Atrocities in Ireland

P. Breathnach

Bannasidhe wrote: »

... could some of our national trauma be collective guilt? ...

I am convinced that this is so, but I can't imagine where we might find the evidence. But the absence of evidence is indicative of something. Let me explain in anecdotal mode.

I have traced my ancestry back to the famine years and earlier. I have names and locations for a number of ancestral households in West Kerry: they were Rundale shareholders in an area that was particularly hard hit by the famine. In the case of one household, they lived in a clachán that is even today notorious for the severity of the suffering people experienced during those years. Yet even in relatively recent years (I did some questioning in the 1960s and 70s) family members who were born in that part of West Kerry avoided all talk of the famine: it was taboo. I think it is slightly less taboo today, but we are more than a generation further removed, and many of those who carried the sense of taboo are no longer living - and their stories are lost.

I am sure that there were accounts of suffering and trauma, but I suspect there were also stories of what people did to survive.

Contrast that with the strong sentiments we can perceive among many Americans who trace their lineage back to famine emigrants. Their ancestors also survived. But they did not have to cope with finding themselves alive in the 1850s in a place where so many of their families and their neighbours died in appalling circumstances. They seemed to transmit a different attitude through the generations that followed them.

Bannasidhe

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I am convinced that this is so, but I can't imagine where we might find the evidence. But the absence of evidence is indicative of something. Let me explain in anecdotal mode.

I have traced my ancestry back to the famine years and earlier. I have names and locations for a number of ancestral households in West Kerry: they were Rundale shareholders in an area that was particularly hard hit by the famine. In the case of one household, they lived in a clachán that is even today notorious for the severity of the suffering people experienced during those years. Yet even in relatively recent years (I did some questioning in the 1960s and 70s) family members who were born in that part of West Kerry avoided all talk of the famine: it was taboo. I think it is slightly less taboo today, but we are more than a generation further removed, and many of those who carried the sense of taboo are no longer living - and their stories are lost.

I am sure that there were accounts of suffering and trauma, but I suspect there were also stories of what people did to survive.

Contrast that with the strong sentiments we can perceive among many Americans who trace their lineage back to famine emigrants. Their ancestors also survived. But they did not have to cope with finding themselves alive in the 1850s in a place where so many of their families and their neighbours died in appalling circumstances. They seemed to transmit a different attitude through the generations that followed them.

If I read correctly you believe some form of survivors guilt came into play in Ireland which emigrants and their descendants did not feel -I wonder if that happened in the Highlands, and if not why not? Perhaps because many of those who survived turned away from those who perished or somehow benefited by it?

CDfm

Maslow's Hierarchy of Need and priorities would indicate that their focus would be with survival.

You guys are talking luxuries here. Our forefathers were very busy with the business of life.

I am not saying that they didn't care but that their focus and culture was different. Their attitude towards mortality was different for a start.

P. Breathnach

Bannasidhe wrote: »

If I read correctly you believe some form of survivors guilt came into play in Ireland which emigrants and their descendants did not feel ...

Exactly that. Emigrants could, and I think did, see emigration as a victim's experience. So it was okay for them to feel anger or resentment, and to express it.

One of my great-grandmothers was born in 1848; her father died not long after, and my guess is that he was a famine victim. I also suspect, given the béaloideas tradition of the area (and, indeed, the family from which I come) that the facts were known to the generations before mine. But was there a whisper of it in the family? Not one that I ever heard.

CDfm

But the accounts were not handed down or were they ?

My father's grandfather was born in 1848 and he lived till he was 103 and my Dad knew him and afaik things weren't spoken of or left unspoken.

pedroeibar1

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I have traced my ancestry back to the famine years and earlier. I have names and locations for a number of ancestral households in West Kerry: they were Rundale shareholders in an area that was particularly hard hit by the famine. In the case of one household, they lived in a clachán that is even today notorious for the severity of the suffering people experienced during those years. Yet even in relatively recent years (I did some questioning in the 1960s and 70s) family members who were born in that part of West Kerry avoided all talk of the famine: it was taboo.

