The Great Famine
Birr
and
District
Margaret Hogan
for
Gwen and Denver Knowles
May 1998
THE GREAT FAMINE, BIRR & DISTRICT
MARGARET HOGAN
History Seminar, Dooly's Hotel
Organised by National Famine Research Project, Offaly County Library and
Birr Historical Society
11th May 1996
BIRR IN 1845.
I begin by outlining as background why Birr was such a very interesting town in the 1840s, in the lead up to and
during the Great Famine. The town had already achieved a certain amount of international fame for the Monster
Telescope in Birr Castle Demesne which was actually being built at the same time as the workhouse. The Sisters of
Mercy had been founded in 1840 by Catherine McAuley who is commemorated on our £5 note and the present
Convent of Mercy building, designed by Augustus Welby Pugin actually commenced in 1845. In that very same year
a local newspaper, the King's County Chronicle was launched across the road from here in Cumberland House.
Around the corner in Emmet St., was the residence and solicitor's practice of our local historian Thomas Lalor Cooke
who had already published his first book, Picture of Parsonstown and was collecting material for his Early History of
the Town of Birr. A local schism called the Crotty Schism had convulsed the Roman Catholic congregation from
about 1826 to about 1841 and the legacy of bitterness must have been still in the air when the potato blight struck here
as elsewhere in 1845. A unique combination and variety of source materials makes it very interesting to research those
days and attempt to reconstruct them as far as we can.
SOURCES
For the study of the Great Famine in this area, the primary sources I have consulted include the town itself, the
workhouse building, local folk memories, the Minutes of the Board of Guardians of the Workhouse and the
Presentment Books of the King's County Grand Jury (both of which are preserved in Offaly County Library in
Tullamore,) the King's County Chronicle newspaper, the Census returns, the British Government Reports, Cooke's
Picture of Parsonstown, 1826, the Rosse Archives in Birr Castle, several early nineteenth century maps and books,
including travellers such as Asenath Nicholson.
Secondary sources dealing with the Famine countrywide have mushroomed enormously in the last few years both in
print and in the electronic media and it has been a race against time to keep up with them.
1
THE TOWN
Emmet Square, outside the front door, then called Cumberland Square, with the monument to the Duke of
Cumberland in the centre had been laid out nearly a hundred years before the Great Famine began in 1845. Dooly's
Hotel had been in business for about the same length of time and what is now Melba’s Disco was then Dooly's
Assembly Rooms where meetings, fashionable dinners and other social gatherings took place, even during the Famine.
Crinkle Barracks, built a generation before, contributed to trade in the town and supplied an officer class who leased
Georgian houses in the Malls and in the countryside and lent glamour to the social life of the town.
The population of the parish of Birr, including the rural section and Crinkill was 9, 567, according to the 1841 census.
Housing was divided into four grades and about 6% of the people lived in first grade housing, 30% in second grade,
48% in third grade (mud houses with two to four rooms and windows) and 16% in the lowest grade (mud cabins
having only one room.) The population of the town itself was upwards of 6,500, much greater and more dense than it
is now.
KING'S COUNTY CHRONICLE
A few impressions of the first copy of the King's County Chronicle: it was quite unlike a modern local paper such as
our Midland Tribune; at a tine when the majority of its readers seem not to have taken a national, let alone a daily
paper, it reported the British Parliament, national and international news and gossip and might have only a few inches
of sports column!
The first editorial stated its proposed policy: "Agricultural and Mercantile affairs possess in our estimation, the first
and greatest interest and demand the best attention" and "To the Railway movement we are strenuous in our
commendation." The country was being crisscrossed by railways and the railway trains would arrive in Birr station 13
years later. Thomas Davis had died and received a respectful obituary but the King's County Chronicle, catering to a
mainly Unionist (in the old sense) readership, condemned the politics of Davis's newspaper, The Nation. That
condemnation inevitably reminds one, of course, to keep a close watch out for bias in the paper. There was no news in
the first ever King's County Chronicle on September 24th 1845 of famine in this area, though alarm, high prices and
grounds for apprehension were reported from Galway and other distant places. Famine would keep far away from
here, it was hoped.
