Droch Shaol- The Irish Holocaust
`Work or blood'
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If the government of Ireland insists upon being a government of
dragoons and bombardiers, of detectives and light infantry then
up with the barricades and invoke this God of battles
Young
Irelander Francis Meagher, 18 March 1848
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Contrary to popular perceptions, the Famine victims did not all
lie back and die. Short of popular uprising, Ireland was,
according to English legislators, at its most `disturbed' since
the 1798 rising.
As the food shortages and evictions began to hit home, the
ever-weakening victims reacted in different ways. Attacks on food
depots, convoys or other locations where food was hoarded was
widespread and secret agrarian societies stepped up their actions
against landlords and their agents. The Young Ireland Movement
was also trying to recruit people to support their aim of
establishing an Irish Republic where the poor would not suffer
when there was plenty.
Statistics tell us that the number of persons committed for trial
rose from an average of less than 20,000 in 1842-46 to 31,209 in
1847, 38,522 in 1848 and 41,989 in 1849.
Desperation drove a starving people. Most of the `crimes'
involved petty theft and was generally non-violent. The bleeding
of landlords' cattle was widely practised, blood being obtained
by cutting a vein in the neck of the animal and extracting blood.
The blood was mixed with meal to make a black pudding of sorts.
The tails of bullocks were also stolen and then roasted. The
theft of ducks, geese, sheep and other livestock initially
increased, but farmers who possessed anything of value employed
men to guard their fields and the use of mantraps became common.
Instead, the people searched their localities for alternative
foods: birds, frogs, rats, dogs, cats, snails, nettles, weeds,
seaweed and even grass were eaten. The latter contributed to the
folk memory of people dying with their mouths stained green.
Despite Ireland's plentiful rivers and shorelines, many of these
were claimed (owned) privately and removing fish or other seafood
from them was legally regarded as theft. Punishment was harsh,
though transportation no longer appeared to be a deterrent and
jail was often more attractive than starving - at least you got
fed.
Food riots were common, but tended to be directed at mills, corn
stores, the canal barges and boats transporting grain and
livestock to the markets or harbours to be exported. Forestallers
(speculators) and merchants were also attacked for charging
exorbitant `famine prices' for their stock.
Attacks against persons by individuals were not commonplace; the
state of near Martial Law, the additional troops sent to Ireland
and the carrying of arms by the wealthy and their agents kept
these attacks at a minimum.
England's direct ruler in Ireland, Lord Clarendon, wrote that
``there never was so open or so widely extended a conspiracy for
shooting landlords and agents, and my fear is this will spread
(there are already symptoms of it) and that the flame which now
rages in certain districts will become a general conflagaration''.
Secret societies, Ribbonmen, Hearts of Oak, Whiteboys, Captain
Rock etc carried out actions against the wealthy in a more
organised fashion. Their activities did have a restraining
influence on some of the landlords. Cattle, horses and other
livestock were killed or robbed; barns and houses were burnt;
landlords, their families or agents were threatened, shot at, and
sometimes killed.
The killing of one, landlord Major Mahon in County Roscommon, was
used as justification among the English Ascendancy to prevent
Famine relief measures being discussed.
Overall, though the secret societies' activities were sporadic
and localised and were therefore ineffective in trying to redress
their grievances or to prevent the export of food, they were a
source of anxiety to the propertied classes and the British
authorities and along with the failed Young Ireland uprisings in
1848 and 1849 were regarded as acts of betrayal and ingratitude.
Much research still needs to be done on this topic, the passive
and violent resistance to being told that starvation was
inevitable - accept your lot, it's what God destined.
A letter in Canada's Western Star in May 1847 illustrates the
people's desperation:
``Last Thursday, around one pm, approximately 300 workers came
together from the famous neighbourhood of Rape Mills and made
their way to the city. At the very moment that they were
entering, they met Mr. John H Burdett, president of the Aid
Committee, who exhorted them, in the most conciliatory terms, to
abstain from all excesses and not to violate the law, assuring
them in the same breath that the government and the proprietors
were making the greatest efforts to provide for the needs of the
poor. The crowd responded with a muttering: `Work or blood! We
will eagerly accept any kind of work that can ensure our
subsistence; but if we don't get it promptly, we will do anything
rather than die like dogs.' ``
By Aengus O Snodaigh
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