It is no wonder it was taboo. In 1841 the population of the townland of Gallerus was 215; ten years later it was 84. Ballyferriter had 183 in 1841 and 63 in 1851. (From TJ Barrington's 'Discovering Kerry'.)
P.

dubhthach

I record reading that when they started collecting béaloideas (folklore) officially in the 1920's that it was very hard to find anything to do with famine. At this stage there were still people alive who had either been born during the famine or in in the 10-20years after. It's like there was a collective mind-block. The Folklore Commision in UCD has all the records regarding this.

slowburner

CDfm wrote: »

Maslow's Hierarchy of Need and priorities would indicate that their focus would be with survival.

You guys are talking luxuries here. Our forefathers were very busy with the business of life.

I am not saying that they didn't care but that their focus and culture was different. Their attitude towards mortality was different for a start.

How so ?

P. Breathnach

dubhthach wrote: »

I record reading that when they started collecting béaloideas (folklore) officially in the 1920's that it was very hard to find anything to do with famine. At this stage there were still people alive who had either been born during the famine or in in the 10-20years after. It's like there was a collective mind-block. The Folklore Commision in UCD has all the records regarding this.

And, until Pete St John wrote "The Fields of Athenry", there was no song about the famine experience.

I suspect, however, that the experience was not not completely excised from family lore, that the accounts might have been passed down within the family, but never mentioned outside. I base this suspicion principally on my view of human nature, and my (perhaps arrogant) belief that I have some sort of "feel" for the cultural milieu.

I have to reconsider the histories of the famine that I have read, and remind myself that they necessarily omit the experiences of those most impacted by the disaster.

dubhthach

P. Breathnach wrote: »

And, until Pete St John wrote "The Fields of Athenry", there was no song about the famine experience.

I suspect, however, that the experience was not not completely excised from family lore, that the accounts might have been passed down within the family, but never mentioned outside. I base this suspicion principally on my view of human nature, and my (perhaps arrogant) belief that I have some sort of "feel" for the cultural milieu.

I have to reconsider the histories of the famine that I have read, and remind myself that they necessarily omit the experiences of those most impacted by the disaster.

Indeed my mother has told me how the family tradition has eviction during the famine in North Clare/South Galway (Slieve Aughty). I also wonder how the "language break" might have affected the passing of folklore inter-generationally. I know from the 1901 and 1911 census that my great-great-Grandfather (born in late 1820's) could speak both Irish and English. His son (Great-Grandfather) who was born in 1860's could only speak English.

CDfm

slowburner wrote: »

How so ?

If you go back 60 years in Ireland you had TB, Polio & emigration. Child mortality was high too. My fathers neighbourhood was wiped out by TB & emigration.

My great grandfather was married 3 times -2 wives predeceased him.

Their world view was different and they needed to be adaptable and cope. Life was hard.

pedroeibar1

dubhthach wrote: »

I record reading that when they started collecting béaloideas (folklore) officially in the 1920's that it was very hard to find anything to do with famine. At this stage there were still people alive who had either been born during the famine or in in the 10-20years after. It's like there was a collective mind-block. The Folklore Commision in UCD has all the records regarding this.

From memory, Cathal O'Portear's (sp?) book on the Famine draws quite extensively on the Folklore Comm. records. Having researched a few bits of Famine lore I've heard in Kerry, I've found them to be guff, nearer to mythology and probably often based on begrudgery against unpopular individuals/families.

slowburner

CDfm wrote: »

If you go back 60 years in Ireland you had TB, Polio & emigration. Child mortality was high too. My fathers neighbourhood was wiped out by TB & emigration.

My great grandfather was married 3 times -2 wives predeceased him.

Their world view was different and they needed to be adaptable and cope. Life was hard.

Yes, I suppose when death and misery are all around you, you become desensitised.
I guess too, that if you are used to slaughtering your own animals that it contributes to a degree of desensitisation to death.

I have been thinking a great deal about a related subject lately.
Not quite how life was hard and the people necessarily tougher than we are now.
More about the degree to which people were capable of inflicting horrendous physical damage on each other. Especially prior to the middle of the 19th C when the taste for public execution began to diminish.


Of course these horrors still occur but they are not generally as institutionalised.
There was hanging, drawing and quartering, beheading, burning and all sorts of unmentionables in front of public audiences.
Acts of outrageous cruelty which involved the use of the executioner's hands upon the victim - up close and personal.

