As schoolboys, to whom “next half” begins to-morrow--sailors on the
eve of a voyage--invalids, expecting a physician, who, they know,
will prescribe an unwelcome diet--yea, even as criminals before
execution,--amplify their meals, and, from their dreary expectations,
educe a keener relish,--so we, awfully anticipating the _cuisine_
of Connamara, made a mighty dinner at Galway. It was brought to us,
moreover, by a dear old waiter, who evidently had a proud delight in
feeding us, as though he were some affectionate sparrow, and we his
callow young, taking off the covers with a triumphant air, like a
conjuror sure of his trick, and pouring out our Drogheda ale, with quite
as much respect and care as Ganymede could have shown for the Gods.
“Was the salmon caught this morning, waiter?”
“It was, sir. Faith, it's not two hours since that fish was walking
round his estates, wid his hands in his pockets, never draming what a
pretty invitashun he'd have to jine you gintlemen at dinner.”
This was followed by a small saddle of “Arran mutton, y'r onner;” and
“what can mortals wish for more,” except a soupçon of cheese?
Ah, but we felt almost ashamed of being so full and comfortable, when
our conversational attendant began to talk to us about the Great Famine.
“That's right, good gintlemen,” he said, “niver forget, when ye've had
yer males, to thank the Lord as sends them. May ye niver know what it
is to crave for food, and may ye niver see what I have seen, here in the
town o' Galway. I mind the time when I lived yonder” (and he pointed to
Kilroy's Hotel), “and the poor craturs come crawling in from the country
with their faces swollen, and grane, and yaller, along of the arbs
they'd been ating. We gave them bits and scraps, good gintlemen, and did
what we could (the Lord be praised!), but they was mostly too far gone
out o' life to want more than the priest and pity. I've gone out of
a morning, gintlemen,” (his lip quivered as he spoke), “and seen them
lying dead in the square, with the green grass in their mouths.” And he
turned away, (God bless his kind heart!), to hide the tears, which did
him so much honour.
Can history or imagination suggest a scene more awfully impressive
than that which Ireland presented in the times of the Great Famine? The
sorrows of that visitation have been recorded by eloquent, earnest men;
but they come home to us with a new and startling influence, when we
hear of them upon Irish ground. Most vividly can we realise the wreck,
when he, who hardly swam ashore and escaped, points to the scene of
peril; and while the storm-clouds still drift in the far horizon, and
the broken timbers float upon the seething wave, describes, with an
exactness horrible to himself, that last amazement and despair.
In the beautiful land of the merry-hearted, “all joy was darkened,--the
mirth of the land was gone.” In the country of song, and dance, and
laughter, there was not heard, wherever that Famine came, one note of
music, nor one cheerful sound,--only the gasp of dying men, and the
mourners' melancholy wail. The green grass of the Emerald Isle grew over
a nation's grave. The crowning plague of Egypt was transcended here,
for not only in some districts, was there in every house “one dead,” but
there were homes in which there was but one living--homes, in which
one little child was found, calling upon father, mother, brothers, and
sisters, to wake from their last, long sleep,--homes, from which the
last survivor fled away, in wild alarm, from those whom living he had
loved so well. Fathers were seen vainly endeavouring (such was their
weakness) to dig a grave for their children, reeling and staggering with
the useless spade in their hands. The poor widow, who had left her home
to beg a coffin for her last, lost child, fell beneath her burden upon
the road and died. 1 The mendicant had now no power to beg The drivers
of the public cars went into cottages, and found all dead, or Rachel
weeping for her children, and praying that die she might. By the
seaside, men seeking shell-fish, fell down upon the sands, and, impotent
to rise, were drowned. First they began to bury corpses, coffinless,
then could not bury them at all.
1 See a most interesting article on the “Famine in the South
of Ireland,” in Fraser's Magazine, for April, 1847, p. 499.
Of indignities and mutilations, which then befell, I will not, for I
cannot, speak.
Indeed, it may be asked, wherefore should we repeat at all these sad,
heart-rending details? Because, the oftener they are had in painful
remembrance, the less likely they are to recur in terrible reality;
because--
“Never did any public misery
Rise of itself; God's plagues still grounded are
On common stains of our humanity;
And to the flame which ruineth mankind
Man gives the matter, or at least the wind; 1
1 Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke.
and because, when we know the cause and the symptoms, we can the more
readily prevent and prescribe.
Everyone knows, of course, the origin of the Irish Famine.
“The blight which fell upon the potato produced a deadly famine, because
the people had cultivated it so exclusively, that when it failed,
millions became as utterly destitute, as if the island were incapable of
producing any other species of sustenance.” 2
2 Report of Census Commissioners for Ireland.
They, “who are habitually and entirely fed on potatoes, live upon the
extreme verge of human subsistence, and when they are deprived of their
accustomed food, there is nothing cheaper to which they can resort. They
have already reached the lowest point in the descending scale, and here
is nothing beyond but starvation or beggary.” 1
The remedy is just as clear,--to induce the peasantry of Ireland no
longer to _depend_ upon an article of food, which is difficult to
procure, cumbrous to convey, possesses so little nourishment that it
must be consumed in large quantities, 2 creates a strange, unhealthy
distaste for other food, 3 is subject to so many diseases from humidity
and frost, and which has wrought such grievous desolation through the
length and breadth of the land. 4
1 Edinburgh Review, No. 175, p. 233.
2 The evidence taken before the Poor Law Commissioners,
previously to the establishment of the New Poor Law in
Ireland, proves that “ten pounds, twelve pounds, and even
fourteen pounds of potatoes are usually consumed by an Irish
peasant each day.”--Letters on the Condition of the People
of Ireland, by J. Campbell Forster, Esq., the Times'
Commissioner.
3 “When this famine was at the worst in Connamara, the sea
off the coast there teemed with turbot, to such an extent
that the laziest of fishermen could not help catching them
in thousands; but the common people would not touch them.”--
Quarterly Review, vol. lxxxi., p. 435.
4 Cobbett called the potato, that “root of poverty.”
_How_ that remedy is to be applied, let legislators and landlords tell;
meanwhile, my friend, and I, having sorrowfully sipped our pint of
sherry, shall essay to cheer ourselves with a mild cigar, and a farewell
walk to the Claddagh.
The shades of eve were falling fast, as we set forth, and we were just
in time to see the last haul of the nets, and the silver salmon lying
on the bank. Then we revived our spirits by a little conversation with
young Claddagh, (merry and mischievous urchins), and by a distribution
of copper, every halfpenny of which raised such a tumulus of rags as
would have kept a paper mill at work for weeks. Then--
“the sun set,
And all the land was dark.”