Charles Coote in his statistical survey of County Cavan in 1802 refers to the crop rotation cycle in the Barony of Loughtee …
that ‘flax always followed potatoes and is succeeded by oat’.
Agriculture continued to be the backbone of the economy, still with great reliance resting on the potato crop. It was a prolific crop, capable of feeding a family for up to ten months in the year. In 1823 and again in 1826 there was a partial failure of this crop, the latter due to drought like conditions. So the people were constantly on the edge of starvation. Because of sub-division the average holding was only nine to ten acres and often less. Families tended to be large and people married young. As a result, the population of Co Cavan in 1821 was 195,000. By 1841 it had increased to 243,000. The economy had become reasonably good despite the decline in demand for flax and for home-produced linen cloth. The emerging economy based on factory production had reduced the need for these products and the women who at the time could have earned up to 5d a day for spinning and working the loom were not now as busy as before. According to Margaret Crawford in her essay “Poverty and Famine in Co Cavan” (in “Cavan, Essays in the History of an Irish County” ed by Raymond Gillespie p. 139) the population of our county had reduced by over 69,000 people in the 1851 census. This serious decline was caused by the Great Famine 1845-‘48. In the late summer of 1845 a disease called “the blight” destroyed part of the potato crop.
In 1846-‘47 the blight was far more extensive. The potato crop was found to be black and rotten. Death from starvation, yellow fever and typhus followed and this, together with emigration, accounted for the huge depletion in our county’s population. The huge loss of life, the misery, the poverty, the emigration, all cut into the psyche of the nation that took decades to recover from. County Cavan was among the worst hit counties by the Famine. In Cavan town, a curate, Fr. Patrick O’Reilly DD, originally from Kilmainhamwood, died of fever at the age 31. He was chaplain to the local workhouse i.e. St Phelim’s.
Back to 1838, a system of Poor Law was introduced into Ireland which saw the establishment of a workhouse system. This was in response to the poverty that was endemic in Ireland at the time. Each workhouse was to cater for an area comprising several parishes and the area in question was called a Union, so called because each area was a union of electoral divisions. Boards of Guardians - some appointed and some elected - were in charge of these areas. Unions were often similar in size to the older areas called 'baronies'. By 1852 there were 162 workhouses in Ireland. The 162 Unions became administrative areas as the role of the Boards of Guardians became more important.
In the Anglo-Celt December 14th 1847 the following report appeared.
POOR LAW INTELLIGENCE
CAVAN UNION
"On Tuesday, the 21st, the Master reported to the Vice Guardians, that he had, agreeably to their orders, removed 4 adult paupers and 85 children to the house taken for them at Butlersbridge, who are to be under the controul of a wardsman, their food to be sent daily fromt he workhouse."
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/IRL-CAVAN/2003-09/1064278197
I examined the workhouse minute book of 1848 (courtesy of Bernie Deasy Archivist County Cavan Library) and discovered that it was noted on the 4th of Janurary 1848 that "The vice guardians are making further accommodation at the house lately taken at Butlersbridge for 60 more children - which will enable them to receive an equal number of applicants".
The location of this building is not yet known.
Elsewhere on the 16th February 1849 there was a fraud investigation carried out by the Board of Guardians, (among those sitting were Lord Farnham, Robert Burrows of Stradone, William Humphreys of Ballyhaise) where it was alledged that records were falsified that the number of paupers in the Butlersbridge auxillary workhouse. Mr. Elliot Smith J.P. alledged that it was the practice of the house to have names on the relief list, that ratioins were been given out daily to the serious lose of rate payers. It was alledged by the vice guardians who counted numbers in the house and compared them with the relief lists, that some were found to be dead for 6 months upto 2 years. The errors were reported in consequence of a statement by the wardmaster Mr. Brady of the Butlersbridge workhouse. The return for Butlersbridge was purported to be done by the housemaster called Murphy who directed a James O'Neill to prepare the forged return. The matter was investigated by Captain Hotam, who subsequently wrote to Mr. Murphy a reprimand and Mr. Murphy was charged with the deficit.
An extract from the Anglo Celt ref http://www.irelandoldnews.com/Cavan/1847/ADS.html
"BUTLERSBRIDGE AND URNEY DISPENSARY
In consequence of the prevailing Distress, the Committee have resolved that the Medical Attendant shall Visit any Patient recommended by a Subscriber, on being paid a Fee of Poor Law Electoral Division, it is entitled to the support of the Proprietary of the District. The duties are actively and efficiently performed.
