Hi Folks, This is a total long shot. I'm trying to trace a William Cronin who was born 17.01.1865 in parish of Aghada to David Cronin & Johanna Wall. I'm told that he went to Australia but I have no further information. The only thing I was told by relatives some years ago that a son of Williams was in Australian Forces during WW1 or WW2 and was supposed to visit his Irish relatives but he didn't show. Any help would be appreciated. Regards Noel -----Original Message----- From: irelandgenweb-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:irelandgenweb-bounces@rootsweb.com]On Behalf Of Jacquie Sent: 30 September 2008 13:08 To: irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com; 'Rootsweb Cork' Subject: Re: [Irish Genealogy] Emigration to Australia Mary I have found this for Western Australia at this stage, not sure whether it is related to your person or not Australian Electoral Rolls, 1901-1936 Name: Jeremiah McCarthy Gender: Male Electoral Year: 1916 State: Western Australia District: Fremantle Subdistrict: South Fremantle Address: 27 Jenkin Street Occupation: Labourer OR Australian Electoral Rolls, 1901-1936 Name: Jeremiah McCarthy Gender: Male Electoral Year: 1925 State: Western Australia District: Forrest Subdistrict: Forrest Address: Plavins Mill Occupation: Labourer The second one is more likely to be your man. There are scans available if you want me to send to you. Kind regards Jacquie Perth, Western Australia -----Original Message----- From: irelandgenweb-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:irelandgenweb-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Mary Simpson Sent: Tuesday, 30 September 2008 6:54 PM To: irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com; Rootsweb Cork Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Emigration to Australia Do any of the Australian listers have any advice please on searching for a JEREMIAH McCARTHY ( yes, I know, mea maxima culpa ) who is thought to have left the Ballymartle area of Cork in the later 1880s for Australia? Apparently he never married and on his death left bequests to his siblings families back home and in England. In the late 1920's my father and his brothers and sister ( Jeremiah's nephews and niece ) emigrated to Western Australia to farm between Westonia and Walgoolan. This may have been land farmed by Jeremiah. Are there any 1890 1900 Australian census that are on-line? Where do you start? Mary Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ It is a good place to get help with your family research. Help wanted: County Coordinators ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ It is a good place to get help with your family research. Help wanted: County Coordinators ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for Personal use. SPAMfighter has removed 12814 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Trial and Professional version does not have this message in the email

SNIPPET: In the city center, the old city walls of Derry, built 1613-1618 and still intact except for wider gates to handle modern vehicles, hold an almost mythical place in Irish history. It was here in 1688 that a group of brave apprentice boys, many of whom had been shipped to Londonderry as orphans after the great fire of London in 1666, took their stand. They slammed the city gates shut in the face of the approaching Catholic forces of deposed KING JAMES II. With this act, the boys galvanized the city's indecisive Protestant defenders inside the walls. Months of negotiations and a grinding 105-day siege followed, during which a third of the 20,000 refugees and defenders crammed into the city perished. The siege was finally broken in 1689, when supply ships broke through a boom stretched across the Foyle River. The sacrifice and defiant survival of the city turned the tide in favor of newly crowned Protestant KING WILLIAM of ORANGE, who arrived in Ireland soon after and defeated JAMES at the pivotal Battle of the Boyne. To fully appreciate the walls, take a walk on top of them (free and open from dawn to dusk). Almost 20 feet high and at least as thick, the walls form a mile-long oval loop that you can cover in less than an hours walking. At the corner of Society Street is the Apprentice Boys Memorial Hall (built 1873) which houses the private lodge and meeting rooms of this all-male Protestant organization dedicated to the memory of the original 13 apprentice boys. The end of the siege is celebrated each year with a controversial march atop the walls by the modern-day Apprentice Boys Society on the Saturday closest to the August 12 anniversary date. These walls are considered sacred ground for devout Unionists, who claim that many who died during the famous siege were buried within the battered walls for lack of space. A few more steps take you past the small Anglican St. Augustine Chapel, set in a pretty graveyard, where some believe the original 6th-century monastery of St. Colmcille stood. -- Excerpts, "Rick Steves' Ireland 2005" guide book (Avalon Travel)..

