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AWFUL FIRE IN ENNISKILLEN 1864.

AWFUL FIRE IN ENNISKILLEN.

On Sunday morning, about half-past twelve o’clock, the church bells rung the fire alarm, and soon the inhabi­tants of Enniskillen were roused to witness one of the most awful fires ever witnessed in a country town.

A square block measuring about 70 feet frontage in High-street, extending to  Cole’s-lane about 150 feet, was all in one blaze and down-tumble in two or three hours. The fire spread so quickly that little could be done, to save property; and some of the inmates had to fly for their lives without their dress.

The block was occupied by Whitley Brothers, bakers, grocers, leather cutters, and general wholesale provision dealers, and was divided into three shops. The fire com­menced In a tea store over the kitchen, near to which was a pile of bacon, and immediately adjoining were several large stores for bread stuffs. Had the fire been discovered a little earlier, a few buckets of water would have extin­guished it; but that failing the flames rushed through the premises as if lightning were the agent of destruction.

Efforts were made to remove as much as possible of the goods in the, shops— seeing- that the flames had cut off access to the stores-and succeeded n getting away all the leather, the articles in the main shop, and some furniture. The horses and cattle were n other premises, except a calf, the cries of which were piteous, but which was saved by two dare-devils who risked their own lives in its rescue, and got their coats burned off their backs in the act.

The fire did not confine itself to the Whitley premises. Mr Cooney, draper on one side; Mr Molyneux, watch-maker and jeweller, on the other side; were well singed, and would have both shared the fate of their neighbour but for the great efforts made to save them. The fire had burned out Mr Molyneux’s rere windows and ignited the staircase. The flames were kept in check by Mr Wm. Quinion, Wine merchant, who took his post in the blaze and being well helped by water carriers, succeeded in extinguished them. Mr Patterson, S.I., and others took timely precaution at Mr Cooney’s, which were suc­cessful. Yet Messrs. Cooney and Molyneux suffered much loss by the removal of their goods to other houses; as did also Messrs Johnston and Carson, drapers, Mr S. Little, grocer and some others.

The thought is terrible when we ask ourselves what would have been the result if high wind had prevailed!— Everything was dry as tinder, and the whole town might have been consumed had not, luckily a calm continued.

The officers and men of the 29th Regiment were promptly on the ground and did good service with the barrack engine. The soldiers worked away till they were exhausted and rested not till the fire was got under. The officers excelled; in a mild, firm, and gentlemanly bearing in keeping order and the magistrates and police were not wanting. Mr Smith J.P. carried his bucket of water with a will Captain Butler, R. M. and Dr. Walsh were everywhere, and anything but idle! The County Inspector Bailey and Sub-Inspector Patterson headed the police energetically and their men did well.  Harrington, Sly (or Sleigh), Duffy, and some others did deeds of daring, that ought to be rewarded! Four of our own young men worked hard. But all pale before the achievements of two young townsmen, John Howe and Charles Aunon. Those two were worth a hundred. Only that testimonials have become so common, so cheap, so worthless, and so ill applied of late, we would vote them the thanks of the town in public assembly. However our own truthful testimony will suffice.

Mr Robert Gordon chairman of the Town Commissioners, did his best but was badly aided by the cor­poration engine, which was consistent in its refusal to work being out of order. A fire brigade should be organised immediately of the young men of the town which would be much more manly and utile than fooling as amateur bandsmen.  The suffering and inconvenience is deplorable but none of the parties will suffer loss, all being insured in the North British and Mercantile, the Globe, the Royal and other good offices.

Enniskillen Bands.

Enniskillen 1st October 1864.

Some 25 years ago there was an amateur band in Enniskillen, which was the ruin of every young man who joined it. A counter irritation or opposition band was got up in the Roman Catholic Chapel, which the late Rev. James Shiel, P.P., made smithereens of. He jumped into the big drum and beat the musicians out of the chapel with their own instruments – and we ceased not till we scattered the amateurs. During the existence of those bands the town had no peace: about forty young men were completely demoralised, some of them enlisted, others emigrated, and not a few lost their lives. The present boat racing mania is a source of much mischief, which must be abated. No respectable person should have anything to do with the Boat Club, or subscribe to its funds – it is a nuisance.

THE FENIANS IN FERMANAGH Impartial Reporter 28th April 1864.

THE FENIANS IN FERMANAGH Impartial Reporter 28th April 1864.

A good deal of stir has been created in Enniskillen by the apprehension of a number of Fenians. Eight or ten of them are in jail; others let out on bail; and, if report be true, very many hundreds of them have taken fright and given the country “leg bail,” as assurance that, they will no more trouble old Ireland by their presence or folly. The Very Dr. McMeel, P.P., has been untiring in his efforts to save his people from the political madness and unchristian association of the Fenians.

