfather of Dick Mairs ). Here hundreds of starving people were given aid by the Mairs family . Many brought vessels to bring soup back to family members who were too weak to make the journey.

Accusations began to emerge of proselytising , though no such activities seem to have occurred in this parish , with the exception of some instances in Mulranny and Murreveragh . Wholesale abuse of the Catholic religion was recorded in the Connaught Telegraph in April 1850. The paper reads :

" They are thought to look upon the faith and discipline of the Catholic Church as damnable and idolatrous . The holy days and the fast days of their church are held forth to them as mummery and the invention of crafty priests. "

My great grandfather Tommie Kelly recalled some of the instances of the soup school at Murreveragh .

" There were soup schools at Mulranny and Murreveragh (just east of Mulranny ). Some of the people turned with the soupers and remained with them till they died .

A few of these went to Inishbiggle when driven from home by shame , fear or otherwise .One man not a native of this parish , turned . He was passing by the priest's house one day in his native place and raised his hat . "Ah " says the priest "you cannot please God and the Devil ." . "Ah Father " said he " It's only till the praties grow ." He turned back later . His son was also a Protestant , but only for a time during the Famine.

Tommie Kelly Fairday June 8th

Born 1853

It is clear that the feelings between the Protestant and Catholic communities were running high at the time , no doubt as a consequence of Penal times . However a compromise at the time may well have saved many more lives.

Evictions too were becoming all too common . Some 40 families in Treanbeg and Treanlaur were evicted by the landowner to create his so-called work farm.. He attempted to do the same in Lettermaghera.

Workhouses, which figured so prominently in the rest of the country, didn't really apply in this parish during the so called year of the Famine.

The nearest workhouses were in Westport and Castlebar . The workhouse in Newport was not built until 1849 which indicated that the effect of the Famine persisted long after the potato crop began to revive . For example 45 families were evicted from Carrowmore in 1854 and the O'Donnell family (ancestors of Neil O'Donnell , Tiernaur ) were evicted from the Lecarrow district in 1868.

Famine graves are dotted throughout the parish. There are mass graves in places like Derryloughan, Cuilmore and Fauleens to mention just a few and it is almost impossible to tell how many are buried in the sandybanks at Mulranny .

Statistics before and after the famine make some horrifying reading . Burrishoole had a population of almost 12,000 in 1841 . This had dropped to 7,500 by 1851 . Out of 2,217 houses in 1841 only 1250 remained by 1851 . One of the worst areas affected was Derryloughan where out of 16 houses and 90 people in 1841 only one house and 8 people remained in 1851 .

One child born out of the Famine was to change the possession of land in Ireland forever . He was of course Michael Davitt . the struggle was to be a long one but would eventually put an end to the unjust system of landlordism which had punished generations of Irish people and ensured that such a catastrophe could never happen again.

The writer wishes to thank Willie Sammon for his valuable contribution towards this article .

Sources:

The Public Library,Castlebar.

Famine Echoes Cathal Poirteir.

.Annála Beaga Pharáiste Bhuiréis Umhall Pádraig Ó Móráin

A Social History of Cuilmore.

The Irish Famine Helen Litton.

The Darkest Years A Famine Story Michael Mullen.

Asenath Nicholson (Annals of the Famine)