Robert Forrest has produced the third ebook in his Series - *SCOTS-IRISH ORIGINS, 1600-1800A.D. GENEALOGICAL GLEANINGS OF THE SCOTS-IRISH IN COUNTY LONDONDERRY, IRELAND PART THREE - 'THE MAIDEN CITY' THE INHABITANTS OF THE CITY OF DERRY / LONDONDERRY BEFORE THE SIEGE (c.1600-1688) * This is the third volume in the Scots-Irish Origins series. This volume focuses on the historic city of Derry/Londonderry in the seventeenth century and makes available a number of valuable and unique sources for the period. The following seventeenth century records are included in this volume for the city of Derry/Londonderry:- - the 1619 Inquisition, - 1622 Muster Roll - 1628 Rent Roll - 1630 Muster Roll (599 names) - 1642 Muster Rolls (9 companies) - 1654/6 Civil Survey, 1659 Census - 1663 Hearth Money Roll - as well as numerous miscellaneous records including; Corporation records (Governors, Mayors, Aldermen, Sheriffs), lists of merchants and seamen linked to the port of Derry, Gravestone Inscriptions from the seventeenth century, siege records, Summonister (court) records (1611-1670), Will indexes (1600-1700), original will abstracts, and a list of Derry voters from 1697. *For further details and purchase go to - http://www.ulsterheritage.com/ebooks.htm* -- EFFECTIVE June 1, 2008 James A. McKane 528 Mallory Beach Rd., R.R.5 Wiarton, ON N0H 2T0 (519) 534-0988 Prev. 192 Baker St., Waterloo N2T 2L4 www.jamesmckane.com www.ulsterheritage.com

AN OLD LADY The old motorbike she was The first woman in those Parts to ride - a noble Norton - disintegrates With rusty iron gates In some abandoned stable; But lives in sepia shades Where an emancipated Country schoolteacher Of nineteen thirty-eight Grins from her frame before Broaching the mountain roads. Forty years later she Shakes slack on the fire To douse it while she goes Into Bushmills to buy Groceries and newspaper And exchange courtesies. Then back to a pot of tea And the early-evening news (Some fresh atrocity); Washes up to the sound Of a chat-show, one phrase Of Bach going round and round In her head as she stares Out at the wintry moon And thinks of her daughters So very far away -- Although the telephone Makes nonsense of that today. Out there beyond the edge Of the golf-course tosses The ghost of the "Girona," Flagship of the Armada -- History. Does the knowledge Alter the world she sees? Or do her thoughts travel By preference among Memories of her naval Husband, thirty years Drowned, the watercolours And instruments unstrung? A tentatively romantic Figure once, she became Merely an old lady like Many another, with Her favourite programme And her sustaining faith. She sits now and watches Incredulously as some mad Whippersnapper howls His love-song and the gulls Snuggle down on the beaches, The rooks in the churchyard. -- Derek Mahon (b. 1941 Belfast)

TREE Your skeletal form silhouetted against a mackerel sky. Bare twisted branches, gnarled witchlike fingers, pointing skywards, clawing outwards. Performing your dance macabre, to the music of the winter wind. A slanting morning sun, with Midas touch, gliding your gyrating limbs. At eventide, You were bedecked in coal black crows and aping Autumn, shed some feathered leaves. They looped, swooped, tumbled like leaves caught in a September squall. A blast of gunshot rent the air stripping you of your fluttering shroud, leaving your skeletal form, silhouetted against the evening sky. -- Barbara Diamond, "Leitrim Guardian"

Hi Mary - Per the National Archives website in Dublin, the returns for 1901 and 1911 are arranged by townland (the smallest division of land) or, in urban areas, by street. The 1901 census lists, for every member of each household; name, age, sex, relationship to head of the household, religion, occupation, marital status and county or country of birth. The census also records an individual's ability to read or write and ability to speak the Irish language. All of this information is given on Form A of the census, which was filled in and signed by the head of each household. Where the head of the household could not write, his or her mark, usually an X, was recorded and witnessed by the enumerator. The same information was recorded in the 1911 census, with one significant addition: married women were required to state the number of years they had been married, the number of their children born alive and the number still living. In addition to returns for every household in the country, both censuses contain returns for police and military barracks, public and private asylums, prisons, hospitals, workhouses, colleges, boarding schools and industrial schools among other institutions. The returns for both censuses also give details of houses, recording the number of windows, type of roof and number of rooms occupied by each family. Each house is also classified according to its overall condition. The number of out-offices and farm buildings attached to each household is also given. This information is recorded by the enumerator, who provided summaries of the returns for each townland and street, including the religious denomination of occupants. These summaries include a list of heads of household, thus providing a nominal index for each townland or street. If I find any answers to your specific questions, Mary, I will post an addendum. J. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mary Simpson" <mary@msimpson.demon.co.uk> To: <irl-kerry@rootsweb.com>; "Rootsweb Cork" <irl-cork@rootsweb.com>; <IRL-WEXFORD@rootsweb.com>; <irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 6:21 AM Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Class of houses > Does anybody have an idea of the criteria used in the 1901 Irish census > to classify houses? I'm thinking of rural houses, not those in towns. > What is the difference between class 2 & 3 houses, is it just the > number of rooms, windows, or was there a definite classification? And > would I be right in supposing that a 2 room class 2 house would have > been a cabin? Even if it had stone walls. And that the 0 > classification in part two regarding the roof ( not being of stone or > slate ) it normally would mean thatch? It states ' soft materials, > wood or thatch '. I cannot imagine many Irish houses having wooden > roofs. > > It's illuminating how many of these buildings had walls made not of > hard materials i.e. stone or brick, and to begin to think " mud huts " > - until you remember how desirable cob houses are in the west of > England, and how warm and weatherproof, as long as the roof is cared > for. I would have thought, also, that most of the houses that had hard > walls were of stone and not of brick. But perhaps someone can enlighten > me. > > Is there a guide to how to read this census anywhere? It has so much > information in it. > > Mary

Does anybody have an idea of the criteria used in the 1901 Irish census to classify houses? I'm thinking of rural houses, not those in towns. What is the difference between class 2 & 3 houses, is it just the number of rooms, windows, or was there a definite classification? And would I be right in supposing that a 2 room class 2 house would have been a cabin? Even if it had stone walls. And that the 0 classification in part two regarding the roof ( not being of stone or slate ) it normally would mean thatch? It states ' soft materials, wood or thatch '. I cannot imagine many Irish houses having wooden roofs. It's illuminating how many of these buildings had walls made not of hard materials i.e. stone or brick, and to begin to think " mud huts " - until you remember how desirable cob houses are in the west of England, and how warm and weatherproof, as long as the roof is cared for. I would have thought, also, that most of the houses that had hard walls were of stone and not of brick. But perhaps someone can enlighten me. Is there a guide to how to read this census anywhere? It has so much information in it. Mary

Thank you, Margaret. I have a book entitled "Irish: The Remarkable Saga of a Nation and a City," by John Burrowes, in which he details the massive numbers of Irish who inundated Glasgow at the time of the famine, and the difficulties they and the city endured. Such descriptiveness. I believe the author dedicated the book to his grandfather, Thomas William Burrowes, born Sligo 1868, died Glasgow 1918. It was an horrendously tragedy, at the root of which were politicians who couldn't relate to the sufferings of the peasant class and believed in what drove the market! Sounds fmailiar with those excusing the current finanical disaster that is turning this country on its ear! If there is a God! 'The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness." 'There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.' Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (Note, I don't think I agree with the first statement...it's almost like the "blame game" as we same nowadays!) Maisie ----- Original Message ----- From: "conaught2" <conaught2@charter.net> To: <irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2008 12:11 PM Subject: Re: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government1845-46-PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws Dear Maisie There are several excellent sources that tell the facts of the Great Famine. Just two among many are: The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith This Great Calamity The Irish Famine 1845-52 by Christine Kinealy Irish Famine by Peter Gray (has a lot of statistics) - this can be accessed through the website listed below. An excellent website is: http://adminstaff.vassar.edu/sttaylor/FAMINE/ILN/ This website has copies of the Illustrated London News, articles from the time of the Famine.It also has links to another book about the Famine and many more excellent sources from the time of the Famine. Sir Walter Raleigh brought the potato to Ireland. One of the reasons it became popular was it produced large volumes in a small are and it was cheap. During the Great Famine it is a common fact that other food sources, among them corn and grain were stored in warehouses by the landlords for shippment for export. Soldiers stood guard at these warehouses to prevent the starving Irish from taking the much needed food. To clarify the religious question you mentioned - the majority of those of the Protestant faith resided in Counties Armagh Antrim, Down,Tyrone and Derry. These counties were the least impacted by the Famine, so there was not the necessity to flee Ireland to the same degree as in the rest of Ireland to avoid starvation. Although disease claimed the lives of many in County Down, County Down was still one of the counties least affected in Ireland by the Great Famine. I don't want to diminish the suffering in these counties because it was horrific for those affected. The grave in Antrim of the clergyman and his family