Ireland in 1830-1850

I visited Kilcumnin in 1984, with my grandmother, my family, and my aunt (my mom's sister) and her family. It was rustic and lovely.

I wonder what this town looked like when Anne was a girl. Ireland is a rainy country; today, County Mayo likely gets 250 days of rain a year, I guess it is safe to assume it rained a lot.

Kerby Miller explains that the Irish were communal in nature, with homes clustered near each other in family groups; farm land was divided amongst family members - meaning that each farm got smaller as the generations grew up. Nearly three fourths of the farms in County Mayo were less than six acres in size. My grandmother suggested that the Hoey farm was small given the taxes Nicholas paid.

The Irish along the Atlantic performed mainly subsistence farming; farmers grew what they needed to live and feed their families. Pigs were raised for money and I sense that farm animals roamed freely across land.

In the early nineteenth century, when Britain was busy with its own growing population, Ireland's economy enjoyed a customer -- the British had a need for Irish materials - textiles and oats. I am not sure how much prosperity Kilcumnin enjoyed in these years, but let's deduce it enjoyed some. The contrast the Famine brought must have been painful for the parents -- and add to that the reality that Nicholas lost his wife, Anne's mother, just before the Famine hit. The pain of those years must have been palpable.

I gather from my reading that when the potato famine hit, it hit the western areas of Ireland hard. Charity workers from Britain who came to Ireland to help during the late 1840s reported that one in four people they saw were near death. Stories of children digging in the dirt for food -- meaning turnip roots -- are common.

I can't decide what Anne took from Ireland - in terms of her visual or sensory memories. Miller's comments on the Irish immigrant to America and their feelings about the famine are so well said I quote ... the "Great Famine seared is survivors with vivid, imperishable memories." Did Anne have that feeling? Was she old enough to grasp the despair? Was she hungry many nights in Ireland? Did she remember those days as she grew older?

Or did Anne reflect back on her childhood and remember the beauty of Kilcumnin? Did she remember living near neighbors, possibly cousins, and sharing the work of farming with them ? Did she remember the proximity of the water, the abundance of rain, and hold her memories of home dear?

Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America,

by Kerby A. Miller (1985)
Miller's book is intelligent - I am having to reread things over and over !
It is also compassionate, with a humane view of the Irish and what their lives were like.

What was Anne's life in Kilcumnin like?

I wonder what the Hoey cottage in Kilcumnin looked like. Our family story tells us "their homes were poorly furnished and the only heat was from a fireplace in the kitchen. They burned peat (which is great heat) but the only warm spot was just in front of the fireplace."

An 1841 Irish census shows that 50% of rural Irish families lived in single room cabins; and that the majority of Irish families were rural. At this time, these homes had thatched roofs, dirt floors, and few if any windows; as you may have surmised, running water and electricity were not available. The cabins were white washed -- three to four times a year -- a task which fell to the women. Furniture was minimal and the family would eat around the fire - on which the food was prepared.

Potatoes were a dominant part of the diet, along with buttermilk. Tea was becoming more fashionable and common when Anne was a little girl. Whiskey was drunk at social events and family gatherings; men and women both drank whiskey - although when it was time to drink in the local pub -- that experience was reserved for men.

I've read that Irish girls often wore red -- a lucky color that kept away the fairies and refrained from wearing green (worn by the fairies.) Lynch-Brennan mentions red petticoats in one description. This same story notes that girls from West Ireland, as Anne was, wore flowered bodices and red skirts.

Again, Margaret Lynch-Brennan's work, The Irish Bridget is to thank for my brief thoughts. Her accessible book is impossible to put down and has brought me tremendous joy. I am also finding, that the more I learn, the more questions I have!