2
POVERTY
The British Government had set up several commissions of inquiry into the state of poverty in Ireland in the beginning
of the nineteenth century and commissioners had travelled round the country inviting submissions from the public.
They came to this area on several occasions and the evidence given to them was printed verbatim and gives us a first
hand account of what conditions were like for the poor in the lead up to the Famine.
In the countryside the most wretched class were the labourers. Daniel Manifold told the Devon Commission in 1844
that their houses were of the worst materials with clay walls roofed with branches, or covered with rushes or sods potato stalk roofing was even mentioned elsewhere. Labourers were generally allowed the grass for a cow by their
employers and sometimes a plot to sow potatoes and their principal food was potatoes, salt and a little milk. They did
not often eat meat, eggs or fish -perhaps only two or three times a year with a few herrings in winter. Bread and meal
for porridge were too dear for them. Three stones of potatoes would be required to provide three meals a day for a
family with three or four children. The lean months were May, June and July when the old potatoes had run out and
the new ones were not yet ready to eat and at those times the women and children often went begging to strange towns
where they would not be recognised. It was reported to the inquiry in Clonlisk Barony that there was much stealing of
turf and turnips, but that this was not regarded seriously. Marcus McCausland, rector of Birr, gave evidence in the late
1830s that there were 95 public houses in Birr, no illicit distilling and 3 or 4 pawnshops.
THE IRISH POOR LAW IN PRACTICE HERE.
The Boards of Guardians set up under the Irish Poor Law Act of 1838 were the first representative local bodies in
Ireland. They would adminster the Poor Law Unions, each of which would have a Union Workhouse at its centre to
help cope with the problem of poverty. Men, single women and widows who held the required property qualification
could vote: "there was a system of plural voting which ensured that property had its rights as well as its duties."
[Desmond Roche.] Women could not be Poor Law Guardians in Ireland and married women were ineligible to vote.
The word "Union" referred to the fact that a number of electoral divisions would unite together and those served by
the Parsonstown Union were: Parsonstown, Kilcolman, Seir Kieran, Kinnitty, Litter, Drumcullen, Eglish, Frankford,
Ferbane, Lemonaghan, Shannonbridge, Tissarin, Shannonharbour, Banagher, Lusmagh, Dorrha, Lorrha, Lackeen,
Aglishcloghane, Uskeane, Ballingarry. The area covered extended from Clonmacnoise almost to Borrisokane and
from the Shannon across to the Slieve Bloom with Birr just about at the centre. Portumna and Borrisokane
Workhouses opened after the famine in the early 1850s and the area served by Birr was then reduced.
3
The Board of Guardians of the Parsonstown Union met for the first tine on June 29th 1839 at the Courthouse. The
King's County Directory lists 38 Poor Law Guardians as present on that day: 9 ex officio members, justices of the
peace and 29 elected by those who held the required property qualification. They would have to report to the Poor
Law Commissioners and an Assistant Poor Law Commissioner was present at the first meeting in Birr, no doubt to
give those present advice on how to proceed.
Like most of the workhouses being built in Ireland in the early 1840s Birr Workhouse was constructed from a standard
plan drawn up by the architect, George Wilkinson. It was one of those designed for 800 inmates and it is now believed
to be the best surviving example of the type of Union Workhouse which existed at the time of the Great Famine.
The first stone was laid on April 23rd 1840 by the Chairman John H. Drought Esq. D.L., Lettybrook. The contract for
the building was £6,900, the site cost £407 and the workhouse opened in April 1842. The first inmate was Thomas
Hoctor from Kilcormac.
THE THIRD EARL OF ROSSE.
