The Great Famine of 1845-1849 was not the first time that Ireland had seen famine.

There was famine in 1728-29 when the oat crop failed and the potatoes were not sufficient to make up the difference.

Another famine in 1740-41 was caused by a very cold winter when the the potatoes froze in storage and the oat crop failed. About 10% of the population died.

Poor harvests also caused famine in 1817, 1822, 1836, 1837, 1841, and 1880-81.

The Great Famine in Brief

1846

300 people were evicted from the village of Ballinglass, Co. Galway, though not in arrears of rent (13 March)

Three-quarters of the potato harvest was lost through blight (Summer/Fall).

The first deaths from starvation were reported

1847

The Famine was at its height.

Typhus and other diseases spread throughout the country.

The potato harvest was blight-free but small. The corn harvest was good

380 doctors were thought to have died in Ireland between the start of the famine and the end of 1847.

1848

1848 The potato crop was two-thirds the normal size. The Famine continued

Cholera reappeared in November 1848 and continued into May 1849.

1849

William Crolly, Catholic archbishop of Armagh, died of cholera at Drogheda (6 April)

Over a million people died during the famine, most from disease

Over 90,000 evictions occurred during the famine.

The famine affected all of Ireland. However, some areas suffered more than others. The Byrnes, who lived in a very rural area, must have been more adversely affected than the Walshes, who, I believe, lived in or close to town.

There was a big surge in the population of Ireland in the early part of the nineteenth century. In fact the population nearly doubled between 1820 and 1841. This huge increase put tremendous pressure on the subsistence economy of the times as land was divided into smaller and smaller plots. By the 1840's the average density on cultivated land in Ireland was about 700 people per square mile, among the highest in Europe.

The major portion of the agricultural population on the land were "cottiers"; farmers who rented small plots of land. The major portion of the cottiers were Catholic who rented from Anglo Irish landlords. Cottiers rented an average of five acres of land and were often forced to seek other employment to supplement their income.

The cottiers cottages were built with local stone or turf and thatched with rush or straw. Many cottages did not have windows and chimneys. Windows, when they existed, were often too small for a man to put his head though. There was often, but not always, a hole in the roof to let out smoke. Ventilation was always bad. Pigs, poultry and other animals lived with the family, often sleeping in the same room. Due to landlord oppression Catholics were reluctant to beautify or improve their houses. The houses could not be over a certain height or the rent was raised. Since the door could not be more than five foot eight inches high, there was a step down into the kitchen to allow for extra space. See Photos of the Old Village of Mochara which contains photos of the ruins of the cottier's cottages in Mochara.

In the cold and damp environment the only form of heat for cooking and warmth was a peat or "turf" fire. See The Bog and Peat, below, for information on peat.

The potato was the major food crop of the impoverished Irish because it was economic, easy to plant, and grew well in the rocky soil. Any wheat, barley, and/or oats that the cottiers grew or pigs that they raised were sold to pay the rent. Everything was used, potato shins and surplus potatoes were fed to the pigs, and pig manure was used to fertilize the potato fields.

By 1820 the potato was the staple the cottiers diet in Mayo. The potatoes was seasoned with salt and eaten three times a day. According to several published reports, adult males ate up to fourteen pounds of potatoes a day. Women and older children ate about eleven pounds. The only other food was cabbage, fish, an occasional fowl, eggs and some dairy products. It is estimated that seven million tons of potatoes a year were required to feed the population of Ireland in the 1840's. As awful as this diet sounds, the potato eating Irish were better nourished and healthier, than other populations in the rest of Europe at the time.

The Irish dependence on the potato as their major food crop was the main reason for the devastation that occurred when the potato crop failed.

There had been localized and minor failures of the potato crops before 1845. However, until 1845 the potato had been more reliable than grain.

The potato blight was a disease that first appeared on the east coast of the United States in 1843. By 1845 it had spread to the mid-west in the United States. The blight was a fungal infection, which thrived in mild and damp climates. The spores were carried by the wind. Guano, imported as fertilized from Peru to the United States was probably the source of the fungus. Infected potato seeds were exported from the United States to Europe. The blight effected potato crops in most of Europe, but was particularly bad in the Low Countries, Germany and Ireland.

In 1845, Ireland lost about a third of its main crop which was usually harvested from October to November. Very few people in Ireland actually died from starvation in the winter of 1845-46. Continental Europe was in a much worse state that winter. No one really knew that first year what had caused the crop to fail. Most botanists thought it was a wet rot brought on by a particularly damp summer. No one really thought there would be a problem with the next year's crop.

The blight reappeared on the west coast of Ireland in the summer of 1846. Propelled by the prevailing winds, it spread at a rate of about fifty miles per week. By August it had devastated about three-quarters of the potato chop. Food prices soared beyond the reach of the poor. Grain, that could have fed the population of Ireland itself, was exported from Ireland to England to pay rents to the landlords.

The first deaths in Ireland were reported in October of 1846. There was no national system for relief. Local systems failed to function adequately. By December people started dying by the thousands. The Irish who had immigrated to America before this period sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to help the famine relief. The Quakers established relief committees in November of 1846. It was not enough.

Very few people actually died of starvation, but they became so undernourished that they fell prey to all types of diseases, especially "Famine fever". Dysentery, diarrhea, measles, and tuberculosis were epidemic as the population became more and more malnourished. It got worse as the sick and starving crowded into towns seeking relief from the workhouses. According to the Reverent Phew

"About three or four hundred of the most destitute have crawled into Ballinrobe every Friday for the last month, seeking admission to the workhouse or outdoor relief and though they remained each day until night, standing in wet and cold at the workhouse door, craving for admission, they have got no relief"

The dead were often buried where they lay on the side of the road. Workhouse dead were buried in mass graves.

