HAVING A BALL IN BALLINA - Reprinted with permission

by Mike Morley


While looking through the Irish papers recently, I ran across some mouth-watering classic pastry dishes from Ballina Mayo, guaranteed to make your Thanksgiving feast a truly elegant affair. Here’s just a few of the creations offered by Ballina baker Michael Foley: Penny plum cake, queen cake, anglesey cake, barm brack, saffron brack, plum pudding, chancellor’s pudding, orange, lemon almond and custard puddings, raspberry puffs, cheese cakes, parliament gingerbread, wellington biscuits, Victoria biscuits, and Italian gingerbread. Also on the menu are rhubarb, apple, cherry, currant, and gooseberry pies; mutton, lamb and beefsteak pies, mince pies and shrewsberries for your dining pleasure. Top off your feast with ginger nuts, coffee, and sweets of all kinds. Foley will even provide after-dinner cigars.

All these scrump-tilli-icious items to grace your holiday table, “And Many Others Too Numerous to Mention” can be found at Michael Foley’s Confectionary and Italian Warehouse on Knox St, in Ballina Mayo- “All orders punctually attended to”. Do you suppose Mr. Foley is affected by the current “hard times” in post “celtic tiger” Ireland? I can assure you with confidence that he is not.

In the News section we read: “An inquest was held at Ardnaree on yesterday, before Meredith Thompson, Esq. Coroner for county Sligo, on the body of a man named Thomas Munally of Cloonislane. …it appeared that the deceased and his family, consisting of a wife and eight children, have been in extreme destitution for several weeks; they had pawned their entire clothing, and all other available articles, for the purpose of purchasing food. On last Friday morning the deceased proceeded to join a working party under the drainage, when, after working for a short period, he dropped down from exhaustion in consequence of want of food, and shortly after expired. The jury unanimously found the following verdict-‘Death from starvation.’"
Truth is, Foley’s ad, along with Mr. Munnally’s shocking death, were both featured in the Ballina Chronicle of May 2nd 1849! The brutal starvation of Ireland had then been in progress three awful years. (Incidentally Michael Foley is also one of 3 carpenters listed in Slater’s directory of Ballina. One wonders whether the busy baker was also moonlighting in the booming coffin trade).

Reading that paper one might imagine the printer had somehow badly mixed together stories submitted from two entirely different countries- countries as different as the earth and moon… one flowing with riches, commodities and the warmth of social interaction; the other barren, toxic, uninhabitable.

The previous July the Telegraph reported the doings of Sir Roger Palmer, owner of no less than 90,000 acres in Mayo: “At Islandeady (between Castlebar and Westport) his 'crowbar invincibles', pulled down several houses, and drove forth the unfortunate inmates to sleep in the adjoining fields. On Thursday we witnessed the wretched creatures endeavouring to root out the timber of the houses, with the intention of constructing some sort of sheds to screen their children from the heavy rain falling at the time. The pitiless pelting storm has continued ever since, and if they have survived its severity, they must be more than human beings”.

Surely among the evicted were families with names common to North Mayo: Gallagher, Durkan, McHale, Barrett, McNulty, Brennan, Henry, Doyle, Harkin, Dogherty, Foy, Kelly, Loftus, Gaughan, and Lavelle.

On his extensive holdings around Castlebar and Ballinrobe another notorious and ruthless English landlord, George Charles Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, was also evicting his tenants en masse:

Historian Cecil Blanche Woodham-Smith (Fitzgerald) - “The Reason Why”: “To the Earl of Lucan famine horrors were so many convincing demonstrations of the urgent necessity of clearing the land. The land could not support the people, could never support the people; so the people must go. He did not consider it was his responsibility, any more than the English Government considered it was their responsibility, to arrange how the people should go and where. He was getting nothing from his estates… A large part of the population of Ireland must disappear. Ten thousand people were ejected from the neighbourhood of Ballinrobe, and 15,000 acres cleared and put in charge of Scotsmen.

Several populous villages in the neighbourhood of Castlebar completely disappeared, farms being established on the sites. Behind Castlebar House the Earl of Lucan established a large dairy farm. …in the town of Castlebar itself -- whole streets were demolished and the stones from the walls used to build barns and boundary walls… 'crow-bar brigades' (would) pull down cabins over the heads of people who refused to leave them. The Bishop of Meath saw a cabin being pulled down over the heads of people dying of cholera: a winnowing sheet was placed over their bodies as they lay on the ground, and the cabin was demolished over their heads. He administered the Sacrament for the dying in the open air, and since it was during the equinoctial gales, in torrents of rain.

