A Family Trip To Ireland Teaches Me About The Irish Potato Famine

Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 5:42 am

Hmm, the title of this piece is false because it was not my trip at all, I am a native of New York and proud to be so. No, it’s my Father’s trip. For many years now, he has been telling us of the times when his great, great granddad journeyed here to America from Eire. Let’s turn the clock back to the early 1850’s and Ireland had been hit by the potato famine. The people of Ireland relied on the simple potato as a cash crop that was exported to England as well as a basic food item. A variant of potato blight affected the crop for several successive years and a million Irish people died from hunger and related diseases. Another million people left their home country and set sail for Canada, England and America to begin a new life.

I’m not aware if it was the Irish authorities trying to lower the numbers of people dying over there or the shipping magnates happy to profit from misery but many lies were told to convonce people that they should start a new life in North America and the travellers suffered horrendous conditions aboard the so-called “coffin ships”. I’ve seen estimates that a quarter of the travellers died during that trip.

Great, great Grandpa was a battler and survived the trip. He started a new life here in New York and married a fine young woman from Poland and thus began the New York chapter of our extended family.

My dad so wanted to visit The Irish Republic to see if he could find the tiny settlement in County Cork where his predecessors had lived up till the famine. So, plans were drawn up, suitcases were packed, flights were booked and the great trip back in time commenced.

We flew from JFK to London’s main airport, Heathrow, and then took a bus to another of London’s airports, Gatwick. We had a flight booked to Cork early the following day so had reserved a night at one of the hotels near to the airport in preparation for our early start. We spent the night at the Copthorne Hotel some 10 minutes drive from the airport. What an excellent hotel it turned out to be. Situated in wonderfully manicured grounds, it is built around a 16th century farmhouse. We had a marvellous time exploring the hotel and its surroundings and eventually retired to our beds after enjoying a delightful meal washed down by a pint of warm beer (Yuck !).

The short hop to Ireland went smoothly and knowing that public transport is fairly sparse in Ireland we made the decision to hire a car from Cork airport. In no time at all we hit the open road and now I appreciate the true meaning of that term. As soon as we left the airport we were driving along deserted country roads where we were more likely to come across a cow wandering along the middle of the road than another motor vehicle. Our initial destination was a little County Cork town names Mallow, which appeared to be the nearest one to the village that we were searching for. Having checked into our hotel, we went for a walk with the intention of meeting some of the local people who would be willing to aid us in our quest.

Within a few short minutes we came upon a wonderful old man who was ready to give us the precise location of the village that we were searching for. Unfortunately, it was now little more than a small bunch of broken down farm workers dwellings; all signs of life had long since left the scene. We were heart broken that our trip had produced such pitiful results and we made our way back to the hotel with heavy hearts.

When booking the trip some weeks earlier we had been attracted to a hotel named the Springfort Hall which was a couple of miles outside Mallow. It was a lucky but inspired choice.The hotel was hidden away in a beautiful country estate that was founded in the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. The hotel itself was the 18th century manor house, an amazing building beautifully restored to its former elegance. Later that evening we were seated in the hotel bar learning to appreciate why people swear that Guiness actually brewed in Ireland is better than any other variant found throughout the world. We started chatting to a wonderful man called Seamus and it transpired that he was one of the officers of the Mallow Historical Society. Without doubt he knew everything there was to know about Mallow and the surrounding area. He knew of the ruined village that we’d seen earlier and readily told my father the full story of how almost 50% of the inhabitants of the village passed away during the potato famine and those that remained left to start a new life elsewhere. Seamus was so pleased to hear our stories of how great, great Grandpa had survived the trip to the United States and how the family had blossomed from that time. We enjoyed a delightful evening listening to the tales told by Seamus (all Irishmen are wonderful storytellers) and we were very unhappy to have to bid goodnight to our new found friend.

The decision had been made to leave Mallow the following day in order to spend a couple of days to explore the South West of Ireland. Imagine our surprise when Seamus arrived early the following day holding a pile of magazines for my Dad. It seems that there’s an annual journal published by the historical society and he’d brought at least a dozen back issues as a gift for my Father. The books are brim full of the history of Mallow and the surrounding areas and tears welled up in Dad’s eyes as he shook hands with his new found friend, thanking him for the simple gift that would bring him so much pleasure. We were forced to keep the magazines under lock and key to prevent my Father from reading every one of them before we were able to continue with our trip.

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