As the leaders of the G8 agreed earlier this year to write off the debts of some African countries, whose people are literally starving, it is a sobering thought that some one-hundred and sixty years ago this country was itself in the throes of The Great Famine. The Ireland of the mid 19th Century had a complete reliance on the potato as its main source of food. So when the potato blight reached our shores in September of 1845 it had catastrophic consequences for the eight million people who lived in our land.
According to an article I read on the internet http://www.loretogs.com on the famine, "there was an overwhelming smell as one walked past the fields of wilted potatoes destroyed by blight. It made the leaves go black and curl at the edges. The potato turned black under their skins eventually turning rotten. People could be seen eating raw turnips from the ground, even birds and dogs soon disappeared having been killed and cooked so that the people would avoid starvation. There were cases of people deliberately committing crime in the hope of being arrested and transported as there seemed a better chance of survival than staying in Ireland".
It is against this background that some relief efforts were instigated. The British Prime Minister of the time Sir Robert Peel purchased 100,000 pounds worth of corn for Ireland. The relief commission established in 1845, distributed grain to local relief committees throughout the country. They in turn would sell it at cost price to the local population. It got to the stage that people were too poor to pay for food and it was simply distributed for free. Relief works were set up to allow people work for money on public works such as road building. Unfortunately the wages from relief works did not cover the cost of food to keep a family from starvation and not everyone could get a place on a relief project. Some people were too weak to do any real work but were still taken on lest they starve. The potato crop failed again in 1846. By 1847 500,000 people were on relief work. Many others were far too weak to do any work and the one-shilling per day wage was inadequate to buy food, so it was decided to distribute food for free rather than have people purchase it.
The Society of Friends did amazing work too in setting up their own soup kitchens and to this very day are remembered for their kindness and generosity. They were the first to organise soup kitchens. The soup was cooked in large boilers and given directly to the poor.
John Keating states in his book Irish Famine Facts (1996) in January 1847 the Government decided that due to the high costs involved (almost £5million in the autumn and winter of 1846/47) and the need for people to work the land, relief by employment was to be abandoned. In its place the Soup Kitchen Act was introduced on January 25th 1847.
Under the Act, soup kitchens were to be established in each of the electoral divisions. By 1847 there were 1,250 soup kitchens in operation and by June this had increased to 1,850. By July of that year over 3 million people were collecting daily rations of cooked food; even though the people regarded queuing with containers to be degrading they swallowed their pride in order to fill their empty stomachs.
"Irish Famine Facts" included various soup recipes which were eaten by our ancestors. They include Soyer's Soup, Mrs. Neale's Soup (a recipe used by Mrs. Neale of Castleconnell, Co. Limerick). Considering that there was a soup kitchen here in Stone House Ahane at the time, this recipe is particularly interesting to us. There are also recipes for Stir-about and Grattan's Soup.
Soyer's Soup
This recipe was developed by Alexis Soyer, a famous French Chef of the Reform Club in London.
¼ lb leg of beef,
2 gallons of water
2 oz dripping
2 onions and other vegetables
½ lb of flour (seconds)
½ lb of pearl barley
3 oz salt
½ oz of brown sugar
Soyer claimed that a meal of his soup once a day, together with a biscuit was sufficient to sustain the strength of a strong healthy man.
Mrs. Neale's Soup
Recipe used by Mrs. Neale, Castleconnell, Co. Limerick.
30 lbs beef
8 lbs barley
8 lbs steeped peas
2 stone turnips
5d. worth leeks and other vegetables
190 quarts water
Grattan's Soup
This recipe was used on the estate of the Right Hon, James Grattan, Vicarstown, Co. Laois:
1 ox head without tongue
28 lbs turnips
3 ½ lbs onions
7 lbs carrots
21 lbs pea-meal
14 lbs Indian meal
30 gallons water.
The soup recipes were generally not balanced for minerals and vitamins and over time gave rise to scurvy and other diseases. Some were too thin (watery) leading to diarrhoea.