MR ADAIR AT EVICTION WORK AGAIN. January 1864.

MR ADAIR AT EVICTION WORK AGAIN. January 1864.

We have received the following narrative from a highly respectably correspondent, on whose fidelity and accuracy we can rely. Our correspondent writes: —  “On the 1st December instant, there were evicted by the sheriff on the property of John G. Adair Esq., in the parish of Gartan in county Donegal ten families, consisting of forty-nine person—six of the families were Roman Catholic, and four Protestant, (two Episcopalian and two Presbyterian) Everything in each house was put out the fire extinguished, and the door fastened (where there was one), and the persons themselves literally left on their dunghill, without any provision for their shelter, for even a night. The most of the above being in the most wretched state of poverty, must, of necessity go to the poorhouse, and thus increase the rate which is,5s for the present year) on the rest of the impoverished tenantry. One of the evicted families, by name Stephenson, consists of ten persons, almost destitute of clothing. Another is Widow Knox, with four children. Her husband fell into bad health a few years ago and consequently into poverty, being unable to till his land, so as to support his family and pay his rent. In the spring of the present year he went to the United States of America (his passage being paid for him), in order, to obtain, if possible, by working, the amount of rent due. However, about a week before the evictions, his wife received an account of his sudden death, while at his work, so his wife and family are left helpless. In order to account in some measure for so many, evictions, we may state that, about five years previously Mr Adair summarily raised the rent of each tenant on the property nearly one-half. Bad years having ensued; they have had the greatest difficulty to pay this increased rent. At the Spring Quarter Sessions of this year, upwards of thirty out of about sixty tenants on the property, were, served with notices of ejectments for non-payment of one year’s rent. More than the half of these had settled by the October Sessions when the ejectments were put through against those who had not paid; and  as upwards of £3 were added for costs on each, few were able to settle and some only after the arrival of the sheriff, when the evictions mentioned took place. As Mr. Adair never expended a shilling in assisting the tenant to drain, or improve his farm, or in any way improve his condition, and insists under all circumstances on the payment of their very high rent, the tenantry consider their case as all but hopeless, have lost all energy and interest  in the cultivation at their farms, and are fast-sinking into a state of wretched poverty, looking upon their situation as little better than that of the Derryveagh people,, who were all turned out at once, instead of piece meal. This is truly a melancholy state of things, to occur in a Christian country and under British law and government. On the adjoining property of Derryveagh, where the whole-sale evictions were effected, Mr. Adair has had between three and four hundred, horned cattle, several hundred sheep, and upwards of thirty horses on that property during the summer; and, from all appearances, he will make the whole of his property in the same way. The work is being carried on in a remote mountainous district of Donegal, but should not, we think, be concealed from public view.

Excursion on Lough Erne. August 25th 1864.

Excursion on Lough Erne. August 25th 1864. Impartial Reporter.

On Friday there was an excursion to Belleek on the steamer Devenish. It was the best of the season. The number of persons on board about 320 was not so great as on the 12th of August; but was less crowding, and the day was delightful. Among the strangers present were, Sir James Emerson Tennent and a party of friends consisting of Rt. Hon. James Whiteside, Q. C., M. P., Richard Davidson Esq., formerly the representative of Belfast, John Foster, Esq., a distinguished writer, and now a Lunacy Commissioner, and Mr Dunville of Belfast.

This party with the exception of Mr Davidson on the return trip of the boat, went ashore at Rossfad with Mr Richardson and family to proceed with the Rev. J. G. Porter to Kilskeery. Mr Porter himself was on board as he is during most excursions of his iron child the Devenish, and was as usual, the life of the party It has sometimes been thought that some people ought never to die; and if it were right to give way to such philosophy or sentiment, we would say that Mr Porter ought to be one of the immortal exceptions to Nature’s rule. If “it takes all sorts to make up a world” we have some doubt any world existing without him; for we don’t think there is another of exactly the same sort.

There were on board a large number of the gentry, from the town and country, a number of soldiers of the 29th Regiment, and all together a right good boat-full.

At Belleek most of the excursionists visited the large and handsome porcelain factory and had the different parts of the process, and various products of skill, pointed out by Mr. Armstrong, the manager and by Mr. Bloomfield of Castle Caldwell, who takes so much interest in the go-ahead of Archimedes. The Syracusan sage, if he had the requisites would have moved the world; Mr. Bloomfield would move it. There are many things about the factory worthy of admiration and note, though the presence of the crowd was unfavourable for examining them. But that which struck us most was the beauty of some vases that were in the process of manufacture in the hands of an amateur artist of no mean skill.

A good many of the excursionists visited the bridge which is being built over the Erne at Belleek for the Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway. It promises to be a bold and handsome structure. The return to Enniskillen was very pleasant, and everyone on board, save two or three  roughs who deem themselves commissioned to be locomotive or cacomotive protests against the Band of Hope, seemed to enjoy the trip very much. A good many people lunched and dined on board, and seemed to hesitate in their admiration between the excellent fare and the low fees.

