THE HANDSTAND

OCTOBER 2002

There are yet many writing ballads and poems in their native communities: Maura o'neill is one of those and here is her ballad written for the Retiring schoolmaster of inistioge.

Master Hayes 1959-2001

Master Hayes has now retired, after forty years or more,
In the National School at Inistioge, close by the River Nore.
He first stood on the rostrum in nineteen-fifty-nine.
Through the years his rule held sway,and his pupils "toed the line"

The "three R's" were his priority, yet he taught them so much more.
But when they caused a rumpus, he let them know the score.
Those dreaded words "chuir amach do lamh", they all stood in a queue
With sardonic grin, the Master said,"this hurts me more than you !".

Then came the day the cane was banned, the children jumped for joy
No more to hear "chuir amach do lamh", as their student days went by.
But the Master still was one ahead, when horseplay must be quelled,
With deadly aim, the duster flew and the victims loudly yelled.

The history of our village lif'e enshrined there in the Hall
With photographs old and new, of people great and small.
Trophies for Environment care and prowess on fields of play,
Share shelving space with artefacts, a museum of byegone days.

The School grounds are a joy to visit, a haven of murals and splendid flowers,
And farming implements of years gone by, all relics of endless back-breaking hours.
The old grave-yard was his pet project, there he laboured long with the FAS gang;
Now scrub is cleared and pathways laid, a fitting tribute to those long gone.

One day the Master met his match, "Twas down in Laurel Hill,"
A swarm of bees surrounded him, so he dived into the Pill.
The saw was still stuck in the tree when Pat to the rescue ran -
With furious bees still giving chase, Tommy ducked his head and swam.

To hunt the Fox was his delight, with local "Gun Club" boys.
A bounty on the brush was paid when vermin was destroyed.
In Hurley's Wood one day, he vowed, a Fox was stretched out dead,
But when they went the "Brush" to claim, cute Reynard had upped and fled.

The Master now can sit and rest, and scratch his hoary locks,
"Grecian 2000" which worked so well, can be left there in its box.
But the ICA will miss him sore. for his helpful ways all through the years.
Now let us all, at this final call, raise the roof with three rousing cheers.

Slan leat a cara,agus saol fada chugat. Maura O'Neill ©2001

Gan smacht ri air na ro-fhlatha
Ag toghearna da threise
Gan cuid ciosa ag caibidil,
Gan mochoirighe, na meirse.

Mochoirighe na aodhaireacht
Ni thabhair uaidh coidhche;
'S ni mo do bheir d'a aire
Fear na faire san oidhche

Maith biseach a sheisrighe
Ag teachtt i dtuis an earraigh
Is e is crann da sheisrigh
Lan a ghlaice de pheannibh.

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mm,mm mm mm mm

O'er him the strongest lord
Rules not as prince or king;
For him no Church's dues
Nor fines nor early rising.

Early rising shepherds
These he never yields,
And just as little worries him
Tillage or watching in the night.

Great the harvest of his plough
Coming in the front of Spring;
And the yoke of his plough-team,
A handful of pens !

From "THE HIDDEN IRELAND" by
daniel corkery

,....................................................c

  In a fine publication by James Murphy, his book "Rosbercon Parish, a history in song and story" gives many details of the fact and effect of the potato famine in this corner of south-east Ireland.As long ago as 1741 it became clear that to rely on a single food resource, the potato,  for a population was inadvisable.( At present, in Russia, blight is affecting the potato crops that the large majority of the Russian population relies on.)

From this book, I have mostly selected quotations in reference to Brownsford, Maura O'Neill's townland.  

Brownsford of Dysertmoon - Baile an ath Bhrunaigh - which may refer to a passage across the Nore for sheep..bruantog,a sheepskin pouch in Dineen's dictionary.This is the last parish of the territory of Ida downriver from Inistioge. At the juncture of the river Nore and the Clodiagh stream coming down from the shoulder of Brandon Hill, a dangerous bar was thrust out into the river by this powerful stream. Wether this was ever used by way of a ford since ancient times is unknown.This precipitates at the Kerry Hole where the stream fumes before joining the greater river. These waterfalls are plentiful in this area, as are plentiful the streams entering The Nore in the vicinity of Inistioge.The patron saint of this area is St Maedhog, or Maedhan, pronounced Mooawn.

