I dabble in a bit of geneaolgy from time to time. It's a great entertainment, especially now that it can be done at any time from the computer at home. So I hope, on the eve of St. Patrick's day, you'll forgive the brevity and consider the circumstances of a Mr. Hynes of the parish of Killian, Galway.
This week, a new catalog of documents has gone online at the website I use. It's a collection of the papers of the Irish Famine Relief Commission written between 1844-1847.
The remit of the Relief Commission was to advise the government as to the extent of potato loss and distress within Ireland, to oversee the storage and distribution of Indian corn and meal and to direct, support and co-ordinate the activities of local relief committees. The Commission collected information from all local official sources regarding the advance of the potato disease and the condition of the populace. Reports were received from lieutenants of counties, resident magistrates, poor law guardians, the constabulary and the coast guard. These were collated and used to calculate the probable extent of food shortages.
Local relief committees were established on foot of instructions issued by the Relief Commission in February 1846. These were voluntary bodies consisting of local dignitaries, county officials, poor law guardians and clergymen. Their main duties were to encourage local employment, raise subscriptions and to purchase and distribute Indian corn from the depots established by the Relief Commission. The relief committees were financed by local voluntary subscriptions and could apply to the Lord Lieutenant for grants in proportion to the money subscribed locally. The Relief Commission instructed local committees to publish their subscription lists so as to discourage non-compliance by recalcitrant landowners. They were also directed to maintain lists of residents in every townland, noting the personal circumstance of each and were allowed to issue tickets of employment for public works. This function passed subsequently to the Board of Works, following allegations of mismanagement and the relief committees were limited to compiling lists of those eligible for employment. By August 1846, some 650 committees had been established. The majority were in the south and west of the country. There were fewer in the midlands and east and none in Armagh, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone. Local committees were also reorganised on foot of the Temporary Relief Act, 1847.
The Relief Commission was one of the main components of the Peel administration's official response to the Famine. The replacement of Peel with the Whig administration of Lord John Russell and the deepening crisis saw the other components of relief - the public works and the poor law system - assume greater significance and limited the role of the Commission as the central relief authority.
The letters are heartbreaking, written by a people who mostly had lived their lives as tenants on lands owned and overseen by the British landlords. This one in particular caught my eye:
I most humbly beg leave to state that I have seven in family and the oldest of them thirteen years old only - I had got but 12 day employment from the commencement of the publick work up to this day which obliged me to sell every little article in my house and even to the blalnket on my bed for 1/3 of the value. Now I am called on the Cloonlustle (?) line my earning there won't support my family half the time but I trust your honor will look to me with a pitiful eye to put my little care in Backers forth line which would help me to support my little family. I can further state that I closed up my door and surrendered myself to the mercy of the Great God and did not know when His visit might call on myself and my little family being so weak with the starvation we met with, but the Great God was little good to me so far that Dan Gilmore of Garra and the two Thos. Buckley of Ballina and J. Gilmore of Ballina saw my miserable situation, and knowing I closed my door to die with starvation they alone managed (?) to step forward and relieved me with food.
John Hynes, Parish of Killian, Galway to Rev. T. Moran
Irish Famine Relief Commission Papers, 1844-1847
The author goes on to beg for a place for the eldest son on the public works and adds '...I had to rest 6 times coming home last night from the publick work with hunger'.
The official who endorsed the request for relief added a story about a widow who died on her daughter's back after being ejected from a lodging house.
Tomorrow morning, I think I'm going to meet the day with gratitude.