Public Executions – Summary from 1864.

PUBLIC EXECUTIONS. January 7th 1864 Impartial Reporter.

The punishment of death has long been a subject of controversy and much has been written to show that, so far as a deterring influence may be concerned, it has ever been a total failure. When the late Sir Robert Peel brought in his measure for a reform in the criminal code, a leading Judge of the day give it as his opinion that if the system of capital punishment were in any degree narrowed neither life nor property would be safe. We have seen how well the milder mode of dealing with offenders has worked for the last forty years, and how comparatively few cases there have been where in days of old the common hangman would have finished the work and wreaked the final vengeance on the law of the offender. During the thirty-eight years’ reign of Henry the Eighth  there were seventy-two thousand criminals executed; and in, very recent times—viz. the ten years’ reign of George the Fourth—nearly eight hundred executions took place in England. Sam Rogers tells of the days when fourteen criminals were hanged at Tyburn on a single morning, one of the sufferers, being a young woman, mother of an infant only three months old. One sad feature of that case was that the husband of the poor girl had been seized and carried off by the press-gang, and she was left penniless. In her poverty and despair she stole a shawl and sold it to buy food and for that crime she was lodged in the Old Bailey and, after proof of the fact, condemned to death. The banker poet, in commenting on the harshness of that case, said the Government first stole the woman’s natural protector, add the law ordered her execution for committing an act not one tenth so flagrant as that perpetrated against herself under the sanction of the same law. With the advent of a more merciful system, of punishment there has come a lessened disposition to commit the higher order of offences.

Forgery is not at all so prevalent now, as it was when a man would be hanged—as was the case at Carrickfergus about half a century ago—for offering to past a bank-note which afterwards turned out to be a forgery: the poor fellow was unable to read, but the plea availed him not, and he paid the penalty of the act with the forfeit of his life. Occasionally a highly finished criminal such as Roupell turns up, and tells a tale of systematic plunder that savours far more of the dreamings of a romance writer than the actual workings of wickedness in real life. Still, when we consider that in a single year, before the reform of the law, there were one hundred and twenty persons prosecuted for forgery the moral improvement that has been going on since 1832, when the crime ceased to be considered a capital one in the eye of the law must be looked upon as marvellous.

The revolting scenes that take place at public executions cannot fail to have the worst effects on the habits and passions of those who, with the morbid curiosity of a depraved taste, have a sort of mania for such exhibitions, it is not unusual for persons who delight in these sights to sit up all night in the neighbourhood of the gallows for the purpose of securing good places on the morning of the execution. Windows within view of the drop at the Old Bailey have frequently been let at ten to fifteen pounds. When Bellingham, who murdered Mr Percival in the lobby of the House of Commons was hanged for that act, the late George. Selwyn, famed for his desire to witness executions paid twenty pounds for a single window.

One of the most revolting of public executions took place at Chester on Monday last It may perhaps, be recollected that, some time ago a woman named Alice Hewitt was given in charge for the murdering of her mother by the administering of poison to the poor woman. It appeared that early in the year Hewitt had induced a woman of her acquaintance to go to an insurance office and personate her (Hewitt’s) mother, and for a small premium, the office issued a policy on the life for five and twenty pounds. In a short time the old woman died and after the usual proof  of the decease of the insured, the insurers  paid over the sum to the daughter. By some means the truth came out as to the mode by which the old woman met her death, and on inquiry, being made the daughter was taken prisoner, tried, and sentenced to death. The day appointed was Monday last, at eight o’clock and although the weather was very severe with occasional drifts of snow falling, between three and four thousand persons had assembled to witness the execution. On the culprit appearing on the platform of the drop a death-like hush prevailed for a moment, but above the heads of the multitude there presently rose a wail of piercing intensity from the lips of the culprit; and as the cry deepened the very stillness of silence, prevailed over the crowd. The report, as given in the Daily New goes on to say that on the cap and rope being adjusted, the culprit fell upon her knees and prayed that her infant child might be spared a similar fate, and that her death

ENLIGHTENED ENGLAND. PUBLIC EXECUTIONS.

Impartial Reporter, March 24 1864.

Sir George Grey’s recent speech in the House of Commons in defence of public executions recalls the arguments in vogue at no very remote date when the hempen remedy was vigorously applied to a vast number of offences no longer punishable with death. Yet the following brief extracts from the London papers published during the latter part of the last century appear now almost incredible now that the expediency of retaining Capital punishment even for the heinous, crime of murder is more than questioned by the most intelligent minds in the community.

A D 1774. During this year sixty-eight persons were executed in London and forty-eight convicts branded.” [This operation was performed on the back of the patient. “Burning in the hand” was a more common and less painful infliction..]