Further up river the "dark, battlemented outline of the ancient keep" of Brownsford rises to view, that was an ancient family residence of the Barons or Fitzgeralds related to Miles Baron, Abbot of the Monastery in Inistioge, (mentioned in a previous article about the Monastery as Milo Fitzgerald,May 2002 edition The Handstand by Billy Kirwan.)   In a survey carried out in 1851 these areas were the last bastion in the south-east where Irish was still being spoken fluently.Murphy gives a list of interest to any Irish speaker of Gaelic words that became peculiar to Kilkenny and many solely used in Rosbercon parish.The last of these fluent speakers was recorded in 1933. Of the parish name Dysertmoon: diseart or place of the wilderness whose patron was St Maedhog. The parish church dates from before the 12thCentury (Ballyneill).  
"The thrush was singing softly, the lark soared in the sky
In the meadows and the valleys the lonesome pheasants cry
Where Tommy Flynn made the anvil ring as he shaped another wheel
With the sparks that flew with a reddish hue near the Bridge of Ballyneill"  

A waterpump and subsequently a drilled well that went dry at Brownsford was told of
"Some say a witch, or something  even worse
"Implanted on this project a blinding blithering curse.
"More like the ghost of Freaney, like a bat out of hell,
"That turned round up the mountain spring that fed the well."
(see James Freaney, Inistioge's notorios raparee -July ed. Handstand)

  Faction fights , a result of the insult "trailing the jacket",and private feuds over fishing rights,were carried out among the fishermen on these rivers before 1845, when all the people suddenly had "far more on their minds than trying to crease someone across the head with an ashplant". The famine.

In Chapter 14 on the famine years from 1845 - 49, the history of the blight of potato crops, the staple of all Irish peasant life during these years, is described. Frosts of great severity were first of all the cause of severe shortages from 1712 on, until a new disease called "curl" was noticed in 1770. In 1795 this disease extended all over Europe and had even appeared in America. But in 1800 the peculiar blight, the withering of the haulms (stalks), began. There were abnormally wet summers that  caused the crop to rot in the ground too. 1830 on there were one or two partial failures of the crop but things got gradually worse. 1845 brought on the Irish the greatest catastrophe,and death of a scale never before witnessed.

The start of the year, 1845, had promised an abundant crop, but in August disease struck.The nation was totally dependent on this crop and when storms, massive rainfall and a withering fog struck, the fields became a mass of rotting vegetation, with "a stench that was unbearable". The starving Irish people had to watch the grain, meanwhile harvested in abundance, being brought to the ports and sent to England.Convoys of grain were guarded by British Military detachments. This crop was exported in lieu of rent due to absentee landlords living in England. Huge quantities of food were exported while the people were dying of starvation. "A ship sailing into an Irish port was sure to meet atleast six ships sailing out with cargoes" of grain, wool and flax.

The British government Relief Works demanded unparrelled hard work from starving men at rock-bottom wages; stone breaking and road building with malnourished and exhausted teams of men receiving eightpence a day.  A famine fever that prevailed killed not only the poor but many of the doctors and priests caring for them. Workhouses were flooded with orphans and families looking for food - and there, punitive treatment awaited them, families being broken up.

Fever raged in this area and victims from Brownsford, Rower, Woodstock and Inistioge are recorded. at the Ida Hospital, a fever shed set up in Rosbercon.   The blackest year recorded in the famine years was 1847. "These same souls now lingering and oftentimes wailing in despair...siblings scraping among the ruins and rubbish.." The foul crime of eviction had begun, thousands unable to pay their rents were evicted by heartless landlords. Whole families were wiped out and horrific scenes were the norm throughout the length and breadth of Ireland. At the start of 1848 one thousand, seven hundred and fifty-six people were registered at the New Ross Workhouse, many of whom were dying, and among them the matron employed there. By 1849 this fever became a cholera epidemic.

