Personalities of the Workhouse-Bridget Corbett


                                                    
The exact window from whence Bridget ended her life
The story of Bridget Corbett is one of the saddest to come out of Portumna workhouse. Her experiences call into question just how 'free' a person really was to leave the workhouse if they had any sort of physical impediment. In our current era of trying to increase accessibility, this story is especially sobering. We are lucky to have the details of the case from a newspaper report dated November 1872 which tells us about Bridget's plight. 


The elderly widow lay confined to a bed for 12 months, in extreme discomfort from the effects of rheumatism. On November 10th of that year Bridget made the first attempt on her own life but was stopped. Not to be deterred, 
 Mrs Corbett must have had her mind made up about ending her life. While the wards-woman was not looking, Bridget made her way out of a small window, several floors above the children's yard, and threw herself onto the hard ground below. The fall did not result in an immediate fatality, but Bridget did die some time later from her injuries.

The most poignant part of this story is that Bridget Corbett was free to leave the workhouse but unfortunately had nowhere to go or nobody to care for her. In her mind her only escape from pain was through the top floor window of the women’s quarters.

In a bid to acknowledge the many people in Irish Workhouses who may have been driven to the ultimate desperation and attempted to take their own lives, The Irish Workhouse Centre held a small commemoration in 2017 at which the following specially written poem was read.


        Walls of Glass (for Bridget Corbett)
 by David Broderick

Sister please, my pain do ease for I can take no more
I’m sorry dear we do what we can, now we can do no more
But I cannot lay her any longer in fierce suffering and pain
Please fetch the warden to whom I’ll ask to free me from these chains.

Oh Warden please, oh please save now me from this awful fate
Ah Pauper see you're free to leave, don’t you see the open gate
Its open wide for you to leave just take your things and go
Oh but Warden sure how can I leave, for all are gone that I’d know

An empty ruin with no hearth or roof is all that’s there now
No spuds are grown, no pig to feed, nor a milking cow
No neighbours left, they all are dead and their young all set sail
Nor a rambler left to call to hear, my sad and lonely tale

So I must take that sorry step, the only step to set me free
For no one will help this sorry soul I’m like a lock without a key
My lord above forgive me please and give me wings to fly
For in this prison, with walls of glass, many years ago I died

So Now I am free, from pain and hunger,  from cruelty and from shame
Please heaven, take me now and give me rest, and please all remember my name.

Author: David Broderick
Article courtesy of Roscommon & Leitrim Gazette 23 November 1872


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Finnish Famine Exhibition

Image
-The Finnish Famine-    An Interview with Dr. Andrew Newby on his current exhibition at The Irish Workhouse Centre How did this exhibition come about? In 2012 I was pleased to receive an Academy of Finland Award to work on a five year project to compare the Irish and Finnish famines. This exhibition came out of that project. It travelled to Ireland to be displayed in The National Famine Museum at Strokestown but then migrated to the National University of Ireland, Galway. Just when I thought the exhibition had to return to Finland, I was delighted when the opportunity arose for it to be displayed at The Irish Workhouse Centre. How did you get involved in researching the Finnish Famine? I first heard about the Finnish Famine in 1997 from a Finnish Student. Being Irish and specifically a Mayo man, the topic of famine struck a chord with me. The fact that 1997 was the anniversary of Black ‘47 meant that famine research was already on the radar. I visited Fin...
Read more

Wretched Old Shoes

Image
Two original items from Portumna workhouse, one is a child's shoe & the other a man's boo t. At the Irish Workhouse Museum we are delighted to have several specimens of pauper shoes. However shoes were viewed as a troublesome topic by workhouse management. Some workhouses ordered boot parts and had the paupers assemble them. Others bought them in ready made. Whomever supplied the shoes, it is clear that covering the feet of the poor was not a priority. In Co. Galway alone, six of the ten workhouses were in dispute with the Poor Law Commissioners in England over shoe and stocking provision. The result was newspaper descriptions like the one below: stockingless and  h is feet   were scarcely protected by wretched old shoes   (The Nation-Saturday July 30, 1864) The old pauper described in this article was alleged to be suffering from exposure due to his treatment at Portumna workhouse. A mere six months later, Rev. P. Donalan R.C.C. alleged two women nam...
Read more

The Workhouse in Fiction

Image
Image from the 1968 movie Oliver! ‘Please sir, can I have some more?’ Most of us know this iconic line from the 1968 film version of Oliver! The quote has embedded itself in pop culture, cropping up in memes, advertisements, comedy sketches and cartoons. However, how many of us know that the line is a criticism of the meagre food quantities supplied to workhouse children? In fact, Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist as a rallying cry against child poverty and the failure of the workhouse system. He based this view on his first hand observations as a newspaper reporter. What he saw went into his books and shocked  his audiences. He was accused of gross exaggeration and even outright fabrication. His rebuttal was the tell people to go see for themselves, which they did. What they witnessed was all the proof he needed. Before we leave Dickens, it is interesting to note a slight connection with Irish workhouses. Oliver Twist was first published as a serial 1837–39. This peri...
Read more