July 27th Rev. Dr.  William Dodd and another convict were executed at Tyburn. The spectacle on this occasion was anything but solemn. Two dogs having quarrelled near the gallows foot, were incited by fellows nearby to fight it out; the Religious exercises intended to be entered into were suddenly stopped, and either never renewed or slurred over. The heat of the day was great, the dust raised thick, and great confusion prevailed. The Doctor’s face looked flushed and every appearance of resignation he had been able to give to his countenance was quite put out by the rout. The white night provided to cover his face was found on trial to be far too small, but it was rudely forced on so as to cover part only of the visage. The sheriffs, who were seated in their carriages, viewed the scene at a distance signalled the driver of the gallows cart to, whip his horses, at once, and this done the culprits swung in mid-air.

1779 October 27th —“At seven o’clock this morning four convicts were taken from Newgate to Tyburn to die. Three were hanged; but one, Isabella Condon, who had coined some shillings and sixpences, was fastened to a stake, the faggots about it lighted, and her body consumed to ashes. She cried bitterly, and declared that the last part she had to undergo afflicted her beyond every other consideration.

In several London papers for August, 1782, we find the following paragraph: –

“This day (St. Bartholomew’s) David Tyrie, lately convicted of high treason at Winchester Assizes, as having corresponded with our enemies the French, was hung at Portsmouth. Having been up twenty-two and a half minutes he was taken down, disembowelled, and his heart taken out and presented to the mob. The latter had then the liberty of cutting and hacking any parts of the body they could get.at; so fingers, ribs, toes, & were flying about on all sides. The gaoler of Gosport however, took away the head and made a show of it for money,” [The exhibition of this ghastly relic had been found too profitable by an honest Boniface to be lightly given up. Thus in the London papers published in mid-summer  1783 we find the following supplementary notification on the same subject under date June 26] “The head of the late David Tyrie is still in course of exhibition at a charge of one shilling by a publican who purchased it. A few weeks before a fine young woman lost her reason from her sweetheart having playfully on a sudden thrust the head upon her.

1785, Feb.22 – This morning twenty men were hung from the platform before Newgate. These were, &c. [The names and reported crimes of the parties we omit but there was not one murderer amongst them.] “Before going out the unhappy criminals kissed each other in the Quadrangle then marched on; solemnly, two-and-two singing a funeral hymn.”

1785April 19—Nineteen malefactors were executed this morning in front of Newgate prison.

1785. Nov. 10 – “Sixteen persons were executed this day in front of Newgate prison, one of them being a mere lad, aged 15.

1786, June 22. —“Six men and one woman were this morning executed before Newgate—namely, four for robbery, one man for counting and counterfeiting a half penny; the woman, named Harris for assisting in counterfeiting some shilling pieces. Soon after the unhappy men were dead twelve persons went upon the Scaffold and had the hands of; the deceased repeatedly rubbed by the executioner upon their faces and necks as a supposed cure for the protuberances called wens. About a quarter of an hour after the platform had dropped the female convict was led by two officers of justice from Newgate to a stake fixed in the ground about midway between the scaffold and the pump.  The stake was about eleven feet high, and on the top of it was inserted a curved piece of iron to which the halter was tied. The prisoner stood on a low stool, which, after the ordinary had prayed with her a short time being taken away she was suspended by the neck, her feet being scarcely more than twelve or thirteen inches from the pavement. Soon after the signs of life had ceased two cart loads of faggots were placed around her and set on fire. The flames presently burning the halter and  the convict fell a few Inches, and was then sustained by an iron chain passed over her chest, and affixed to the stake. Some scattered remains of the body were perceptible in the fire at half past ten o’clock. The fire had not quite burnt out at twelve, Phoebe Harris was a well-made little woman, something more than thirty years of age, of pale complexion, and not disagreeable in features. When she went out of prison she appeared both languid and terrified and trembled greatly as she advanced to the stake, where the apparatus for her punishment she was about to experience seemed to strike her mind with horror and consternation, to the exclusion of all power of collectedness in preparation for the awful approaching moment.

1787, Jan l. — “The executions last year in London have amounted to forty-four. There are now in Newgate fifty-two, capital convicts, the greater part of whom will, no doubt, suffer in the course of a few months.”

1787. | Jan 9—“This morning were executed before the debtors’ door in Newgate, pursuant to their sentences, eighteen malefactors, condemned for highway robbery, housebreaking and horse stealing. They behaved suitably to their unhappy situation.”