A 'machine of ropes and pulleys' was devised for the destruction of more solid houses. .. at one crack of the whip and pull of the horses the roof was brought in. It was found that two of these machines enabled a sheriff to evict as many families in a day as could be got through by a crowbar brigade of fifty men. Six thousand evictions might involve more than 40,000 people, as the average Irish family consisted of seven persons.

Sick and aged, little children, and women with child were alike thrust forth into the cold snows of winter... the few remaining tenants were forbidden to receive the outcasts ... The majority rendered penniless by the years of famine, wandered aimlessly about the roads and bogs till they found refuge in the workhouse- or the grave.

“The Castlebar Union workhouse had been built to hold 600-700 persons, but had never contained more than 140… Very many died, and since there were no coffins, their bodies were left to rot in the dead house. But there was food, however revolting, however meagre; and the Union was besieged. On October 26th, 1846, the Earl of Lucan, Chairman of the Board of Guardians, had declared the workhouse bankrupt, and, in spite of vehement protests from the Poor Law Commissioner, ordered the Castlebar Union to be entirely closed down. Starving mothers dragged their children to the Union doors and besought that they at least should be taken in. Whole families made their painful way from the wild lands and collapsed moaning in the courtyard when they were refused.”

Irish family names of South Mayo: Walsh, Burke, Gibbons, Prendergast, Joyce, Murray, Gallagher, Lydon, Heneghan, Murphy, O'Malley, Kelly, Moran, Duffy, O'Connor, Waldron, Farragher.



LORD LUCAN

PERFECTLY “LEGAL”: “It appeared that a new system of clearing land was being adopted in Mayo and that the processes now before the courts were novel in Ireland. There had previously been a right of levying a distress on goods and chattels for rent, but this year in Mayo there were no goods and chattels left, so the person of the debtor was to be attached -- that is, he was to be imprisoned. The husband and father was to be removed, and the wife and children were to be left to fend for themselves.”

It was a variation of Britain’s clearing and plantation policies carried out by Lord Mountjoy following Kinsale and the “Flight of Earls”; and later by Cromwell. But since slavery in the British Empire had ceased just 40 years earlier, the Irish families could no longer be sold overseas for a profit. They were simply left to die.


The Ballina paper also carried regular news of: “THE MILITARY FORCES IN IRELAND” As of May 9, 1849 there were “Ten regiments of cavalry, twenty-six of Infantry, and nine depots of infantry regiments are now stationed in Ireland, making in round numbers a total of about 31,000 men of ranks.”

45 regiments. Were they distributing relief, building shelters, manning field hospitals? Rev. Dr McEvoy, parish priest of Kells, wrote in The Nation, 25 October 1845: “With starvation at our doors, grimly staring us, vessels laden with our sole hopes of existence, our provisions, are hourly wafted from our every port. From one milling establishment I have last night seen not less than fifty dray loads of meal moving on to Drogheda, thence to go to feed the foreigner, leaving starvation and death the sure and certain fate of the toil and sweat that raised this food.”
Woodham-Smith described such a convoy of food being moved to Waterford for shipment to England: "The barges leave Clonmel once a week for this place, with the export supplies under convoy which, last Tuesday, consisted of two guns, 50 cavalry and 80 infantry escorting them on the banks of the Suir as far as Carrick".
I find it astounding how any rational person, no less one of Irish descent, would focus on “the potato” to explain why millions of Gaelic-speaking Irish Catholic men and women, their boys and girls and infants, were abandoned to die the horrible slow death of starvation; while others, English and Protestant, were sustained with little inconvenience to their lifestyles- other than having on occasion to actually encounter the desperation, death and dying going on all around them; or read about it in their weekly paper over tea. And it’s sad to read breezy commentary about “The Potato Famine” in this newspaper.

©Mike Morley 2009 E-mail: IrishTV@ameritech.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

ONLINE EXTRA!
The copy below was well fit to be included with the print edition of “Having A Ball in Ballina” column, but would not fit well into the space allowed. Read on!