The principal landlord in Birr town and district was the Third Earl of Rosse who would have been one of the more
intelligent and practical minded of the thousands of large landlords in Ireland in the 1840s. He was generally resident
in Birr, agriculturally scientifically and technically informed, already famous for his astronomical investigations and
married to Mary Field from Yorkshire who brought with her a massive dowry so he was presumably free from
pressing financial constraints. His writings and activities about the time of the Famine survive in the archives in Birr
Castle and would provide useful thesis material.
Lord Rosse seemed to be persistent in his attempts to improve agricultural methods in this area before the Famine. He
founded the Parsonstown Agricultural Society, (later renamed the Farming Society) the year he succeeded to the estate
in 1841 and it was mainly financed by the Third Earl himself. An annual show, a ploughing match, visits to model
farms together with lectures in John's Hall, constituted the Farming Society's main activities. In 1845, an "intelligent
agriculturist", Mr. Lyle was appointed to the society. His advice would be available to farmers for a fee at first and
later on for free. An important objective for Lord Rosse was to lessen dependence on the potato.
Turnips, green crops and beans were being encouraged and some progress was reported though one gets the
impression that the small farmer and the poor, the real target audience were mainly uninterested and that the project
was often frustrating and disappointing. "Some think there is too much prejudice and that it is a hopeless task to labour
to remove it," he said at the AGM of the Farming Society in October 1845.
4
Even Mr. Lyle, being a Scotsman was resented in some quarters and Lord Rosse remarked that, since farming practice
was much more advanced across the water, a few English or Scottish farmers scattered over an estate would lead
others forward by example and they would be willing to come here, but by agrarian law they would be intruders.
In his annual speech to the Agricultural Society in 1843, Lord Rosse had expressed concern about the alarming
increase in population and sub-division and warned that "a year of scarcity would at length come, and with it, a
visitation of the most awful famine, such as the history of the world affords very many examples of, a famine followed
by pestilence, when the utmost exertion of the landlords of Ireland, of the government, and of the legislature, aided by
the unbounded generosity of the people of England, .... would be totally inadequate to avert the most fearful
calamities."
Also in 1843 the Illustrated London News did an article on the Telescope in which it praised the Countess of Rosse's
"most lively interest in the poor... constantly improving and changing in order to afford them work."
Lord Rosse's rules for the management of his estate, which he claimed were well-known to the tenants and were
substantially the same as on other well-managed estates, were published in the local paper in 1847. They stated his
policy with regard to leases, subdivision, building without permission; compensation for improvements, paring and
burning, land-jobbing, emigration and drainage. Each rule was followed by reasons which attempted to justify the
rule.
In 1847, Lord Rosse wrote several letters to The Times which as he said was unsparing in its attacks on Irish
landlords. Despite the fact that he was well-known, the Times declined to publish them. He had been trying to inform
the English public that Irish agriculture could not be judged by the same criteria they used to apply in England. As he
had estates in both countries, he attempted to explain the differences: the laws and practices in relation to land tenure,
the problem of subdivision, the lack of a powerful middle class, the lack of industrial employment, the lack of capital.
5
THE BEGINNING OF FAMINE.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is sad to read the initial local bright optimism about the potato crisis in the columns of
the Chronicle in 1845 and then to witness how the grim reality had sunk in by autumn 1846. Editorial policies too
changed as the Famine progressed and became more hostile to the British government policies on Ireland.
What caused this new unfamiliar disease, they wondered? Suggestions included the weather, the use of guano as
manure and the possibility that the crop might be "run out."
What to do about the diseased potatoes? The King's County Chronicle printed a recipe for potato jelly mixed with
sugar in October 1845 while in November, Read and Sheppard of Parsonstown were advertising Potato Flour
machines. An article stated that 20 lbs of sound potatoes would produce over 3 lbs of dry potato flour and that soft and
rotten potatoes would make as good starch as the soundest.