1787, Jan 4 — At this morning thirteen convicts suffered death at the Old Bailey. [This year nearly one hundred hangings took place in London and Middlesex together]

1788, June 25. – “Margaret Sullivan was burnt at a stake set up in the Old Bailey for having aided others in coining base money. As soon as she came to the stake she was placed on the stool, which, after, some time, was taken from under, when the faggots were placed around her, and, being set fire to, she was consumed to ashes. [This woman was, we believe, the last victim of the old English treason laws, which punished as “ petty treason” in a female the murder of a husband, or that of a master or mistress, &c. In Midsummer, 1790, a law passed transferring such crimes, also coining base money (formerly punished as an act of high treason) to the category of capital felonies.]

1788, Dec. 12—“The number of persons executed in Middlesex between the present time and Dec. 1783, shows a total of 324, or nearly 65 annually!”

1790. Dec.— “Two Custom-house officers were executed in the Old Bailey for misappropriating a small parcel of coffee beans, which petty abstraction, as they protested to the last, they thought they had a right to make as a usual perquisite.”

The following describes the infliction of the brutal punishment of branding in the hand.

1799. Dec. 22- “James Ottean, a French prisoner of war, was convicted of man-slaughter in the Admiralty Court, London. He was sentenced to be burned in the hand, which was carried into effect before he left the court, and in presence of the judge, who tried him (Sir Wm. Scott). The apparatus—viz., the chafing-dish, the brand, and irons for keeping the hand steady – being adjusted, the brand was applied. The patient uttered in involuntary convulsive scream on feeling the iron, but instantly regained his apparent composure.

Crime in Fermanagh 1864.

Crime in Fermanagh.

September 22nd 1864. Impartial Reporter.

Last week we reviewed the general aspects of crime in Ireland and it afforded us pleasure that the contrast with England and Wales was so very favourable to this country. At present our objective is to take a local view of the subject.

Beginning, therefore with the number of known depredators, offender and suspected persons at large in the month of December, l863 we find 15 known thieves under the age of 16 years of age in the county and 56 above that age. The juveniles only mustered one in Arney police district; none in Derrygonnelly, two in Enniskillen, seven in Kesh and five in Lisnaskea. Of the older offenders, there were seven in Arney; none in Derrygonnelly; eighteen in Enniskillen; twenty-two in Kesh; and nine in Lisnaskea. There were no receivers of stolen goods under16 years of age but above that age there were thirty-two persons in that calling—two in Arney; none in Derrygonnelly; two in Enniskillen; twenty in Kesh and eight in Lisnaskea.

The county appears to be totally exempt from prostitution under 16 years of age, which is the more gratifying as elsewhere reported in the province; while above that age there appears to be 62 – two in Arney; four in Derrygonnelly; thirty-fire in Enniskillen; eight in Kesh; and thirteen Lisnaskea. There are 16 suspected persons under 16 years of age—four in Enniskillen, eleven in Kesh; and one in Lisnaskea; above that age there are eighty persons “worth watching” of whom seven are in  Arney; none in Derrygonnelly; thirty-four in Enniskillen; twenty-five in Kesh; and fourteen in Lisnaskea.

The daily average number of vagrants and tramps amounts to 33 under 16 years of age; Arney reporting one, Derrygonnelly none; Enniskillen four; Kesh six; Lisnaskea twenty-two. Above 16 years of age, there were eleven in Arney; none in Derrygonnelly; twenty-six in Enniskillen; twelve in Kesh; twenty-eight in Lisnaskea. Of houses of receivers of stolen goods there were twenty-four – one in Arney; none in Derrygonnelly; seven in Enniskillen; ten in Kesh; and six in Lisnaskea.

In the whole county there were only three public-houses the resort of thieves and prostitutes and this trio was limited to Enniskillen. Of “other suspected houses” there were two in Arney; none in Derrygonnelly; two in Enniskillen; seven in Kesh; and eleven in Lisnaskea.

The brothels and houses of ill-fame number 17 – of which none were in Arney or Derrygonnelly; eight in Enniskillen; two in Kesh;  and seven in Lisnaskea.

There were four tramp lodging-houses in Arney; one in Derrygonnelly; eight in Enniskillen; nine in Kesh and eighteen in Lisnaskea. The catalogue on the whole, is not formidable.

We may now take another view of the subject as to the number of crimes committed in each police district during the year and in this respect Fermanagh is lowest in Ulster, the total known to the constabulary being 124 – of which Arney contributed fifteen; Derrygonnelly twenty-one; Enniskillen thirty-four; Kesh seventeen; and Lisnaskea thirty-seven. It is worthy of remark, in favour of the police, that the number of persons arrested corresponds exactly with the number of crimes. Among the more heinous offences may be reckoned one for manslaughter; one breaking into a shop; five cattle stealing; two sheep stealing; five arson; one each killing and maiming cattle, and sending threatening letters; three forgery, four perjury, one keeping a disorderly house and one attempting to commit suicide. The remainder indeed all the offences, are such as we may expect to the end of human society.

