Hundreds of unmarked and forgotten mass graves scattered across the Irish countryside are a silent testimony to a human tragedy of appalling and unimaginable dimensions.
In the late spring of 1985, I asked a local historian in Westport, Co. Mayo, if he knew of any burial places associated with the ‘Famine.’ He brought me to the outskirts of the town and pointed to what appeared to be a huge mount set against an embankment. It is known locally as ‘The Rocky.’ He told me there had once been a cross atop the mound to mark the burial of over five thousand people.
I went in search of the cross. It took me all of 15 minutes to cover 70 yards. The mount was a thicket of brambles, rushes and overgrowth which at times made passage almost impossible. Mud oozed over and into my shoes. Thorns pulled at my clothing and nettles stung my flesh. The mound was flanked by a hedgerow of pink and white hawthorn trees and a low boundary wall. I could feel the earth rise and taper as I made my way to the top. There, enshrouded with weeds and lichen, the outline of a broken stone cross could be seen.
I stood there in silence. The thickets thronged with the busy chatter of linnets and thrush. Here, I sensed again the awfulness of anonymity. Below me were thousands of my forebears but I had no idea who or what they were. In great destitution and shame they had entered the Westport workhouse. Cart loads of dead emaciated bodies had once trundled this ‘Famine’ graveyard. Whole families, no doubt, lay below me. I pined for the knowledge of someone whose name I might utter. But I had none. As I looked around, a moss-covered rock outcrop caught my attention. Close by a little sprig of pale blue forget-me-nots swayed gently in the breeze.
Most of the suffering of Ireland’s so-called Great ‘Famine’ was experienced by people whose names we do not know. Perhaps this is the ultimate indignity. However, there are some people whose image and names have been captured and present us with a snapshot of a horrific experience endured by hundreds of thousands of families.
One such story is told by An t-Athar Peadar O’Laoghaire in his epic journal Mo Scéal Féin (My Own Story), of a poor family who lived in his neighborhood near Macroom, Co. Cork.
In 1847 a young couple, Cáit and Patrick Buckley, in extreme destitution, brought their two children, Sheila and Jeremiah, to the workhouse in Macroom. Entering the workhouse the entire family was split up. Not long afterwards, little Sheila and Jeremiah became ill and died.
When the young couple learned of the death of their children they left the workhouse to return to their little house eight miles away in the hills around Macroom. They went first to the mass grave nearby where, Fr. O’Laoghaire tells us “they wept their fill.” After this they began the arduous journey home. The next day, they too were found dead, “…the feet of the woman on Patrick’s bosom, as if he had been trying to warm them.”
In 1996, I brought Choctaw artist Gary White Deer to visit the mass grave outside Macroom where the Buckley children are buried—somewhere. The presence of little Sheila and Jeremiah were foremost in our thoughts. Precisely because we knew their names and knew their story, the mass grave of Carrigastyra had an intimacy and a meaning which was overwhelming. The rasping cries of circling crows died away as White Deer prayed in his native Choctaw tongue for the Buckley children. A crude, unattractive concrete cross became the focal point of our remembrance. Here in the sheltered and peaceful glade of Macroom’s mass grave, this sensitive and compassionate Native American man wept sorrowfully too.
Burial in the Sand
In 1990, I had the privilege of hosting, with Afri (Action From Ireland), representatives of the Oklahoma Choctaw whose ancestors sent $170 to Ireland in 1847. During the now famous annual ‘Famine’ Walk from Doolough to Louisburgh, Co. Mayo. I was conscious of the presence of a little six-week old baby being carried by a man. There was something curiously appropriate about this newborn life as part of this dignified pilgrimage of remembrance.
Later that evening, a small convoy of cars traveled 10 miles beyond Louisburgh to Silverstrand beach, to visit a mass ‘Famine’ grave. Locals informed us that in the winter of 1847, many famine dead had been buried in the sand because the living were too weak to break to frozen earth.
A mound rose to a height of almost 15 feet from the beach. At high tide the Atlantic surf broke around its case, creating an island graveyard. Large flagstones and flat rocks had been reverently placed throughout the mound in a dual effort to mark the burial place of a loved one and to prevent marauding Atlantic storms from robbing them of their final semblance of dignity. It stood now, a place apart. A place where the reverential silence of the visitor was broken only by crashing waves, western winds and the distant cry of the curlew. Salt washed bones were recognizable around its base.
The little six-week-old bundle of living re-appeared at this sacred sand tomb. I asked to hold him and inquired of his father the whereabouts of its mother. “Don,” he said, “my wife died in childbirth.” In the poignancy and pain of that moment I understood the significance and sacredness of the place where we now stood. We were not standing in the presence of mere bones or statistics. Rising from the Western shore, this mounding cried out with the pain of precious human relationships, prematurely and savagely severed by an artificial hunger that traumatized my nation just a few generations ago.
All over the island that pain is engraved into the land, especially in the west. From Silverstrand one can look towards the surrounding hills and mountains and see the human struggle for life and existence etched into the landscape. Hundreds of acres of potato ridges create fascinating patterns in tiny fields which often climb towards the sky. Here we can sense a time when the earth literally groaned to provide sustenance for a dispossessed people who had been forced to subsist on a single crop.
The Silverstrand sand tomb rests under the imposing presence of Mount Mweelrea. Hidden high on Mweelrea’s shoulders are a number of deserted villages. Deserted villages are common in the West of Ireland. One of the most evocative is to be found on Achill Island, off Mayo’s Northern coastline. Here one can sense the presence of a vibrant community that once was. One looks towards the great Atlantic Ocean, its endless horizon once an inviting mirage in a desert of death and despair. The words of the poet Brendan Kennelly seem to capture the dying breath of this and all deserted villages:
Upon the headland, the encroaching sea
Left sand that hardened after tides of Spring
No dancing feet disturbed its symmetry
And those who loved good music ceased to sing.
Nowhere is this tragic irony more focused than on the quarantine island of Grosse Île, some 30 miles downstream from Quebec City, in the St. Lawrence Estuary. At one point, during the long Summer of Sorrow in 1847, some 335 ships, awaiting inspection with 12,000 Irish immigrants on board, formed a line three kilometers long.
Today, Grosse Île is known locally as I’lle des Irlandais. Estimates of Irish burials range from over 5,000 to almost 20,000. The main graveyard on the southern end of the island has the sardonic appearance of potato ridges from the West of Ireland, marked with the small white botonné crosses. Here again one is struck by the pitiable anonymity of so many whose hopes and dreams are buried on this hallowed place.
Editor’s Note: The above text is edited from a story that ran in the July/August 1997 issue of Irish America. The photographs were also taken in 1997, thus the landscape may have changed.
This article was republished in the June/July 2010 issue of Irish America in honor of the 150th anniversary of The Great Famine.
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