28/08/2023
THE POVERTY OF WEST CONNEMARA ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO (1919)
'Leaving Kylemore, we make a slight diversion to the right after a short walk, and visit Renvyle.
We later visit Letterfrack and are fortunate in spending a Saturday in Clifden, which is market day in the town, and had the opportunity, in consequence, of coming to close quarters with the natives
of the district.
Physically, with very few exceptions, a finer set of people it would be difficult to find anywhere, the outcome obviously of wholesome and cleanly living, and in spite of housing conditions that are little short of a disgrace to those responsible.
I have seen houses in some parts of Connemara which are no better than caricatures of houses, absolutely villainous in aspect and character, and yet where people have to live and sleep, and in many cases rear and sustain families.
You pick your way along the roadway or boreen, steering with the best skill you can under the circumstances through the
clay and the mire, and you come upon a loose scrambling heap of stones with an opening through which smoke oozes and which you ultimately discover to be the doorway.
A window is a rarity.
Possibly, but more frequently not, there is a chimney, a floor of hollowed mud, in the corner a bundle of straw, upon which, not unlikely, an old man or woman lies with very scanty covering under conditionis of squalor unspeakable.
To the writer at all events, such scenes occasioned thoughts depressing in the extreme.
Much has been done in recent years, I understand, to improve matters in tlis respect, and I pay glad and willing testimony to the splendid efforts of parish priest Monsignor M'Alpine of Clifden, who in and out of season has done yeoman service, despite many difficulties and a parsimonious treasury, in improving the housing conditions of the people in this congested portion of Connemara.
A great deal of good, too, has been done in the direction of providing skilled and efficient nursing and attendance upon the sick, which in years past was primitive to a degree, and little wonder.
Imagine a doctor's district thirty miles in
length, comprising roadless miles of rock and stone, with a population three-quarters precariously poor, and in the case of women, with no help save from an elderly woman with a fifteenth-century training.
Cattle are not much seen in Connemara, but goats are there in endless variety, and sheep are fairly numerous as well.
Fishing, however, on the western seaboard, would appear to be the one staple industry, and with curragh or pucan the harvest of the sea is gathered and a risky and uncertain harvest it very frequently happens to be.
As a sideline, an acre or two of stony soil is assiduously cultivated, to which, with the gathering of seaweed to make kelp, go the labour and toil of the people's everyday lives.
Poverty is universal, and emigration has imposed its woeful toll, and left few behind in most places but the aged or the very young.'
This article, entitled 'Through Connemara with a Haversack' appeared in the 'Irish Monthly' magazine in April 1919, just as the War of Independence was heating up.
Its frank descriptions of the poverty locally just one century ago may go some way to explaining the discontent felt by the people which led to a widely-held desire for change.
Picture 'Connemara,' by Paul Henry.
