The Famine Walls of Ireland
During the time of the Great Famine in Ireland, which began roughly in 1845, there was an attempt made on behalf of some of the landlords and some affluent residents to help locals who were struggling to make a living. One such attempt was to hire locals to gather stones from the surrounding fields in order to build walls around their estates. Such walls have come to be known as ‘Famine walls,’ one of which can be seen while going by Bridgemont House on the way to Gweeshadan graveyard (Michigan State University, 2009).
Sometimes these walls appear to divide “nothing from nothing” (DoChara.com, 2008) and one might consider the construction of such walls an exercise in futility, or to put it another way, the construction of the walls seems utterly pointless. One source (DoChara.com, 2008) states that, “Their purpose, aside from income provision, was to clear the land of stones, the wall just nothing more than a place to put them. In fact, clearing these mountains of stone would be impossible… so it was a thankless task.”
Another writer (Davis, 2007) describes a famine wall in Maghery , Co. Donegal. She writes that the “…walls that served no purpose except to provide a penny a day to those who worked. The walls are 8-10 feet high, 3 feet wide, and stretch for 300 yards. Along each wall there are periodic holes built into the structures. Records say that these holes were of ancient tradition and designed to hold one thing…fingers, the fingers of tribesmen, chieftains, families of the betrothed…fingers from both parties (both sides) would be slipped into the holes to touch those of the other. In this manner, pacts were made, agreements formed, and contracts made legal.”
Famine walls in politics
Kinealy (2017) writes in her work “The Great Irish Famine: Impact, Ideology and Rebellion,” that “In contrast to the activities of the Irish government, Famine commemorations in Northern Ireland were on a smaller and more local scale, and they were almost totally located within the Catholic community. Significantly, a number of famine wall murals in Belfast were situated in Catholic west Belfast and not in Protestant Ballymacarrett, despite evidence of far greater suffering in the latter district.”
The desperation linked to Famine walls
The Carlingford Heritage Centre (n.d.) is quoted as saying, “Men, women and boys aged 10 and over were employed from March 1846, men were paid 10 old pence a day for ten hours’ work, women and boys four pence. Each received a stone of ‘yellow meal’ – coarsely ground maize – once a fortnight to sustain them. Women carried stones to the wall in heavy canvas aprons.”
“We don’t know if anyone died on the local schemes, but they certainly did so in significant numbers on schemes elsewhere, by the end of 1846 there were more than three-quarters of a million people employed.” The author goes on to say, “We encourage a recent tradition among hillwalkers to lift fallen stones back up onto the walls in commemoration of the utterly desperate people, our people, who built them.”
References:
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Carlingford Heritage Centre. (n.d.) Famine Walls on the Cooley Mountains. Available at: https://carlingfordheritagecentre.com/research_post/famine-walls-on-the-cooley-mountains/ Accessed 30th of October, 2024.
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Davis, J. (2007). Famine Wall at Maghery. Available at: https://www.discoveringireland.com/famine-wall-at-maghery/ Accessed 30th of October, 2024.
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DoChara.com. (2008). Stone Walls. Available at: https://www.dochara.com/places-to-visit/odd-unusual/stone-walls-2/ Accessed 24th of October, 2024.
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Kinealy, C. (2017). The Great Irish Famine: Impact, Ideology and Rebellion. Available at: https://books.google.ie/books?id=PfVGEAAAQBAJ&dq=famine+wall&pg=PT24&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=famine%20wall&f=false Accessed 30th of October, 2024.
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Michigan State University, Study Abroad Programme. (2009). Famine Wall. Internal Report: Folder 1, Croagh Patrick Heritage Trail—Clogher Environmental Group Ltd. Unpublished.