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 did being Catholic mean to Anne?

Mary Ellen Gagan Hughes's rosary

Hannah is making her first communion this year. That momentous event, combined with my focus on this project, has led me to the question -- what did religion mean to Anne?

We believe that Anne spoke Irish, and was very much a rural, probably, provincial, girl. The Irish language and the preponderance of references to God within common phrases suggests to some scholars that religion and Irish culture was tightly combined; examples of these phrases are listed in "Irish Bridgets"

• "Is giorra cabhair De Na an doras" God's help is nearer than the door
• "Dia duit" standard greeting for good day -- meaning God bless you
• "Dia's Muire duit" standard reply to above, meaning God and Mary to you

In 1834, 80% of the Irish were Catholic; 38% of these heard mass on Sundays; my grandmother told me that the Irish were not allowed to worship. What I've read is that at the time of the Reformation, all churches became the property of the Church of Ireland (Protestant) and the Irish worshiped outside at mass rocks or in people's homes.

Priests were revered. However, a strict adherence to papal "procedures" if you will does not seem to have been followed. The Irish fused Catholicism with many of their pagan beliefs, creating a flavor of worship richly tied to their culture. Apparently, this fusion was mitigated after the Famine, with the Catholicism more global, but clearly Anne would not have seen this.

Anne arrived in New York at the age of 13; like many of her country women, she was on her own. Several books written after she had grown to a woman and was a mother herself, including Guide for Catholic Young Women, Especially Those Who Earn Their Own Living by Father George Deshon, and Advice to Irish Girls In America by Sister Mary Frances Clare encouraged 'Bridgets' to work near churches, attend mass, say their rosary, and work to educate Protestants (especially their mistresses) of the value of Catholicism with an eye toward converting them.

It appears that religion and socialization were closely tied. Irish girls found jobs through churches, and enjoyed socializing after mass with other young Irish Catholics.

Our story tells us Anne left Kilcumnin with only her feather bed, some money, and a brass candlestick. There is no mention of rosary beads, which does not mean she did not have a set, only that I don't know of their existence. I do have Anne's grand daughter's (Mary Ellen Gagan Hughes') and they are the photo which starts this post.

Anne did have many children, four of whom died, and I hope for her sake her faith brought her comfort as she anticipated seeing them again and was thankful these children had returned to the love of God. I don't know what she thought about her faith. I'd like to spend some time learning where she may have attended mass in Rye as that may be an easier thing to determine than trying to guess where she worshiped while in New York.

However, it is her years in New York that have me most interested. As hard as I have tried, I am still not in her skin. I imagine her life and project my own 13 year old self into the experience. I can't decide what Anne was like - how mature, how confident, how secure - so that I can then extrapolate what decisions she may have made. I can tell you that 13 year old Amy would not have gone to Mass -- but that does not mean that 13 year old Anne did not. So, I remain in research mode.

Margaret Lynch Brennan and Kerby Miller continue to inform me as I travel this journey.

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!