Desperate attempts were being made nationally to find a formula for preserving the blighted crop for the winter and
Mr. Lyle, "the intelligent agriculturist" of the Parsonstown Farming Society carried out experiments in Birr. He mixed
the potatoes with slaked lime, he pitted them with sand and with dry earth, he left them out in the open, he immersed
them in boiling water for 20 seconds, 40 seconds and 60 seconds and he got the best results from immersing them in a
boghole for 48 hours but nothing really worked satisfactorily. Other remedies attempted included acid, alkali and
chlorine.
Substitutes for potatoes were recommended: turnips, carrots, red and white beet, mangle wurzel, Guernsey parsnip,
Jerusalem artichoke.
The paper was optimistic about the potato crop in July 1846 but by mid August the crop was declared a failure. The
King's County Chronicle editorial advised the government to relieve the bulk of the population from dependance and
to furnish them through the instrumentality of public works, manufacture and commerce with the circulating medium
wherewith they could purchase more substantial and nutritious food. As the famine wore on, the paper's editorials
became ever more critical of the policies of the British government, indulging in a fierce attack on the Rate in aid
scheme in 1849.
6
POOR LAW GUARDIANS
The Poor Law Guardians met every Saturday in the Boardroom upstairs in the front building of the workhouse. There
they inspected those being admitted and discussed the business of the workhouse: the numbers in the house, the diet
provided, the collection of rates and any problems that turned up.
As the famine wore on, the Poor Law rates escalated alarmingly and a serious problem was that the rates were not
evenly spread over the whole Union but each electoral division was responsible for the cost of its own poor. In 1847,
for instance, the rate in Birr was 4/3 but only 1/03/4 in Seir Kieran while it was 3/71/2 in Lusmagh, 3/10 in
Aglishcloghane and Banagher and only 1/53/4 in Lorrha.
Two of the Poor Law Guardians stood out for me as being either exceptionally mean or exceptionally determined to
keep the Poor Law rates lower for the ratepayers in their own electoral divisions; they were a Mr. Burdett and a Mr.
Kelly. Mr. Burdett was determined to implement the letter of the law which required that the whole family, including
the father, must enter the workhouse together and the "Gregory Clause" which required that no one with more than a
quarter acre of land could be admitted to the workhouse. The Madden family of Lusmagh fell foul of both laws: they
were admitted to the workhouse but the father was not with them as he was in gaol for debt and they had two and a
half acres of land. A compassionate Relieving Officer had admitted them when he found that the mother was "engaged
bruising up in an old wooden dish, boiled nettles and other wild vegetables, known as prasaugh, being the only food
this family had to partake of." One of the guardians remarked, " - and that particular dish was no doubt got up for your
visit." Mr. Burdett, presumably anxious to keep the rates down in Lusmagh, made an immense fuss and almost had the
Relieving Officer relieved of his post for breaking the law.
On another occasion Mr. Kelly suggested reducing the amount of meat (which was given anyhow only to the staff and
the sick) and "he occupied a considerable tine" complaining; that 300 yards of linen was far too much to order. Mr.
Burdett brought in statistics from other workhouses to show what savings could be made in food. Mr. Hemsworth
supported him: he said very little milk was given in Nenagh and rye bread was used. The medical officers opposed
these savings and some kind of compromise was reached.
It was the Guardians who interviewed prospective employees and the election (for that is what it amounted to) of a
new Master in 1848 showed regional politics in action. A huge attendance at the Board meeting included guardians
who had never turned up for meetings before and the job went to a Mr. Lauder.
7
Collecting the rates to pay for the workhouse was the difficult job of the Rate Collectors. They were under constant
pressure from the Board of Guardians, who in turn were under pressure from the Poor Law Commissioners, to get the
money in to pay suppliers and to pay wages and even to pay back the loan which the Commissioners had advanced for
the building of the workhouse. In September 1847, over £1,000 was owing to the bread contractor and there was no
hope of loans from the Commissioners; the Provincial Bank would lend no more money on another occasion and it
was hinted that the workhouse might have to close down.
