With smallpox sufferers in make-shift refuges such as out-buildings, rooms in the Loughrea barracks, and in sheds outside Dr Leonard’s home, all hopes are placed on the ready-made iron hospital ordered from Messrs Braby and Co. London. The hospital was to accommodate 12 patients, but already within five weeks of the first case being reported in Athenry, there were 20 cases of smallpox, three of whom had died.
Clearly more buildings would have to be found; but in the meantime the Loughrea workhouse guardians, who had refused to admit any smallpox patients into their hospital, had set aside beds, bedding and all the necessary accoutrements that the new hospital would need. It had also ordered a new ‘ambulance’ to replace the one burnt by the riot in Loughrea on April 15th; and perhaps their most significant gesture was to employ two experienced nurses from Dublin’s Cork-Street Fever Hospital to help care for the sufferers.*
But finding a site for the new iron hospital had proved difficult. It was hoped that a site in nearby Craughwell would be accepted as a neutral venue, but this was quickly shot down by a visit from the parish priest saying, in no uncertain terms, that Craughwell would not be used to solve Athenry’s problems.
The final site chosen was a waste plot of ground near the barracks, in Athenry town; but no sooner was the site known than there were serious objections.
Deserted streets
Dr Brodie, the Local Government Inspector in Galway, who had been working with Dr Leonard desperately trying to contain the disease, was visited by a deputation of the Athenry townspeople who presented him with a written statement. They claimed the site chosen for the hospital was a ‘commonage,’ and was totally unsuited for a smallpox hospital.
The deputation painted a pretty bleak picture of what had happened in their town: ‘Our streets are now deserted for some time on account of this sickness amongst us. We may be suffering in many ways, but we feel that fixing this hospital almost in our midst, that instead of lessening the evil, would be only continuing it.’
The petition goes on to emphasise that they understood that isolation was the best safeguard from catching the disease, but there was no quarter of the town more frequented than the common; ‘it is convenient for schools attended by about 150 children…it is a thoroughfare for laundry and other uses …and within a short distance from the post office.’
The letter was signed by 39 people, including the parish priest Fr John O’Grady. The letter ended with a firm indication that the people would ‘assert to the last’ their rights to the commonage.
Dr Brodie was almost at his wit’s end. In his written report to the Local Government Board (LGB ) that evening, he says that Dr Leonard and himself ‘found themselves thwarted’ at every step they tried to take: ‘The Loughrea people will not allow us to avail of the workhouse hospital, the parish priest of Craughwell and parishioners will not allow us to erect on the site given to us by Mr J Blake, and now the parish priest, his curate and 37 of the inhabitants of Athenry, are up in arms against us…’
Serious threat
Pressure was building up as the number of new cases are reported. From March 1 until May 17 there were 44 cases of which 11 died. The Local Government Board, however, insisted that the site chosen on the waste ground in Athenry would be the site of the hospital. This time the Athenry curate, Fr Ronayne, ‘stormed forth and asserted that the hospital should not be built upon the commons of Athenry. Let them go elsewhere!’ adding menacingly, ‘that they could do the same as the people of Loughrea did to the van’.
A suitable hospital
And then, when it seemed there was little hope of progress, there was a much needed breakthrough. At a meeting of the Loughrea Board of Guardians on May 9, Lord Dunsandle in the chair, the objections to the Athenry site were given, and it was decided not to proceed with this site.
Instead a suggestion was made that a Mr Irvine owned a substantial dwelling with an adjoining field in the neighbourhood of Athenry, which he was willing to let, and with the minimum of work, could be made suitable as a hospital. This was immediately seized upon by the members. A deal was struck with Mr Irvine, and in a matter of days beds and bedding, clothing and cooking utensils were dispatched, and patients moved in.
The members were not slow in doing their duty this time. Arrangements were also ordered ‘with a respectable baker, butcher, and grocer in Athenry for the supply of provisions.’ It was further decided to relocate the iron hospital, which had also just arrived, to the grounds of the Loughrea workhouse hospital, to be used as an infectious disease unit, quite separate from the other sick.
This time Dr Brodie had a far happier report to the LGB the following day: ‘On my way home from Loughrea yesterday, I visited Mr Irvine’s house. It is situated about a quarter of a mile from the town, quite secluded, with a field attached, and is in every way suitable for the purpose’.
And never forgetting the rule of law the guardians passed a resolution strongly condemning the lawless act in Loughrea on April 15, and the burning of the van. It recommended the government set up a ‘searching inquiry’ into the origin of the case, ‘with a view of making the chief actors amenable to justice.’
There was no cure
Despite all the set backs, the genuine fear of the people, the difficulty Dr Leonard and Brodie had in getting proper hospital care for the sufferers, the total number of smallpox patients during the month of March were 75 cases and 16 deaths. It is hard to establish how many ultimately died from this epidemic, but at one point, from March 5 to June 28 1875, there were more than 141 cases.
Before the epidemic would pass, however, additional temporary buildings were added to Mr Irvine’s house, and in the adjoining field, to take the excess. The iron hospital at the Loughrea workhouse was used to capacity. All cattle fairs and markets were banned in the area. Despite the people’s fears there were no cases of smallpox in Loughrea.
Numbers could have been far higher, but for the actions of the two doctors in isolating sufferers, even when that isolation was primitive; and in the face of a frightened populace. Despite all the drama, this particular outbreak of smallpox was remarkably well contained. Isolation of patients as well as cleanliness, vaccination, and the disinfection of clothes, bedding, and rooms, were all considered important in the fight against the disease. There was no cure. You either got well, or you didn’t.
But by July 13 no new cases were reported. A fund was established for families of the sick which received generous contributions. The Loughrea Board of Guardians, who had so vehemently castigated Dr Leonard for sending a smallpox patient through the crowds in Loughrea, now acknowledged that he ‘had given general satisfaction by his care and attention to the patients under his charge’. It voted him an additional £100 to his salary for one year.
NOTES: * Cork St Fever Hospital, which opened in 1814, was severely tested with the outbreak of typhus in 1826, when 10,000 patients were treated mainly in tents over its extensive grounds. In 1832 Dublin was ravaged by a cholera epidemic. Despite the hospital’s best efforts, thousands died and were hurriedly buried in nearby Bully’s Acre. Typhus came again during the Great Famine when rural dwellers sought refuge in the city; and typhus returned with a vengeance in the 1880s, when Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest and influential poet, died of the disease in Dublin.
The services of the hospital were transferred to Cherry Orchard Hospital in Ballyfermot. The Cork St Hospital closed in November 1953.
Sources this week include House of Commons report: Smallpox (Athenry ), published August 13 1875.
Listen to Tom Kenny and Ronnie O'Gorman elaborating on topics they have covered in this week's paper and much more in this week's Old Galway Diary Podcast.