Nine years after casting out tens of thousands of his Irish tenants to starve in the cold, the Earl of “I will not breed paupers to pay priests” Lucan was involved in yet another slaughter. Unlike his mass murder in Mayo, this carnage was on a much smaller scale, involving mere hundreds. But, because it involved the death of British troops, not Irish civilians, the incident is renowned world-wide, rather than hidden from popular history.
On October 25, 1854 in the Ukraine, Lucan was the cavalry commander who ordered the 7th Earl of Cardigan, a brother-in-law whom he despised, to lead the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava.
Later, true to the history of Britain and its butchers, the teflon Lord was not only cleared of any blame, But appointed KCB (Knight Commander, Order of the Bath) and Colonel of the King’s Royal Irish 8th Hussars (a unit that charged at Balaklava). He was then raised to lieutenant-general, then general, and finally- field marshal.
The 250 soldiers who died needlessly at Balaklava have been immortalized by Lord Tennyson. But the uncountable families whose emaciated bodies were tumbled into mass graves all over Ireland are not so much unremembered as actually denied by their own people, themselves in denial. The dead have been rendered invisible, bereft of memorial or memory.
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That May of 1849, as thousands wandered the roads in rags and huddled in ditches against the cold, the Ballina paper carried several other, often surreal, items:
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Robert and George Scott at the Commercial House, Arran Street, Ballina announce the “Most Fashionable Stock of Clothing Ever Imported to Ballina.”
Not to be outdone, a rival ballyhoos: ”First Arrivals of Spring Goods. The Western Woollen Hall, Knox's Street, Ballina. Alexander Little, Proprietor, has returned from the different markets (being the sixth time within seven months) with a stock of goods unparalleled in Ballina for variety and cheapness, compromising All the Newest Designs suitable to the present season, and begs to say he purposes visiting the markets monthly, so as to select every new style coming out.”
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Several persons were summoned for deserting the Workhouse without permission from the Master, and taking with them clothes belonging to the Union. Some of them were allowed to return to the Workhouse, and the rest were sentenced- some to 24 hour confinement in the bridewell, and others to fourteen days imprisonment in the gaol, with hard labour.
 One man was sentenced to fourteen days imprisonment with hard labour, for breaking a window and taking off some bread. He alleged he did this through the effects of hunger, but it was shown he made a habit of thus getting his bread.
The deaths from cholera on Friday last- and it is yet only in its infancy-are enough to show the frightful ravages that may be expected to follow… Rev. Mr. Anderson's statement has been …more than confirmed, for whereas the number of starvation deaths mentioned by the Rector amounts only to eighty-seven for the week, it is set down by the second witness of ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SEVEN! But the discrepancy can be easily accounted for... The fact is that in order to screen the Commissioners, and keep the public in the dark as to the real extent of the mortality, many of the workhouse officers through the South and West make it common practice to falsify the returns”.
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PAINTING, GLAZING, AND PAPER HANGING ESTABLISHMENT, Top of King Street, Ballina. ROBERT GIBSON - Has just received a well-selected assortment of ROOM PAPER, suitable for Parlour, Drawing-room, Bed-room, and Halls, which he offers for sale on the most moderate terms. He also begs leave to state that he is well supplied with WINDOW GLASS, OILS, COLOURS, and PREPARED PAINTS of every description. PAINTING BRUSHES, PLASTER PARIS, ROMAN CEMENT, &c.
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From the 26th Feb. to the 13th March there arrived in New York about 6,394 emigrants. The deaths on the passage out amounted to 75 in all.
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(For the tourist trade) Doctor Whittaker of Ardnaree, Ballina offers: A Neat Furnished Cottage. With Large Garden, Stable, and Coach House- to be let for the summer months in Ballina.
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Matthew Kilkelly, convicted at the last Ennis assizes of an attempt to murder Mr. Wallplate, suffered the extreme penalty of the law in front of the county gaol on Monday. He appeared deeply penitent.

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THE ARMY-
 List of Non-Commissioned Officers and Privates Killed in Action at Gujrat, on the 21st of February, 1849, or who subsequently died of wounds received:
 (Note: GUJRAT in the North West Indian Punjab was the site of the decisive battle of the Anglo-Sikh War. General Sir Hugh Gough commanding British and Indian troops defeated Sikhs, the Punjab army, and their Afghan allies. The Punjab then was annexed into British India for the British East India Company. Note also the predominantly Irish names of the rankers.)
10th Regiment of Foot- Killed-Corporal George Mason, Privates Samuel Whitehead, John M'Hough, Andrew Walsh, Francis Kenyon, Henry C. Stagg, George Davies. Died of Wounds-Private Patrick Lawlor.
 29th Foot- Killed-Privates John Gibson, John Sullivan.