In November 1847 the Rate Collectors were advised to get moving while the harvest was still in the county. They
were urged to post up the names of defaulters, get the police to accompany them when collecting or even to distrain
lands. I did not find that they ever resorted to these measures which could have had very serious repercussions for the
Rate Collectors in those times. The problem was that the rates were increasing, incomes were decreasing or
non-existent and many property owners were unable or reluctant to pay up.
With the numbers increasing beyond the 800 that the workhouse was designed for, the Board resorted to building
fever sheds, setting up auxiliary workhouses and sending, patients to fever hospitals. Locations mentioned included
Kilcormac, Banagher, Leap and Kinnitty. With the cholera epidemic raging in May 1849, they rented Syngefield
House, a premises in Chapel Lane and Robinson's Distillery in Castle St. which had recently gone out of business. In
one week in May, 1849, during the cholera epidemic, the numbers crept up to 3,007 and 59 people died, including 48
children. Shortly an inspector was on the spot to investigate; he complimented the staff on their cleanliness and
regularity but complained about overcrowding. Mr. Burdett had already found more women and children in the house
unaccompanied by the fathers.
CRIME
A huge increase in crime was reported during the famine, especially petty thieving: potatoes, turnips, corn, timber,
sheep, fowl and milk. There was also much violence; people whose job it was to collect rents and taxes or those
holding public situations were most likely to be attacked and some of these were among the 50 people who received
firearm licences in 1847. Houses were burned and threatening notices posted up and delivered. A starving vagrant died
in the open in Sharavogue and his corpse was eaten by dogs. Shots were fired, houses raided - through the roof in one
case. A man visiting a house in Killyon only, barely missed a rain of bullets fired through the window when he leant
across the table for sugar for his tea. He was subsequently shot dead and his name used as an example to others in
threatening letters.
8
OUTDOOR RELIEF
In 1846 a Relief Committee was set up in Birr to assist the Board of works in the implementation of the relief works.
Lowering Gallows Hill and repairing the lanes of the town were among the schemes I found mentioned. This
committee later took charge of the local Soup Kitchen.
The business of the Relief Committee, if one could rely on the reports in the King's Count Chronicle, was dominated
by an unfortunate squabble between Fr. John Spain the Parish Priest and Captain Thomas Cox, secretary of the Relief
Committee who was described as an Artillery Officer who had served in the Peninsular Campaign and was now
Adjutant to the King's County Militia. It is safe to assume that he had built the house where the parish clergy live now
and the adjoining house which it is proposed to restore as the Georgian Townhouse. The substance of Fr. Spain's
complaint was that the captain was both the secretary and the supervisor of the soup kitchen and that this was
irregular. Captain Cox felt Fr. Spain was hostile to him and wanted to get rid of him and although he did in fact resign
he later withdrew his resignation. Fr. Spain wrote that Captain Cox acted outside his authority, always knew which
way the wind was blowing and was a "practised speaker, anxious to hear his sweet voice upon all occasions, and upon
any subject, he is in the habit like most orators of indulging in long speeches upon the most frivolous subjects," so that
committee time was wasted and nothing was done. Letters flew between Fr. Spain, Lord Rosse, the Commissary in
Dublin and were actually sent to be printed in the local paper while Lord Rosse recommended Egyptian beans for
substance in the soup and Fr. Spain approved the inclusion of houghs and forearms instead of heads and necks as
providing more gelatin for the soup.
As RC chaplain to the workhouse, Fr. Spain alleged in 1847 that inmates died there for want of proper food. A long
and detailed report followed an official inquiry and the verdict was that there was indeed some neglectful practice in
the infirmary but that Fr. Spain was also to be censured for his delay in bringing his complaint before the Board. Fr.