They have no remarkable aspects, nor is there anything to take from the fame of our county for its loyalty and peaceableness. Now, if we turn to another class of crime, in which the cases were summarily determined, the healthy condition of Fermanagh is still evident— Thus it seems that the total number proceeded against was 2,047, of which Arney district  contributed 281; Derrygonnelly, 180; Enniskillen 766; Kesh, 337; Lisnaskea, 513. Of the whole number, 1420 were convicted, of whom 1,108 were fined. In the whole province there were only two persons whipped. Whipping in public is as much among the things that were as the stocks and the pillory. It was a relic of the barbarous treatment of criminals and how few of our readers remember the last of that kind of punishment in the person of Condy Mc Manus? It will be of interest to our Band of Hope friends to know that in the year under review there was not an habitual drunkard, as such, proceeded against on endightment and only 72 dealt with in the County summarily, one of that number being a female. For the detection and correction of crime in Fermanagh we have one County Inspector, five Sub-Inspectors, six head-constables two mounted and twenty-nine dismounted, six acting constables and four mounted and 130 dismounted sub-constables.

Why is the title of the book “The Great Silence.”

Why the Great Silence!

Any individual looking out over his Fermanagh townland in 1850 would have experienced the Great Silence – the Great physical Silence which followed the Great Hunger. It was a dismal scene to survey empty cottages and untilled fields. Many of the familiar faces – often a hundred or more, men, women and children in some townlands, lay dead, often uncoffined, in hurried graves. Their children’s playful laughter stilled forever; the adults’ music and conversation gone forever. Those lucky to have got away to the corners of the world will never return. In little over a period of five years famine, disease and emigration swept away over 40,000 Fermanagh people; (more than two-thirds of today’s county population). In these pages we hear the voices of the people of the time tell of life and how it was in the words of the time in a local Fermanagh newspaper.

There is a second Great Silence – that of the guilty and greedy, the profiteering merchants, farmers, landlords, shippers, the uncaring, the vilifying English press and the murderous indifference of Government. Not many of these want to talk about the famine or recognise its terrible legacy. Some who profited from the misfortunes of those around them during those years have good reason for wanting it forgotten.

And there is a third Great Silence born of a condition of the mind known as non-rational guilt. Victims burdened with non-rational guilt have not earned this guilt through their own wrongdoing but feel the guilt of survivors – why not me too when others I knew perished. Paradoxically, while victims have been observed to cling to their non-rational guilt, perpetrators often disavow their guilt though the use of a variety of strategies including projection, rationalization, and denial. They may also promulgate the idea that the abuse is but a fantasy in the mind of the victim. That failing, they will attempt to justify the abuse on the basis that it is deserved by the victim. Sir Charles Trevelyan believed that the Famine was an act of God directed on Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland but then too many clergymen like Archbishop John Mc Hale of Tuam said that the famine was a divine punishment on his flock for their sins. So God had it in for us!! Can our great silence be non-rational guilt. Our ancestors survived while thousands perished around them.

Postscript to the Great Silence.

Postscript.

The Famine in Fermanagh in its worst aspects had ended by 1850. Pits and graves full of human remains littered our landscape and filled our graveyards and workhouse burial grounds. There were many quiet, silent townlands and many quiet head down people who had done well of the misery of the period. Farmers who hoarded their food stores waiting on a rising market to make bigger profits, forestallers who bought cheaply in one place to sell profitable in another, clergy who blamed the famine on the ungodly sins of their flocks to bolster their own influence and income, farmers who gleefully accepted the little holdings of others to enlarge their own, wealthy and totally undeserving farmers who got themselves on to the Famine Relief Works through toadying up to the Landlords and Clergy and leaving the deserving to starve and die. Not a bit wonder that people like this wanted to keep their actions quiet in this time and so did their descendants.

At the grave of Sir Charles Trevelyan,  Crambo, , near Morpeth, Northumberland 2011.

Fermanagh is rather of an anomaly. We had in the 1840s a very high proportion of resident landlords (much more so than most parts of Ireland) who prided themselves in acting in a paternalist and charitable manner towards the majority of their tenants and had been in the habit of doing so. In the beginning of the Famine in general they set up soup kitchens, raised wages in line with increasing food prices, provided work, distributed clothing etc until the tide of destitution overwhelmed them or it became greater than their financial resources.

For these paternalistic landlords the coming of the diktats of the Poor Law Act Commissioners and the setting up of the Workhouse system in Fermanagh was in general greatly resented. Many thought they had been doing their best to combat the disaster and now to be taxed to support the poor when they had been voluntarily taxing themselves for exactly the same purpose caused them outrage. Mass emigration and the rapid depopulation led to a financial crisis in their ranks as their rental income tumbled. People wouldn’t or in general couldn’t pay the previous level of rents especially now that the Corn Laws were abolished and cheap grain flooded the whole kingdom. If the farmers and peasantry could not sell at previous prices then they could not pay rent at previous levels but the landlords were loath to lower their rents.