Soup kitchens were instituted in July 1847. Mortality fell.

The summer crop of 1847 did not fail. However, it was meager because there was very little seed available for planting. Many declared the famine over. There was, in fact, no real recovery. Most of Ireland continued to suffer from disease and starvation.

The potato blight returned in July of 1848. The west of Ireland had a repeat of the disaster of 1846. In November 1848 cholera broke out. By the time the epidemic was spent in 1849, thousand more had perished.

In addition to the lack of food, in 1847 absentee landlords began evicting tenants who were unable to pay their rents. Mass evictions occurred, especially in County Mayo and County Clare. By 1848 Lord Lucan was inforcing wholesale evictions from his estates near Castlebar and Ballinrobe Between 1849 and 1854 nearly 50,000 families were evicted from there homes. Cottages were "tumbled" that is, pulled apart by the landlord's gangs. The absentee landlords looked upon the famine and the cottiers inability to pay the rents as an opportunity to clear the land for more profitable enterprises, like pasture.

In Ballinrobe Parish alone 2000 people were removed from their homes and the cleared land was turned into pasture.

All over Ireland, those who were evicted did not want to enter the disease-ridden workhouses. They turned instead to temporary shelters, begged in the cities or emigrated to England, America or Australia if they could afford it. Many of those evicted in County Mayo died by the roadside.

In Lights and Shades of Ireland, written in 1850, Asenath Nicholson says,

"Perhaps in no instance does the oppression of the poor....come before the mind so vividly, as when going over the places made desolate by the famine, to see the tumbled cabins, with the poor, hapless inmates, who had for years sat around their turf fire, and ate their potato together, now lingering and ofttimes wailing in despair, their ragged barefoot little ones clinging about them, one on the back of the weeping mother, and the father looking in silent despair, while a part of them are scraping among the rubbish to gather some little relic of mutual attachment....then, in a flock, take their solitary, pathless way to seek some rock or ditch, to encamp supperless for the night."

Brian Smith in Tracing Your Mayo Ancestors says,

" The country was significantly affected by the Great Famine of 1845-1847, which resulted in the death or emigration of 30% of the population by 1851."

It is not known for certain how many died and how many emigrated, but the population of Ireland is estimated to have fallen by 2,400,000, more than 25% of the pre-famine population. Deaths were most common among the very old and the very young (children under five). Emigration from Ireland to Great Britain, Australia and the United States had started long before the famine, but by the end of 1846 the numbers greatly increased. Between 1846 and 1856 about 1,800,000 emigrated from Ireland. Most cottiers had never traveled more than 20 miles from their home, so the trip across the ocean must have been extremely traumatic.

The 1852 potato crop was healthy, although the yield was not as high as the pre-famine crops.

American corn meal became a common food staple. While some things, such as diet improved in western Ireland after the famine, there were still reoccurring episodes of potato blight. The blight reappeared in 1860-2, 1879, 1890, 1894 and 1897. These later blights did not cause as much devastation because of the availability of alternative food sources. Wet years caused a scarcity of dry turf for fires and produced outbreaks of typhus, pellagra (a desease causing skin irritations, diarrhea and nervous disorder), famine fever, and other diseases. The workhouses were full and western Ireland remained very poor.

Penelope Byrne Langan, the mother of Maggie Langan, was baptised in 1836 in Shrule parish ten years before the famine started. Penelope's parents, Michael Bryne and Penelope Naughton, lived in the hamlet of Mochara where Penelope (Nappy) Naughton Byrne was listed as the holder of a ¼ share of 64 acres of land and a house in Mocorha in 1856. The people living in Mochara in 1856 fit the discription of "cottiers". Michael Byrne and Penelope Naughton Byrne had at least four children, Penelope, Winifred, Peter and Thomas who lived to be adults.

I don't know where Mathias Langan and his family lived before he moved to the town of Ballinrobe. However, they were most likely originally from somewhere south of the town of Ballinrobe near Shrule or Cong. The Langans were also most likely cottiers before they moved to Ballinrobe.

While the population in the west of Ireland suffered more than other parts of the country, people in towns generally suffered less than those living off the land.

Clearly the town of Ballinrobe grew between the time of the Tithe Applotment in 1827 and the Griffith in 1855. A brief look at any part of the town shows many more dwellings in 1855 than 1827. This was probably a reflection of people moving to town from the countryside during the famine. There were many new names in the town between the Tithe and the Griffith. See Griffith Valuation.

While I do not know exactly where the Walshes lived, they were near the town of Ballinrobe at or before the time of the famine.

John Walsh, the father of Joseph Walsh, had a strong association with people in the town of Ballinrobe who were craftspeople or who ran small bussinesses.

Post Famine Emigration

The great reduction in the population during the famine ironically benefited the survivors, enabling them to greatly improve their standard of living.

Bad harvests returned in 1877, 1878 and 1879. For whatever reasons, between 1881 and 1890 about 400,000 emigrants left the west of Ireland. The great majority of emigrants consisted of noninheriting offspring, single men and women in their teens and twenties. These emigrants included Michael and Thomas Walsh, the sons of John and Fanny Walsh, and Pat, Martin, and Maggie Langan.

Mathias Langan, his wife and two youngest children did not emigrate until 1892 and Joseph Walsh and his sister, Fanny did not emigrate until 1894.

Although there are no actual records for the rate of emigration from Ballinrobe in the latter part of the century, there are indications that it was high. The later Griffiths in Ballinrobe show that there were a significant number of vacancies listed in all parts of town. Since the birth rate seems relatively high, I can only assume that these vacancies were a reflection of emigration.

The 1901 census indicates an even larger decrease in the town's population.