On a Sunday in March 1847, John Hogan, Secretary of the Castlebar Evangelical Relief Committee, was walking on Gallows Hill, Castlebar, when he was drawn into a cabin.
Horrified by what he witnessed, Hogan afterwards committed the episode to paper. A near-naked man was sitting by the fire in an exhausted state from hunger with a child in his arms.
The child sucked the father's fingers as if they were the mother's breast. In the opposite corner, there was a bed, in which lay three children beneath an old sooty blanket. Hogan estimated the children to be aged from six to fourteen years. Their haggard appearance and the fact that they had lost their hair made it difficult to age them. The children's mother was out begging with two other little ones.
The father explained that he suffered from a prolonged bout of sickness. This deprived the family of his income from work on the roads. They had eaten little in the previous two days. Hogan offered to find relief for them. As soon as he uttered the words, another man with four children and a sick wife appeared. Hogan noted – here was a cabin, with fourteen skeletons of human beings on the Lord's Day, without a fire, without a mouthful of food and without as much cloth as would cover one of the fourteen!
In June 1848, Frederick Cavendish published a list of those evicted by George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, across several townlands in and around Castlebar. The list includes the name of the head of each household, the number in the family, the new place of residence (where known ), those since deceased and the number of houses levelled. In all, 913 men, women and children were evicted. Of these, 478 were left to the mercy of Castlebar Union. The union consistently exhibited an utter absence of empathy for the starving multitude and those dying of disease and cold in their workhouse.
Of the many townlands listed, Aughadrina stands out, with 289 evicted. It was noted that Lucan was now farming Aughadrina as well as Antigua (twenty-two evicted ). In 1841, the population of Aughadrina was 314; in 1851, it was nine – five men and four women. The number of dwellings fell from sixty-six down to two. Lucan also conducted over 2,000 evictions at Ballinrobe while Sir Roger Palmer evicted 186 persons from his Islandeady – Glenisland lands in two weeks in 1849.
How do we characterise the actions and intentions of Lucan, Palmer and other landlords in Mayo who evicted their tenants during the Great Famine? What level of legal and moral culpability do we lay at their door? In 1848, the law, if not morality, was on their side. Lucan and others were called 'Exterminators'; the act itself was often referred to as 'clearing the estate.' The intention of these landlords was evident to all – the removal of an unwanted class of people off the land.
They knew that a combination of extreme starvation, acute stress and homelessness would deliver the desired outcome. In the case of Aughadrina, it worked. Lucan was aware of the lack of support in Castlebar for those who were starving and homeless and that many deaths would inevitably follow evictions. Like Palmer, Lucan fought against the poor rate. He insisted on the closure of Castlebar Workhouse. Collectively these landed aristocrats were engaged in the deliberate and systematic destruction of a social class.
Tenants were persecuted, and violence was employed against them to drive them out. This was engineered social change. The famine presented the opportunity; the law and the Royal Irish Constabulary were the enablers while London looked on with culpable indifference.
In May 1847, thirty-nine people were evicted at Gallows Hill. We know the family names, but we do not know if those encountered by Hogan were among them or still alive at that time. Cruelty did not abandon Gallows Hill when the hangman moved to the Green. Aughadrina was annihilated, and with it, the memory of its people and their past. Their names are yet to make it onto a black granite memorial.