The reaction to this financial crisis among the landed gentry took several forms but mainly mass evictions so that the land could be set to more affluent (big) farmers or set to graziers who wanted large areas on which to graze their flocks of sheep or herds of cattle unencumbered with tenantry who might and could and often did feed themselves on their stock. The letting of land to graziers was following the same pattern as had been set in Scotland when the Highlands and Islands were cleared to make large stock farms or grouse moors or red deer hunting estates. The Scots were cleared to the coasts to specifically set up fishing villages or put on ships and exported to Canada, the USA and Australia – and paradoxically the process was led by the Scottish lairds who turned on their own clansmen and women for their own financial advantage. This exportation of people was also followed in Fermanagh on the Florencecourt Estate of Lord Enniskillen.

Towards the end of the 1840s the tone of our chosen newspaper changes from sycophantic praise of the landlords and gentry to one of pointing out their numerous faults – a life of luxury and dissipation in some cases and most frequently the spending if not squandering of Fermanagh and Irish money abroad with little if any reinvestment of locally raised money in their own estates and locality. Income raised on the backs of Irish people frittered away, gambled away or piddled up against the walls of England.

The Workhouses have a universally bad press in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. The title and blurb of this Welsh Workhouse book speaks for all the rest: –  Paupers, Bastards and Lunatics – The Story of Conwy Workhouse. Conwy Workhouse was designed to imprison, discipline and punish the poor of northern Wales. In the words of one government adviser it was intended to “be a place of hardship, of coarse fare, of degradation and humility”. The common people from Penmaenmawr to Llysfaen and from Llandudno to Dolgarrog lived with the constant fear of ending their days in the Workhouse. Poverty was sufficient qualification for incarceration in “Conwy Bastille” condemned to categorisation as a “Pauper”, “Bastard” or “Lunatic”. This book uncovers the disturbing story of Conwy’s Victorian Workhouse and its associated asylums, training ships and children’s homes and traces the transportation and emigration of local paupers to Canada and Van Diemen’s Land.” (By Christopher Draper.)

But the Workhouses had one redeeming feature although entirely lost on the inmates of the time. The Workhouse system was the first time that Government and Society in general took some responsibility for the old, the crippled, the orphans, the widows and the insane. We now have orphanages, retirement homes, sheltered accommodation and sheltered workshops etc and they all had their unlikely beginnings in the Workhouse system. Unlikely as it might seem – something good came out of the Workhouse idea.

Louder and louder became the cry for Tenant Right. Tenants who had been encouraged or cajoled to improve their farms with their own money were now being evicted without a shilling in compensation. It was manifestly unfair and would lead to further disruption and land war for the most of the rest of the century. However the landlords were not all members of the fox-hunting aristocracy who Oscar Wilde called the “unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable” as some landlords ended in the Workhouse themselves having expended all they owned to help the starving. And it is also a fallacy to see all the peasantry as innocents who had no share in their own downfall. The system of runaway marriages produced an exploding population as young people set up homes with little or no resources, were totally dependent on the potato and had minimal resources to survive a crisis such as the Famine. Did they inadvertently conspire in their own demise? Then what about the making of poteen which was one of the greatest evils of 19 century Ireland? Grain that might have saved their lives was converted into alcohol as a cash crop and by the time the potatoes failed there was little choice between drinking oneself to death or starving to death. Had not the poteen makers a role in the demise of themselves and their neighbours?

The search for the guilty parties could go on and on. There is no reparation that can now be made to those who died; to those who had to flee their homeland; to those interned in miserable, miserly Workhouses; to the widows, orphans and the heartbroken friends and relatives but as we look back on their history changing era we owe it to those people to have an informed and balanced understanding of the life and times of the Irish Great Famine.

John B. Cunningham 10-2-2012.

The Great Silence – The Famine in Fermanagh 1845-1850.

Preface.

This book is intended to reflect the conditions in County Fermanagh during and after the Famine in Ireland which is variously given the dates of 1845-1847 or 1845-1850. The wider time range has been chosen because I don’t think that historical processes and events can be neatly encapsulated in a simple time frame and pigeon-holed so easily. The potato blight which decimated that most basic of Irish crops is still with us and farmers still need to use a fungicide to preserve their potato crop. The political implications of the Famine which have caused so much violence in Ireland still rumble on down to today 160 years later. The Irish diaspora across the world is still ensconced abroad and still remembering their roots, if not on a daily basis, then certainly on St. Patrick’s Day. The revolution in land ownership and the decline and virtual obliteration of the landed gentry class derives in large measure from the time of the famine. So the various aspects of the legacy of the Famine are still with us.