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THE CHOLERA - ENNIS UNION- Every cholera hospital in this union was closed by order of the guardians on Wednesday last. Dr. Cullinan informed the board that the state of the Ennis fever hospital was very unsatisfactory, the greatest disorder and confusion prevailing there.

The following is a return of the entire cases in the workhouse cholera hospital up to Saturday. Admitted, 494; died, 78; discharged, 100; remaining, 100.
Cholera and fever are spreading through the electoral divisions of Kilfinny and Croagh.

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Mr. Martin's herd(sman) at Tullyra, county Galway, caught a woman of the name of DONOHOE killing a lamb on Thursday, and he locked the offender up in a stable while he went for the police, but when they arrived the unfortunate woman had hung herself with her apron!

(Note: Why would a woman end her life simply for fear of being charged with taking food, most likely meant to keep her family alive? It is certain the poor woman knew that the current penalty doled out by to Irish people by Irish courts for almost ANY offense, be it “receiving stolen goods” or murder, was “transportation beyond the seas”. That meant being shipped to British plantations in Australia or elsewhere to serve a sentence of at least seven years, often life.

Of course, no matter what the term, removing a destitute person from their family and transporting them 8,000 miles to the other side of the world WAS effectively a life sentence. And many convicts would die even before the long arduous sea journey. At the same time Mrs. / Miss Donohoe hanged herself, another woman, Mary Hegarty was sentenced in Cork, May 14, 1849 to 7 years’ transportation for “stealing” yet another lamb.

Ship records show 2184 Irish persons arrived in Australia as convicts during 1849 alone. Their “crimes” mostly involved “larceny” of food or clothing, or of small amounts of money to buy these items of survival.)

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Colonel Chatterton, K.H., Grand Inspector General was entertained at dinner, on the 24th inst., by the members of the High Masonic Order of Princes Grand Rose Croix, No. 1, Cork, at the Rooms, Tuckey St.
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A vessel to take out convicts has arrived at Kingstown; a party of the 96th is the escort. (Kingstown is now Dun Laoghaire, near Dublin.)

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The goods and chattels of Gort workhouse were sold under execution last week by the High Sheriff of Galway, at the suit of the creditors.

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Two hundred orphans from the workhouse will be sent from Dublin to Australia; 150 children belonging to convicts were sent to that colony last week.

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Emigration to the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), which had been suspended last year, has been resumed by her Majesty's Commissioners.

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Owen MORAN crept into his mother's house and died, the same day his brother Larry was found dead in a field; same day his sister, Mrs. WHELAN, with her mother and child, found dead in a deserted forge. The two brothers, the sister, the brother-in-law, and child all dead the same day, of starvation, at Kilimore, county Galway.

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On Friday night a party of men broke into the auxiliary workhouse in the village of Clare, and carried away three bags of meal.

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DESECRATION OF THE SABBATH- It is disgraceful in a professedly Christian country to see men and women carrying about and exposing for sale fish, vegetables, and other articles of merchandize on the Sabbath day, as is the custom in Ballina. In the principal thoroughfares, and even while Divine Service is being celebrated, the passer-by is invited to make purchases. Are the people so distitute of the common decencies of morality as to encourage so obnoxious a practice? If the authorities have any jurisdiction in the matter, perhaps they would take this hint.

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William LEE, a boy of three years, died of starvation on its mother's back, in Limerick, last week! He had been living on water-cresses for several days.

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THE CHURCH (of Ireland, Anglican)
 The Lord Primate consecrated on yesterday (Tuesday) the Rev. Robert Knox, D.D., to the Bishopric of Down and Connor and Dromore. His grace was assisted by the Lord Bishop of Kilmore. The consecration was held in the Armagh Cathedral. The Bishop elect of Down and Connor and Dromore will be enthroned in the cathedral of Lisburn, on to-morrow, the 3rd and in the cathedral of Dromore on Saturday, the 5th of May.

The Bishops of Down and Cork were entertained by the Fellows of Trinity College at dinner, on Wednesday.

The Rev. Dr. Sadleir preached an excellent sermon at Trinity College, Dublin, on Thursday, when full service was performed. The 8th psalm was chanted by the choir.

(From the 8th Psalm):

What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

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