represents how many suffered. Doctors and clergy died in large numbers because they were fearless in their efforts to help their people. With starvation came disease and many of the doctors and clergy and their families died as a result of these diseases. My Great Great Grandparents Edward and Bridget (nee Brannigan) Rice of Islandmoyle, Clonduff Parish, County Down died from TB during the Famine, leaving two small daughters orphaned one which was my Great Grandmother Elizabeth Rice Flanagan of Kinghill, Cabra, County Down. As you said Maisie starvation and famine affects all people, it doesn't single out a particular religion. The areas hardest hit were the rural areas outside of the northeast and those areas were mostly Catholic so possibly that is why this was mentioned. The Quakers and many more tried to help the desperate situation. "in light of the fact that I read somewhere that the majority of people in the U.S.A with "Irish" names happen to be Protestant. By extension would not this lead one to assume that many Protestants left as a result of the famine?" Most of Ireland suffered horrifically from during the Great Famine (An Gorta Mor- Great Hunger). The areas affected to a lesser degree were those in the northeast which had the majority of Protestants. This area was more industralized and had the shipping trade in Belfast and other sources of income. No place in Ireland escaped the horrors of the Famine. During the Penal Code days the Irish Catholics were the most harshly treated by the English government, but the Dissenters were also abused by the government. The Dissenters were primarily those of Scottish Presbysterian ancestry. The majority of the Protestant population in the U.S. that you refer to, immigrated in the 1700s and early 1800s. I can't remember the percentage of Washington's Army but it was overwhelming filled with Irish surnames. The wave of Irish immigration during the Great Famine (1845-52 and the aftermath) were mostly poor Irish Catholics escaping starvation and disease caused by the Great Famine. The Protestant population you referred to wished to stay aloof from the new wave of poor Irish immigrants and to separate themselves from these new arrivals from their homeland they referred to themselves as Scotch - Irish (now more popularly spelled Scotts). The term Scotch-Irish came into being during the massive Famine immigration period and it meant Irish Protestant as opposed to the new comer Irish who were mostly Catholic. Ireland had many potato crop failures dating back to the 1700s and another one in the 1870s which saw another round of Irish immigration.What separated Ireland from other areas controlled by England is that the landlords wanted higher profit from their lands. It was not advantageous for the landlords (mostly absentee) to have their land inhabited by Irishmen. It was more profitable to clear the land and use it for something that had a higher income yield. Lord Palmerson had more than 2,000 tenants in County Sligo. He wanted his lands cleared of the Irish and most of them were evicted and sent to Canada on what became known as the "Coffin Ships". Many Irish were sent to Canada because it was part of the Bristish Empire and the strict health standards required in New York were not required by the Canadians. Many were still quarantined at Gross Ill (an island off Quebec). The story of Gross Ill is infamous where thousands from the "Coffin Ships" died. Many landlords did not allow their tenants to fish in the lakes or rivers on their land. This prevented the poor tenant from a source of food. I know first had from our family history what happened regarding fishing off Malin Head, County Donegal. My four grandparents were from Ireland. My grandmother Catherine Doherty Smith from County Donegal was born in 1870 and immigrated to Braddock, Pennsylvania in 1889. When she was growing up the coast guard would patrol the coast off Malin Head and conficate any fish caught by the locals because the fish belonged to the landlord. The records of those transported to Van Dieman's Land and Australia tell a black side of the Famine story. When a tenant (remember most of the land was confiscated from the Irish during the Cromwellian period and after the Battle of the Boyne), killed a rabbit or any animal on the land it was not his to use for food because the landlord owned it. When you read a record of someone transported for theft of an animal, stop and think of the year ( was it the Great Famine or a minor blight year?) and what was stolen. It gives you a very different view of the majority of those transported. There is more to be said on this subject but this post is already too long. The set of circumstances in Ireland were not duplicated in England or Scotland even though other areas suffered. The story of An Gorta Mor is one of heart ache and tragedy. There are a lot of factual history books regarding the tragedy, if these are read instead of revisionist historian accounts, we can gain knowledge of what our ancestors experienced. It is important to remember those who suffered and died during An Gorta Mor. It is an interesing side note that Ireland even today is one of the first countries in the world to respond generously with aid for famine torn areas of the world. Beannachtai, Margaret (Máiread) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maisie Egger" <campsiehills@sbcglobal.net> To: <irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 