The Workhouse in Fiction

National Famine Commemoration Day

The 16-17 May is National Famine Commemoration Day, a time to remember all of those who died and suffered loss during An Gorta Mór. Normally, schools and sporting events would observe a minute's silence, but this year the commemoration will be observed in a more individual and personal way. Whatever the manner, it is important to reflect, remember, and honour those who died, and those who left Ireland to start a new life in another country.

The following are reports from newspapers reporting on conditions during ‘Black 47’.

We have again to make known to the public the devastating effects of famine, which is now carrying off by hundreds and thousands the doomed population of this country.

The Nation, 26 January 1847

From every quarter of the country, we are literally besieged with the heart-rending particulars of the progress of famine. A respectable correspondent in the neighbourhood of Kilconly has communicated to us the loss of no less than eighteen lives from want and destitution! And this occurring in a few short days!

The Nation quoting the Tuam Herald, 13 February 1847.

Diocese of Clonfert – Prayers against the famine. Our most Holy Father Pius IX in his paternal solicitude for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the faithful, has ordered to be offered up in the capital of the Christian world, a Tridium or three days public prayer in hopes to appease the anger of Almighty God and implore Him to avert the awful famine which is now desolating a great portion of the empire.

Freemans Journal, 19 March 1847

Two men have died of want – one by the wayside as he was returning from the public works where since the dismissal of the twenty percent, he struggled to labour, although he and six others were reduced to live on the scanty supply of food purchased for ten pence a day; the other died of pure exhaustion from illness and want – report from Cashel District.

The Nation, 17 April 1847

This disease is the result of insufficient nutrition and its victims die not the rapid death of starvation, but slowly and surely as does the healthy succulent plant when removed from a rich soil to a barren sand.

Irish Examiner, 24 May 1847

The following returns from Catholic clergymen, relative to the number of persons who have fallen victim to famine and pestilence, and the condition of the country generally … this parish at present presents a horrid picture of famine … with few exceptions the people are all beggars receiving outdoor relief, some four days, others every day in the week from relief committees. The Robinson family of Rich Hill Castlebar have come forward to the rescue quite admirably. All the landlords, the greater part absentee, have acted very badly – Rev. Patrick Quinn P.P Kilmore Parish, Co. Armagh

Freemans Journal, 1 June 1847

Another year of famine is probably before us, inevitably indeed if we do not guard our produce as we would life itself – and in its track its unfailing fever will come again to strike those classes who might defy the famine.

The Nation, 17 July 1847

I have never seen anything more frightful than the aspect this city [Cork] presented. All its wealthier streets and places of resort were literally in possession of hordes of the most squalid and wretched beings that it is possible to conceive - Extract from Frazer’s Magazine by Rev Trench.  

Irish Examiner 21 August 1847

Of these awful occurrences, some account must be given. Historians and politicians will one day sift and weigh the conflicting narrations and documents of this lamentable year, and pronounce with or without affectation, how much is due to the inclemency of heaven and how much to the cruelty, heartlessness or improvidence of man. The bloated institutions and spirit of the empire are on trial. They are weighted in the balance. Famine and pestilence are at the gates.

Nenagh Guardian, reporting from The Times, 25 September 1847

That her mother had nothing to eat from Tuesday until Friday, and that there was no food in the house for that time but two pence worth of sharps and one halfpenny worth of tea, with one halfpenny worth of sugar - Mary Hogan, daughter to deceased [Widow Hogan], being sworn and deposed in court, Queens County

The Nation, 9 October 1847

The present population of my parish is 8,553. About 150 families have been obliged to desert their holdings. Out of that population scarcely twelve families, including landed proprietors, have food to sustain themselves until the coming harvest - Rev. P. Lyons, P.P. Kilmeen.

Freemans Journal, 24 November 1847  

How long are we to continue passive spectators of the misery now so prevalent amongst our poor, and the inevitable ruin so fast threatening every class of our once flourishing and happy country – letter to the editor.

Irish Examiner, 29 December 1847