The Great Famine In Sligo

The Great Famine was caused by the failure of the potato crop. Potatoes formed the chief food and there was no substitute which could be resorted to as may be the case when wheat and other grain are in common use. The failure of the potato cop condemned to death a vast number of Irish people. It changed the pattern of living in the countryside and it undoubtedly influenced the development of the United States and Canada. The famine of 1840 was caused by the potato blight which is a fungus disease, when it first appeared, it was mysterious and terrifying. Almost overnight fields of healthy potatoes turned black, as if they had been blasted by fire, healthy crops turned to heaps of black slimy messes. The famine reached its peak in the months prior to the ripening of the crop. People were without seed potatoes to plant and the situation was worse in western districts. The population of Ireland had increased to eight million by 1845 and many of the people lived all the time on the verge of starvation. Many died as a result of famine fever; pestilence has always been the companion of famine.

In Sligo the Fever Hospital, situated a short distance from the town on a hill and detached from other buildings, was considered a suitable place for fever and famine victims. (It had been built between 1817 and 1822 to cope with patients of famine epidemics prior to the Great Famine). The rapidity with which the unhappy victims were carried off rendered it essential that a large supply of coffins should always be ready. They were placed in large numbers in the field behind the hospital and the fresh wood of which they were made stood out in relief on the deep green sod of the hill from which the ground sloped away on every side, thus rendering the ghastly pile of coffins visible at two or three miles.

A local historian described what it was like in Sligo in that period: “The closed shops and doors; the complete suspension of business; the entire absence of people from the streets; the death-like silence that prevailed, broken only by the rumbling of the ponderous vehicle which conveyed the infected to the Hospital, or by the ominous noise caused by twenty carpenters hammering at the making of coffins in the Courthouse then converted into the workshop”. (The present Courthouse was erected in 1878 on the site of the old courthouse and gaol, portions of which were utilised in the new building.) The twenty carpenters soon proved unable to supply the demand for coffins, most of the dead were rolled into pitched sheets and thus dropped into the grave. The prospect of the “pitched sheet” had as much horror almost for the dying as death itself. It was told that a man caught the fever as he was mounting his horse at the foot of Knox’s Street, (now O’ Connell Street) fell down dead on reaching the head of Market Street. In Drumcliffe the Rev. John Yeats distributed meal granted for the relief of the poor of that area. Indian corn – the “yellow meal” so familiar in Irish folk tradition – was imported in an attempt to fill the need for food. Fever stalks upon the heels of famine and in 1846 Sligo Fever Hospital was hopelessly overcrowded, temporary sheds were erected near the hospital. The Diocesan School or Charter School were crowded to utmost capacity. Large numbers of unfortunate fever stricken men and women might be seen lying on wads of straw along the road from Calry Church to Ballinode, waiting their turn to get attention in the Fever Hospital or adjoining sheds. Fever after the Famine ran its course from 27 to 30 days.

Due to the enormous number of burials at Sligo Abbey and St. John’s Churchyard, in 1846 Sligo Corporation opened the new cemetery. Great numbers of all denominations were buried in the ground behind the Fever Hospital – the place became known as the “Cholera Field”. Many thousands of Irish people had already emigrated to the United States and Canada. In 1845 the population was numbered at eight million. Those with no hope of survival in their country sought to escape across the Atlantic. They walked hundreds of miles to the ports where they boarded “coffin ships” for America. Landlords sometimes helped to provide the passage money, ranging from fifty shillings to five pounds, either because they wanted to clear the land of tenants or from a genuine desire to help. It took forty days to reach America and conditions on the ships were appalling. Great numbers of those who left never survived, but those who did arrive became an important force in their new country. The Great Famine in Ireland powerfully influenced the development of the United States and Canada.

from Programme Notes for “The Black Stranger” by Gerard Healy, 1968, compiled by Eileen Lambert