1:20 PM Subject: Re: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46-PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws Let's not forget, too, that the Quakers, after the first potato failure, tried to educate and convince the native Irish to switch to other crops, but they were so entrenched in growing potatoes that they could not, would not, change their dependence on the it. Not wishing to interject religion here, it is a glittering generality to state, as one lister wrote, that Catholics suffered more than Protestants during the famine, in light of the fact that I read somewhere that the majority of people in the U.S.A with "Irish" names happen to be Protestant. By extension would not this lead one to assume that many Protestants left as a result of the famine? On a more personal note, a little Anglican church near where my girlfriend lives in Cullybackey, Co. Antrim, has graves of a whole family, the father who was the parish priest, his wife and all their children, who perished from starvation as a result of the famine. We have to be very careful in saying that one religious group suffered more than the other. No doubt the Catholics outnumbered the Protestants and this is the reason why their numbers seem to be higher, and not because they were being singled out to be starved more than those of the opposite persuasion. I can't recall the author or title of the book I read many years ago in which of the Quaker efforts were "treated" to try to assuage the horrors of the famine, but the Google article will further shed some light on the times. Please note: the Quakers offered their help to all. Trevelyan is the "baddie" in this whole scheme of things, and not necessarily Queen Victoria, as some "researchers" state. The Highland Clearances (Scottish Gaelic: Fuadaich nan Gàidheal, the expulsion of the Gael), not on the scale of the Irish Famine of the 1840s period, have their "baddies," too, namely the Duke (English) and Countess of Sutherland (Scottish) and their factor Peter Sellar (Scottish) who was acquitted of homicide. Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ It is a good place to get help with your family research. Help wanted: County Coordinators ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SNIPPET: Elizabeth GRANT was born in Scotland and was proud of her old Highland blood. Her father, Sir Peter GRANT, the laird of Rothiemurchus, was a lawyer and a member of Parliament, but ran up such huge debts that he had to take refuge in France from his creditors. In spite of this, he was appointment to a judgeship in Bombay and the whole family sailed for India with the newly-made judge being smuggled aboard the ship from a small boat that put out from Jersey. In Bombay, Elizabeth met and married Colonel Henry SMITH, who was some 15 years older than herself. In 1830, he inherited an estate in Wicklow and they came back to Ireland. Baltiboys, near Blessington, had 1,200 acres that had been much neglected by the previous owner. He had pulled the house down in order to sell the materials and the tenants were so ragged and impoverished that Elizabeth thought a crowd of beggars had come to greet them at the gates. Over the next ten years the SMITHs rebuilt the house and improved the farms, planting the first field of turnips ever to be seen in that part of the world; when they had the money they built chimneys and put windows into the cabins. Elizabeth set up a school. The character that emerges from the diary she kept (and parts of which appear in "Diaries of Ireland, An Anthology," pub. 1998, Lilliput Press) is practical, intelligent. It is clear that much of the management of the estate was in her capable hands. Occasionally she interferes too blatantly - evidently the steward gave notice because she demonstrated to him how to weed turnips with a hoe in the Scotch way! On November 5, 1845, her husband brought in two blighted potatoes, the first they had seen at Baltiboys. By the 11th, the blight had spread through their fields. During the autumn of 1846, with their situation worsening, they worked out a plan to buy flour and coal in bulk. In December, 1847, she wrote: "The people are starving and the poor house has 1,100 where there never used to be 200." At Baltiboys, Elizabeth and her husband were giving milk and soup to their twelve workmen and soup to the sick and aged. Elizabeth was always railing against the improvidence of the Irish. She often wrote of the ignorance and indolence of the other landlords. She said that she "had made up her mind that the distress of the poor demanded a large sacrifice on the part of the richer," and to that end the family gave up many of the luxuries to which they had been accustomed, thought she was rather sad when her husband would not let her daughter attend any of the festivities in Dublin for QUEEN VICTORIA's visit because of the expense. Elizabeth said, "We must all do our utmost, share our all." In January of 1847, a beef was killed "for our poor," and "we make daily a large pot of good soup which is served gratis to 22 people at present." She goes on to say, "I thought it quite a pretty sight yesterday in the kitchen, all the workmen coming in for their portions, a quart with a slice of the beef; half of them get this one day for a dinner with a bit of their own bread; the other half get milk and the cheap rice we have provided for them. Next day they reverse