The editor of the Kilkenny People wrote "Four years of famine have now passed over the heads of those who still have a place to live in this benighted land of slaves and beggary. The grave has already opened its yawning mouth, to imprison until the world's end, the mortal remains of over two million people.....In order to crop the ground (survivors) were compelled to make sacrifices...exhorbitant charges on loans, usuries, pledges; and now evictions stare them in the face. The tide of taxation  has swollen to an enormous extent, and against the field of waving corn stands the unwelcome demand for the Poor Rate and the County Cess collectors.....we stare in the face of pestilence and death which the foreign rulers did very little to alleviate except saddle us with tithes, taxes and evictions."

  The Kilkenny Journal of 1850: "The rack-rent landlords - the absentee improvidents - the squanderers upon other countries of the wealth raised in Ireland - do these gentlemen dare to tell tenants that foreign competition is the curse and damnation of this country? Are not they, the landlords, the poison that has rotted themselves and all around them?...here our people were already ground down to almost the lowest point before the potato failed."  

"By hundreds of thousands red graves were made
"For wretches by hunger killed
"And many of them, wherever sunk
"With coffinless corpses were filled.
" And many were scraped out in ditches and fields
"And some by the bare highway;
"Still the rent, the rent was the landlord's  cry.....
"Along the tracks by famine cleared
"Came the poison breath of plague;
"Through every heart passed fearfully
"Chill horror and dark dismay..
"Still, the rent, the rent, was the landlord's cry...  

Up to the time the famine struck in 1845 emigration was almost unheard of. In 1847 two thousand and seventyone people left from New Ross (the port on the otherside of the river from Rosbercon parish,) nearly all going to Quebec in Canada.There a plentiful details of sailings given in this book including that of the Dunbrody, the most famous of the famine ships, of which a replica has been built, during the last few years, which can now be seen in permanent berth as a museum at New Ross.For our readers in Canada a description of Quebec can be found on pg.354 - "like an old European town..the streets narrow and winding, some of them being very steep and having flights of steps hewn out of the rock"; there follows, "although our hearts were breaking... we were free human beings, free from the horror of the rotten Irish landlords and their agents....No big fancy titles on the jobs we got but they gave us a living, with dollars in our pockets, food on the table, and the song of freedom in our hearts. What more could seven poor immigrants from the townland of Brownsford in the parish of Dysertmoon hope for."(Letters of Ellen Dunphy)   In 1849 the evictions of famine survivors was in full swing, over thirteen thousand families in Ireland were evicted. "The landlords continued in the cleansing of their territory" as it is described in the idiom of the time.

A landlord, Pierce Francis Garvey, who had bought Brownsford Castle, set about evicting his tenants in Brownsford in 1868, when many other landlords had already taken recourse to this evil. He looked first for an increase in rent, an increase higher than the valuation of his property.  "There were people who had built their own stone cabins  with their bare hands in Brownsford, which was in itself a village with a row of houses...The landlord, the police, under the charge of the Resident Magistrate..and the crow-bar brigade (from Thomastown) arrived and.. the work of demolition continued until twenty families had been left with only the bare walls of their homes standing.. the cries and screams that rent the air are more easily imagined than described.... taking shelter wherever they could, more frequently than not within those bare walls, their lives wrecked." Garvey built the stone walls around his castle, that can be seen today, from the stones of the cabins he had destroyed and many families walked away and up the hill to cross over to New Ross to board the emigration vessel to Quebec. Mrs Ellen Dunphy who wrote the letter quoted above was from one of those families.  
These paragraphs are a mere fraction of a large and wonderful volume that depicts these arrears. It was published by James Murphy in the Millenium Year 2000, but where one can hope to buy it I know not, as I can only claim a fortuitous loan from Maura O'Neill herself.