Undoubtedly, the nature of the weapons of war have much to do with it.
There is a heck of a difference between pushing a button/pulling a trigger and wielding an axe.

(Sorry for wandering off topic - just want to gauge reaction to the subject - new thread perhaps?)

CDfm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Having researched a few bits of Famine lore I've heard in Kerry, I've found them to be guff, nearer to mythology and probably often based on begrudgery against unpopular individuals/families.

I have done some family history research in Wexford and managed to go back several hundred years. The reason I got a renewed interest in Irish history was that original documents were at variance with popular history. My fathers explanation was that "it wasn't like that in our side of the country".

While there is a political history , local history & experience is far from generic.

pedroeibar1

slowburner wrote: »

Yes, I suppose when death and misery are all around you, you become desensitised.
I guess too, that if you are used to slaughtering your own animals that it contributes to a degree of desensitisation to death.

I have been thinking a great deal about a related subject lately.
Not quite how life was hard and the people necessarily tougher than we are now.
More about the degree to which people were capable of inflicting horrendous physical damage on each other. Especially prior to the middle of the 19th C when the taste for public execution began to diminish.


Of course these horrors still occur but they are not generally as institutionalised.
There was hanging, drawing and quartering, beheading, burning and all sorts of unmentionables in front of public audiences.
Acts of outrageous cruelty which involved the use of the executioner's hands upon the victim - up close and personal.

Undoubtedly, the nature of the weapons of war have much to do with it.
There is a heck of a difference between pushing a button/pulling a trigger and wielding an axe.

(Sorry for wandering off topic - just want to gauge reaction to the subject - new thread perhaps?)

Most of the Famine victims would not have had their own animals, maybe a fowl or two or initially at most a pig, as they simply did not have enough land for grazing or the capital wherewith to buy a cow. It was a cashpoor society, barter was the rule where possible, some fish for some milk or oats. Animals were seen just a source of food (or work, if a horse/ass) and the cuddley bunny syndrome did not start until after the industrial revolution, at the beginning of which countryfolk moved to cities bringing the likes of rabbits with them as a food source. Killing a pig was a bloody affair.

Hanging was a simple pull of a lever, as was the guillotine. Factionfighting was a bloody occurence, in Cork the butchers' apprentices and it seems their masters from Fair Hill were known as the 'Fair Hill Mob'. In Francis G Tucky's "The City and County of Cork Remembered"1772 March 8.- .......... The evening of the same day, to use the words of the newspaper, was concluded in a most pious and devout manner by the warlike sons and daughters of Fair Lane and Blackpool, who met in a long field near Fair hill and fought with one another till night came on. The females were armed plentifully with stones, and the male combatants according to the Chewkee custom, with tomahawks of a new construction, which were about four feet long, and so dexterously contrived, having a hook and spear at the end, that any who missed grappling were sure to stab with the sharp end.

Fair Lane is now Wolfe Tone Street. Tipperary and Limerick had a considerably higher than 'normal' incidence of violence in the Famine era, so we can't point the finger at the Corkmen.:o

CDfm

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Fair Lane is now Wolfe Tone Street. Tipperary and Limerick had a considerably higher than 'normal' incidence of violence in the Famine era, so we can't point the finger at the Corkmen.:o

As much as a ciarraioch might like to

slowburner

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

, and the male combatants according to the Chewkee custom, with tomahawks of a new construction, which were about four feet long, and so dexterously contrived, having a hook and spear at the end, that any who missed grappling were sure to stab with the sharp end.

Fair Lane is now Wolfe Tone Street. Tipperary and Limerick had a considerably higher than 'normal' incidence of violence in the Famine era, so we can't point the finger at the Corkmen.:o

Chewkees, tomohawks, Tipperary and Limerick.
Confused.com

pedroeibar1

slowburner wrote: »

Chewkees, tomohawks, Tipperary and Limerick.
Confused.com

Maternal line = Cork, Limerick, Clare
Paternal line = Tipp, Limerick, Scotland, England
Kin = Irl, US, Oz, NZ, Sth.Africa, UK, France, Belgium
Abode = Dublin / Kerry / o'seas

alsoconfused.com

CDfm

Tomohawks & Limerick

amused.com:D

slowburner

Risqué.
Our current minister for finance would be none too pleased, methinks.