The Famine pot, (which contained these soups) sometimes referred to as the "work house pots" were made of cast iron. They came in various sizes and were supplied by the Government under the terms of the Soup Kitchen Act to alleviate hunger and prevent starvation, by providing free soup to the populace. The method of distribution required people to line up in front of the public Famine Pot, saucepans and pans in hand, waiting for the soup to be ladled out. As I mentioned earlier the people considered this system to be "debasing and demoralizing" but the alternative was death by starvation.
Stirabout
? lb Indian meal
? lb rice when obtainable.
This mixture when cooked with water as "stirabout" or porridge swelled into a ration weighing 3 to 5lbs. in weight.
In an article entitled The Flight of the Gaels Joseph Xavier Martin tells his readers that some of the "cynical overlords offered soup to any of the Catholic natives who would renounce their religion. And their own called them 'soupers' for generations afterwards".
As far as can be ascertained from local interviews that was not the case in our parish, the soup kitchen in Stone House Ahane which was run by the Bourke family of Thornfield was motivated more by a call to service than to evangelism. Jennifer Reddin states in her article 'Richard Bourke's Views on Citizenship and Education' (Old Limerick Journal, Winter 1993) "Bourke and his wife were very active in providing poor relief in the district. Bourke was Chairman of both the Limerick Agricultural Association and the Limerick Relief Committee, and Elisabeth was the Secretary of the Limerick branch of the British and Irish Ladies Society for the relief of the Irish peasantry as well as the district association of Castleconnell and Killeenagarriff".
From the Tyrone Constitution dated January 8th 1847 we read the following passage:
"We have the gratification of stating that our soup kitchen was opened on Tuesday, when a large quantity of substantial soup was distributed to the starving poor of the district. Yesterday another supply was delivered, and the committee now entertain the hope that when matters are a little better arranged, they will be in a position to give out the soup six days in the week. The poor are most thankful for the soup, which is given at one penny per quart, and very many of the poorer classes of tradesmen are availing themselves of the privilege of purchasing it. The gentry and shopkeepers are buying the tickets, and giving them to the poor instead of money, while all who have the means can purchase it at the above rate. The committee are most anxious that the clergy of the district should be present as often as possible at the delivery, as they are best acquainted with the destitute and the needy; and at their last meeting a resolution was entered into a request the cooperation of the ladies of the town-their advice and direction in the preparation of the soup being so desirable. We trust the wishes of the committee, in both respects, will be fully appreciated, and that the clergy and also many of the ladies will be every day found ministering to the wants of the poor in the soup kitchens. Further subscriptions will be thankfully received by the committee, or at the office of this paper."
However, all too soon instructions were issued to close the soup kitchens. Those in 55 of the 130 Unions (workhouse areas) closed on 15th August, those in 29 Unions closed on 12th September and in 19 Unions on 31st October 1847. The total cost to the rate payers (who had opposed the Soup Kitchen Act because rates had already increased from 5d (pence) in the pound to 1s 8d in the pound since the beginning of the famine) was £1.75million.
The Soup Kitchen Act was only a temporary measure, designed to sustain the Irish until the autumn harvest. But the harvest of 1847 was just a quarter of the normal size due to insufficient planting in the spring. The three million Irish people who had come to depend on soup for survival would now have to fend for themselves, with no food handouts, no money, no employment, owing back rent and weakened by long-term malnutrition and disease.
When the famine finally subsided in 1850, it was estimated that between one and one and a half million people died from starvation and disease. Another million had emigrated. Though there were many relief efforts directed from England over the five year period, they proved woefully inadequate. During the years 1845- '50 about £8 million of aid passed into the country, considering that the defence budget for just one year was £16 million.
Is it any wonder that we have such empathy with the starving of the third world when one realizes that just a few generations ago our fore-fathers too were starving?
A COUNTRY CHILDHOOD AT CHRISTMAS!