John E. O'REILLY, Treasurer;
Annagh, Feb. 16, 1847"
Elsewhere in our locality it was reported (http://www.irelandoldnews.com/Cavan/1847/JAN.html).
" LORD AND LADY FARNHAM, have established a Soup Kitchen at Farnham, for the benefit of the suffering poor in their immediate neighbourhood. Lord Farnham is thinning his fine herd of deer for this benevolent purpose."
We do know some of the conditions that pertained at the time in our county with regard to housing, furnishings, clothing and the general diet. The following extracts from Margaret Crawford in her essay “Poverty and Famine in Co Cavan” (in “Cavan, Essays in the History of an Irish County” ed by Raymond Gillespie), pages 142 – 146 reveal some of the detail as follows:
"The cabins are of stone, mud walls, or sods, as happens to be most convenient; seldom glazed or plastered; badly thatched; the floor of clay, which, as well as the walls, is, for the greater part of winter, wet with rain falling through the roof: the family sleeping on some dried rushes or straw thrown on the floor in the chimney-corner, as the warmest place in the house, with stools placed to keep the bed from taking fire: their own clothes thrown over them to assist the scanty bed-clothes.
The furnishing of the cabins was very rudimentary. A few had bedsteads but the majority had nothing better than straw for sleeping upon. A few stools, sometimes a table, tins to drink from and a pot for cooking potatoes, constituted their furnishings."
Without exception, potatoes were eaten daily in every household and at every meal. Additional items, such as milk, usually buttermilk, oatmeal and herring appeared from time to time, depending on the season of the year and disposable income ….. In addition, potato offal fed the pig, which was reared to pay the rent, and furthermore was most suitable for the crop rotation system.”
The parish priest of West Annagh used just two words to describe the dress of the people in his district: ‘half naked’; other comments state ‘clothing is miserable in the extreme’.
Emigration had been happening to a lesser degree pre-Famine and, by the time the Famine had receded in 1851, it is estimated that there were almost one million Irish people in the United States and 250,000 in Canada.
I found only one written reference regarding our area. We read in Philip O’Connell’s “Schools and Scholars of Breifne”, p. 584/585, of Michael and John Lally of Butlersbridge who sailed from Galway on the “John” and arrived in New York on August 2nd 1816. Their names appear in the “New York Shipping Lists” after 1800. Although this was long before the potato famine, the concept and the availability of emigration was in existence in our community.
that ‘flax always followed potatoes and is succeeded by oat’.
Agriculture continued to be the backbone of the economy, still with great reliance resting on the potato crop. It was a prolific crop, capable of feeding a family for up to ten months in the year. In 1823 and again in 1826 there was a partial failure of this crop, the latter due to drought like conditions. So the people were constantly on the edge of starvation. Because of sub-division the average holding was only nine to ten acres and often less. Families tended to be large and people married young. As a result, the population of Co Cavan in 1821 was 195,000. By 1841 it had increased to 243,000. The economy had become reasonably good despite the decline in demand for flax and for home-produced linen cloth. The emerging economy based on factory production had reduced the need for these products and the women who at the time could have earned up to 5d a day for spinning and working the loom were not now as busy as before. According to Margaret Crawford in her essay “Poverty and Famine in Co Cavan” (in “Cavan, Essays in the History of an Irish County” ed by Raymond Gillespie p. 139) the population of our county had reduced by over 69,000 people in the 1851 census. This serious decline was caused by the Great Famine 1845-‘48. In the late summer of 1845 a disease called “the blight” destroyed part of the potato crop.
In 1846-‘47 the blight was far more extensive. The potato crop was found to be black and rotten. Death from starvation, yellow fever and typhus followed and this, together with emigration, accounted for the huge depletion in our county’s population. The huge loss of life, the misery, the poverty, the emigration, all cut into the psyche of the nation that took decades to recover from. County Cavan was among the worst hit counties by the Famine. In Cavan town, a curate, Fr. Patrick O’Reilly DD, originally from Kilmainhamwood, died of fever at the age 31. He was chaplain to the local workhouse i.e. St Phelim’s.
Back to 1838, a system of Poor Law was introduced into Ireland which saw the establishment of a workhouse system. This was in response to the poverty that was endemic in Ireland at the time. Each workhouse was to cater for an area comprising several parishes and the area in question was called a Union, so called because each area was a union of electoral divisions. Boards of Guardians - some appointed and some elected - were in charge of these areas. Unions were often similar in size to the older areas called 'baronies'. By 1852 there were 162 workhouses in Ireland. The 162 Unions became administrative areas as the role of the Boards of Guardians became more important.
