Irish-American History

Lesson 8: Famine Amnesia

Signs on the Landscape

I started to research my own area and soon found signs on the landscape for all to see. Drive anywhere in Ireland and you will find little stone cottages tumbled to the ground , most often on the higher contour lines where the Cottiers were driven by landlords and agents seeking more grazing for sheep and cattle and then evicted when they were unable to pay rent. In the Cooley Mountains , near where I grew up , the signs of lazy bed cropping are still visible . Land , where soil was so sparse and the fields so steep they could not be ploughed , seed potatoes were laid on top of the ground and soil laboriously turned over by a spade. The Mourne shores were dragged for seaweed which was carried miles to use as fertiliser. This work was often carried out by the women. The higher hills still have the broken walls and empty accusing doors of cottages for all to see.

It’s hard not to grieve ‘bout an age long gone by
When the choice of our people was to leave or to die
Their tumbled down homes still lie bare to the sky
As proof how our country was bled(4)

Another frequent reminder of the Famine throughout Ireland , are the Estate Walls. Outdoor relief projects were not allowed ‘ that would give the Irish any trade advantage over their British counterparts’ , so that any useful building projects , such as improving road systems or harbours were proscribed. Instead , roads were built to nowhere and walls were built around the Estates of the ‘Big Houses’. However hard work and conditions may have been in the ‘New World’ ,nothing could compare to the horrors that the Emigrants left behind.
'The work it was tough but the money was fair
No absentee landlord demanding his share
And a man could still do what a man could still dare
And leave sad thoughts of Ireland behind(5)

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