Spain seemed to set ripples and under-currents moving and it would not be easy to figure out what ways going on
under the surface of these and other reports in the King's County Chronicle at the time without researching other
archives.
9
MASTER AND NURSE DISMISSED.
Sensational allegations made about our workhouse in 1848 included: that a page was torn out of the account book,
wine was taken, dead bodies were left for hours out in the open and sometimes even thrust into the privies, inmates
were wandering about and taking tea and coffee, the master had left the workhouse taking a female pauper with him
and a little boy was missing.
An inquiry took place and a lengthy report was issued and published in the local paper. In explanation it was said that
the master who was convalescing from a serious bout of fever - his fourth since he came to the workhouse - had been
ordered to take a seaside holiday and being unable to manage on his own, had taken one of the female inmates along
as a servant.
The explanation about the missing boy was more tragic. It involved a woman named Margaret Cleary from Kilcolman
district, admitted with fever in May 1848 and later discharged while still very ill. Her four young children were left
behind in the workhouse. While she lay ill at home, her friend, Mary Glynn visited the children and found them all
well. The mother visited the workhouse several times when she recovered but could only ever find two of her children.
Her eldest and youngest sons died in the workhouse and she brought her daughter out but her seven year old son could
not be traced. There had been confusion about the names of the children; the boys were registered under the wrong
names and two of them were registered under the same name; there were over 1,600 inmates at the time and it was
admitted that the roll was not regularly called. When the mother kept coming back, the master discovered the
confusion, made a false entry in the register to cover up and had to confess the whole sad story to the inquiry.
The nurse was accused of stealing 6 lbs. of tallow which she described as the scum that arose on the broth made in the
hospital and 13/4 lbs of bread. She was dismissed and the master was asked to resign.
10
EMIGRATION
By 1848 emigration was being vigorously promoted as one of the solutions to the intractable conditions in Ireland.
Emigration agents such as "Elisha Sheppard of Parsonstown" placed advertisements in the papers and the Kings
County Chronicle published articles about farming in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Sea voyages in sailing
ships took several weeks and an experienced traveller advised that the following food would hold well: oatmeal,
treacle, corned beef, tea, buttered eggs, butter in a tin, white bread sliced and dried in an oven, no spirituous liquor,
flour to bake, bacon and good red herring.
In January 1849 a Lieutenant Henry of the Royal Navy was sent down to Birr to inspect and select female orphans for
the Orphan Emigration Scheme to Australia, where there was a serious shortage of females. There were said to be two
men in Australia for every one woman and the ratio in some areas was eight to one - it is presumed, of course, that
these ratios referred to people of European origin. Lieutenant Henry only selected 25 of the 50 who had hoped to
depart. In all, over 4,000 orphan girls eventually made the passage from Ireland to Australia. They were aged from 14
to 18 and the quite generous "trousseaus" purchased for the 30 Birr girls who eventually got to make the journey in
1849 can be found itemised garment for garment in the Minute Books of our Board of Guardians. Interestingly, from
the names of the suppliers, one can glean that there was a policy of supporting both RC and Protestant traders.
WORKHOUSE CLOSES IN 1921.
Birr Workhouse continued in operation, though with decreased numbers, its function adapting to changing social
circumstances through the remainder of the nineteenth century and right up to 1921. The Sisters of Mercy were
employed there from the later nineteenth century. The last minute book gives witness to the exciting era of the
Anglo-Irish War or War of Independence. Pages of the book are mysteriously cut and there was no quorum for one
meeting as several Guardians were in jail or on the run. There was even by now a female guardian - allowed since
1896 - in the person of Mrs. Annie Fanning, grandmother of Arnold Fanning of the Midland Tribune.
Crown forces raided the office in 1921 and warned that the Clerk would be arrested if letters from Dail Eireann were
found addressed to him. It would appear that the Board by now had sided with Dail Eireann against the British
Government but the Board was in debt again, owing £4,000 and unable to pay their contractors.
11