*****************
Butlersbridge Auxillary Workhouse
In the Anglo-Celt December 14th 1847 the following report appeared.
POOR LAW INTELLIGENCE
CAVAN UNION
"On Tuesday, the 21st, the Master reported to the Vice Guardians, that he had, agreeably to their orders, removed 4 adult paupers and 85 children to the house taken for them at Butlersbridge, who are to be under the controul of a wardsman, their food to be sent daily fromt he workhouse."
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/IRL-CAVAN/2003-09/1064278197
I examined the workhouse minute book of 1848 (courtesy of Bernie Deasy Archivist County Cavan Library) and discovered that it was noted on the 4th of Janurary 1848 that "The vice guardians are making further accommodation at the house lately taken at Butlersbridge for 60 more children - which will enable them to receive an equal number of applicants".
The location of this building is not yet known.
Elsewhere on the 16th February 1849 there was a fraud investigation carried out by the Board of Guardians, (among those sitting were Lord Farnham, Robert Burrows of Stradone, William Humphreys of Ballyhaise) where it was alledged that records were falsified that the number of paupers in the Butlersbridge auxillary workhouse. Mr. Elliot Smith J.P. alledged that it was the practice of the house to have names on the relief list, that ratioins were been given out daily to the serious lose of rate payers. It was alledged by the vice guardians who counted numbers in the house and compared them with the relief lists, that some were found to be dead for 6 months upto 2 years. The errors were reported in consequence of a statement by the wardmaster Mr. Brady of the Butlersbridge workhouse. The return for Butlersbridge was purported to be done by the housemaster called Murphy who directed a James O'Neill to prepare the forged return. The matter was investigated by Captain Hotam, who subsequently wrote to Mr. Murphy a reprimand and Mr. Murphy was charged with the deficit.
An extract from the Anglo Celt ref http://www.irelandoldnews.com/Cavan/1847/ADS.html
"BUTLERSBRIDGE AND URNEY DISPENSARY
In consequence of the prevailing Distress, the Committee have resolved that the Medical Attendant shall Visit any Patient recommended by a Subscriber, on being paid a Fee of Poor Law Electoral Division, it is entitled to the support of the Proprietary of the District. The duties are actively and efficiently performed.
John E. O'REILLY, Treasurer;
Annagh, Feb. 16, 1847"
Elsewhere in our locality it was reported (http://www.irelandoldnews.com/Cavan/1847/JAN.html).
" LORD AND LADY FARNHAM, have established a Soup Kitchen at Farnham, for the benefit of the suffering poor in their immediate neighbourhood. Lord Farnham is thinning his fine herd of deer for this benevolent purpose."
We do know some of the conditions that pertained at the time in our county with regard to housing, furnishings, clothing and the general diet. The following extracts from Margaret Crawford in her essay “Poverty and Famine in Co Cavan” (in “Cavan, Essays in the History of an Irish County” ed by Raymond Gillespie), pages 142 – 146 reveal some of the detail as follows:
"The cabins are of stone, mud walls, or sods, as happens to be most convenient; seldom glazed or plastered; badly thatched; the floor of clay, which, as well as the walls, is, for the greater part of winter, wet with rain falling through the roof: the family sleeping on some dried rushes or straw thrown on the floor in the chimney-corner, as the warmest place in the house, with stools placed to keep the bed from taking fire: their own clothes thrown over them to assist the scanty bed-clothes.
The furnishing of the cabins was very rudimentary. A few had bedsteads but the majority had nothing better than straw for sleeping upon. A few stools, sometimes a table, tins to drink from and a pot for cooking potatoes, constituted their furnishings."
Without exception, potatoes were eaten daily in every household and at every meal. Additional items, such as milk, usually buttermilk, oatmeal and herring appeared from time to time, depending on the season of the year and disposable income ….. In addition, potato offal fed the pig, which was reared to pay the rent, and furthermore was most suitable for the crop rotation system.”
The parish priest of West Annagh used just two words to describe the dress of the people in his district: ‘half naked’; other comments state ‘clothing is miserable in the extreme’.
Emigration had been happening to a lesser degree pre-Famine and, by the time the Famine had receded in 1851, it is estimated that there were almost one million Irish people in the United States and 250,000 in Canada.
I found only one written reference regarding our area. We read in Philip O’Connell’s “Schools and Scholars of Breifne”, p. 584/585, of Michael and John Lally of Butlersbridge who sailed from Galway on the “John” and arrived in New York on August 2nd 1816. Their names appear in the “New York Shipping Lists” after 1800. Although this was long before the potato famine, the concept and the availability of emigration was in existence in our community.