Walking In the Past

Yesterday, we went to Skibbereen, one of the worst effected areas during the Great Famine. As we pulled in, it was hard for me to imagine an Irish town of 1840. There were bustling storefronts, tiny, packed, busy roads and brightly painted houses. This town looked as much alive as any other Irish town we have passed through. After a harrowing drive through town (OK, I can’t NOT talk about the road system here…one needs to pray to both Saint Christopher (the Patron Saint of Travel) and Saint Jude (the Patron Saint of Impossible Things) to ensure safe travels on the road system here), in which several times, lives – within the car and pedestrians, – were in question), we made it safely to a car park (a parking lot). Our destination was the Skibbereen Heritage Center, home to The Great Famine Commemoration Exhibition.

We walked through the Exhibit. Read the displays, and listened to the audio-visuals. But the majority of our learning came from listening to an employee and the curator of the Heritage Center. While going through the exhibit, much of what we already knew was confirmed…most Irish people of the time lived in extreme poverty; many people died more as a result of disease than anything else; and the population of Ireland declined rapidly due to the famine, either because of death, or immigration. Once again, we found the power of learning in listening to the experts, who had insight on the Great Famine not listed in the exhibition. From Margaret, the employee, we learned that a professor in the United States has been able to trace the blight DNA to South America. So the blight traveled from South America, to North America, to Europe then finally to Ireland. We learned from Margaret that real research into the Great Famine did not start until around 1950. Up until 1950, people were angry, wounded and couldn’t move past the “blame game.” The Famine was too “recent,” too “real” to really explore. For the first time, in the 1950’s, people were able to look at the Great Famine without playing the “blame game…” people began to look at what happened with an objective eye. The exhibition, and Margaret, both struck a cord with me. Margaret talked about how the famine was caused by a natural disaster, from an airborne blight. It was the response of the British Government, and the response of world governments, and the Laissez-Faire attitude of the political time period, that intensified and ratcheted up the stakes of the blight. And then she said, “Could they (the British and the world) have done more? Yes…” This statement brought me back to a part of the exhibit; it compares the current famine in Sudan to the Great Famine…stating that the famine in Sudan is the Irish skeletons of the Great Famine in black skin. And Margaret voiced what I was thinking, “Can we do more (for famine struck countries)? Yes.”

The curator of the exhibit, Terri, was a wealth of knowledge. And from her, I have started to answer the guiding question “Why does prejudice exist?” Throughout our research in Ireland, there was a question nagging at my core – “Why did the British seem to hate, yes hate, the Irish with such vigor?” To me, it seems that the British truly went out of their way to demoralize and keep the Irish at the bottom of the social ladder. Terri offered some insight. By the 1830’s, Great Britain was deeply entrenched in the Industrial Revolution. The average citizen in Great Britain was working 12-hour days, six days a week, many in poor factory-working conditions. During this time in Ireland, life was more laid back. The Industrial Revolution had not put its hand on Irish shores, and therefore, most people were still potato farming. Though work during the planting and harvesting season was extensive and difficult, this season did not last long. So to an outsider, it looked like the Irish had a lot of time on their hands. Which, to an extent, they did. The Irish filled their time bonding as a community with dance, story telling, drinking and playing music. This was very much a part of their culture. They worked hard, and some even migrated to other parts of Ireland for work when it wasn’t the potato season. But this was unknown to the Englishman. To the 12 hour working Englishman, working in a dangerous factory, the Irishman looked lazy. And from this, we see the seeds of hatred planted and prosper. The image of the drunk, fat, lazy, poor Irishman can trace some of their roots to these English perceptions. And these images traveled around Europe and to the United States. I have started to learn that the world was more interconnected during this time period then I believed. Another example of countries depending on other countries is the fact that for the first two years of the Famine, governments sent aid to Ireland, however, during 1847, the world began to feel “Famine Fatigue”- they were “tired” of hearing about Ireland…and so they stopped the aid…and this proved to be devastating to the people of Ireland, who would not see “the end of the tunnel” until after 1850.

Last, Terri gave us some primary documents, not included in the exhibition. These documents are first hand accounts of the famine from people who visited Ireland in 1847. As we began the historical walking tour of the Great Famine in Skibbereen, we retraced the steps of Elihu Burritt, and American who kept a journal – as we walked the trail, we read his journal, visiting the same places he wrote about. When we stopped at the Soup House (still in existence today, but in a dilapidated state), we read his journal “The soup house was surrounded by a cloud of these famine scepters, half naked, and standing or sitting in the mud, beneath a cold drizzling rain. The narrow defile to the dispensary bar was choked with young and old of both sexes, struggling forward with their rusty tin and iron vessels for soup, some of them upon all fours, like famished beasts.” And as we walked up Bridge Street, one of the poorest areas in Skibbereen during the famine, we read again his words: “As we continued our walk along this filthy lane, half naked women and children would come out of their cabins, apparently in the last stage of fever and beg for food…”

Today, the Great Famine was brought into color as we walked in the past.

Noel

Please Note: The Heritage Center allowed us to take pictures of their exhibits for classroom use only; they asked us not to post these pictures on websites. Therefore, pictures you see today are ones that we took outside the Heritage Center.