This book takes its information from one source that of one of Fermanagh’s newspapers, The Enniskillen Chronicle and Erne Packet, later renamed under a new owner as, The Fermanagh Mail and Enniskillen Chronicle. It is the intention to let the voices of those times tell the story of that time and not just the editors but their numerous correspondents who tell us how it was.

Despite the desperate times of the Famine, life still went on and this book charts what the newspaper felt worthy of recording – the life of the times in print for those who could read and could afford to buy a newspaper. This volume is a chronicle depicting the times as lived in by our ancestors, who, if our ancestors were in this country, they were survivors and we are the proof of their tenacity to hold on to life in dire times. A chronicle is an extended account of historical events, presented in chronological order and without authorial interpretation or comment. My only interventions are to insert passages of explanation regarding personalities, events, etc of the time which today we would have little notion of their relevance or importance then.

These were times of dire poverty and unbelievable destitution and they are hard to grasp for us today who can scarce imagine such things until we see them with our own eyes in desolate parts of Africa or Asia but in those places times still roll on; the shock horror of today is replaced by another headline soon after because, possibly, as humans we can only take so much horror at a time.

Reading of the gentry who flocked to see the Lough Erne Regatta or the parties held by the nobility for their friends or their extended holidays to the Continent we might feel exasperation and feel like shouting back down the years “have you no conscience, no understanding of what is going on about you, can you not do more to alleviate this horrendous suffering?” but that is no use and the times were the times they were. Recently I was reminded of the continuation of this process of ongoing life. In the flurry of coverage of famine in the Horn of Africa with more than a million expected to die the Daily Mirror headline was that a footballer’s wife who had just had a baby now had a sore back. Dear God and buck stupidity! We cannot in reading these pages of our Fermanagh history expect greatness from our past (although there was indeed greatness and goodness and compassion also to be found in those days) when we see some of the inanities of some of our contemporaries.

One thing to remember is that – if our people lived in this country in the period of the Great Famine – then we are survivors – the question is how did we survive? Do we know? Have we asked or in some cases do we want to know for some exploited the situation? This was not just the great landowners alone but shopkeepers and merchants who raised their prices to a level that the poverty-stricken could not afford, the forestallers who bought cheaply in one area to sell dearly in another, people who adulterated the Indian meal with sand and gravel, those who were happy to see people evicted so that they could have more land themselves, etc., etc. Are there not many who have dark secrets to hide?

During the ten years, 1841 to 1851, Fermanagh lost 40,434 or 25% of her people. These are the figures for the Baronies of Fermanagh. There are no means of telling how many of these missing thousands are due to death through hunger and disease or emigration or migration to other parts of the country. Those who wish to minimize the tragedy may say that a large number emigrated but the dire poverty of the most effected section of the population makes this an untenable position and there are no emigration figures to back this assertion with any strength. Many died because they had nowhere else to go nor the money to buy the available food.

Barony  1841 Population 1851 Population Loss %

1. Clanawley        20,426   – 14,706 minus 30%

2. Clankelly          15,424 – 10,998   minus 30%

3. Coole 10,265 – 5,665                  minus 28%

4. Knockninny     10,995   – 8,741               minus 20%

5. Lurg               27,588       – 20,386 minus 27%

6. Magheraboy 25,774 – 17,799       minus 31%

7. Magherasteffany 22,562 – 17,373              minus 22%

8. Tirkennedy       23,447   – 20,378 minus 13%.

 Total for County Fermanagh            156,481 – 116,047 minus 25%

Tirkennedy and Knockninny fared best or one might say suffered least, during the Famine. Some areas were very badly affected. The part of Drummully Parish in Fermanagh lost 45% of its population. Some townlands were nearly wiped out and paradoxically some townlands grew in numbers. Percentages can be unreliable in some instances for this particular reason that if there were 10 people in a townland in 1841 and five disappeared then that is a fall of 50% but it reflects only five people but if there is 100 in a Townland and 50 disappear than that is also 50% but that 50% measures 50 people and not five and so percentages can be sometimes misleading.

To put the Famine in a wider context – the European Potato Failure as it is known outside Ireland was a food crisis caused by potato blight that struck Northern Europe in the mid-1840s.  While the crisis produced excess mortality and suffering across the affected areas, particularly harshly affected were the Scottish Highlands and, above all others, Ireland. Many people starved due to their inability to access other staple food sources. They could not afford the rising prices created by the unbridled merchants. The effect of the crisis on Ireland is incomparable to all other places for the devastation it wrought, causing approximately one million deaths and another million refugees and spurring a century-long population decline. An estimated 40,000–50,000 died in Belgium. Over 1 million emigrated from the Scottish Highlands, many assisted by landlords and the government, mainly to North America and Australia, and is seen as a continuation of the Highland Clearances, with overtones of ethnic cleansing of the native Scots.

“If you have tears to shed prepare to shed them now.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616).  Julius Cæsar Act III. Scene II.

This book will be published in May 2012. DV.