the order. The Colonel is giving them firing too; so they are really comfortable; there are twelve of them and ten pensioners, old feeble men and women, or those with large families of children; some of them no longer living on our ground yet having been once connected with us we can't desert them." Two years later, a discouraged Elizabeth writes, "I was shocked at our own school, no rosy cheeks, no merry laugh, little skeletons in rags with white faces and large staring eyes crouching against one another half dead. How can we remedy it? No way; how feed sixty children? If we were to coin ourselves into halfpence we could not give a meal a day to one hundredth part of our teeming neighbourhood. The poor little DOYLEs, so clean, so thin, so sad, so naked, softened my heart to the foolish parents. They are on our own hill although not our own people, they must not die of hunger. If I could manage to give a bit of bread daily to each pauper child, but we have no money, much more than we can afford is spent on labour, the best kind of charity, leaving little for ought else..." A year earlier, she had written about possibly the same DOYLE family - "Jim DOYLE, the son of those miserable people upon the hill who went out last year to a kind uncle in America, writes home that this uncle met him on the quay and had two suits of clothes ready for him as people must be well dressed in that country and has put him into a factory where his wages are 20/a week. Will the poverty-stricken parents let this well doing lad alone or let him really help them by sending bye and bye for a brother or sister? I fear that neighbour-like they will try to draw all he can spare from him to help them exist in their wretchedness, and they are so wretched, so very nearly destitute all of them, we can hardly wonder at the pauper family clinging to and draining a prosperous member," and in December, 1848, Elizabeth's diary shows that Mrs. DOYLE had come to her "with her tale of destitution, that she had five children at home and a cripple for a husband, an incurable, she was blind herself and her only grown up daughter was hopelessly lazy." She advised Mrs. DOYLE to go to the Poor House, but Mrs. DOYLE told her that the poor house was full. At one point, seemingly overwhelmed, Elizabeth writes, "I begin to think a pestilence in this darkened land would be a mercy to it."

Dear Maisie There are several excellent sources that tell the facts of the Great Famine. Just two among many are: The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith This Great Calamity The Irish Famine 1845-52 by Christine Kinealy Irish Famine by Peter Gray (has a lot of statistics) - this can be accessed through the website listed below. An excellent website is: http://adminstaff.vassar.edu/sttaylor/FAMINE/ILN/ This website has copies of the Illustrated London News, articles from the time of the Famine.It also has links to another book about the Famine and many more excellent sources from the time of the Famine. Sir Walter Raleigh brought the potato to Ireland. One of the reasons it became popular was it produced large volumes in a small are and it was cheap. During the Great Famine it is a common fact that other food sources, among them corn and grain were stored in warehouses by the landlords for shippment for export. Soldiers stood guard at these warehouses to prevent the starving Irish from taking the much needed food. To clarify the religious question you mentioned - the majority of those of the Protestant faith resided in Counties Armagh Antrim, Down,Tyrone and Derry. These counties were the least impacted by the Famine, so there was not the necessity to flee Ireland to the same degree as in the rest of Ireland to avoid starvation. Although disease claimed the lives of many in County Down, County Down was still one of the counties least affected in Ireland by the Great Famine. I don't want to diminish the suffering in these counties because it was horrific for those affected. The grave in Antrim of the clergyman and his family represents how many suffered. Doctors and clergy died in large numbers because they were fearless in their efforts to help their people. With starvation came disease and many of the doctors and clergy and their families died as a result of these diseases. My Great Great Grandparents Edward and Bridget (nee Brannigan) Rice of Islandmoyle, Clonduff Parish, County Down died from TB during the Famine, leaving two small daughters orphaned one which was my Great Grandmother Elizabeth Rice Flanagan of Kinghill, Cabra, County Down. As you said Maisie starvation and famine affects all people, it doesn't single out a particular religion. The areas hardest hit were the rural areas outside of the northeast and those areas were mostly Catholic so possibly that is why this was mentioned. The Quakers and many more tried to help the desperate situation. "in light of the fact that I read somewhere that the majority of people in the U.S.A with "Irish" names happen to be Protestant. By extension would not this lead one to assume that many Protestants left as a result of the famine?" Most of Ireland suffered horrifically from during the Great Famine (An Gorta Mor- Great Hunger). The areas affected to a lesser degree were those in the northeast which had the majority of Protestants. This area was more industralized and had the shipping trade in Belfast and other sources of income. No place in Ireland escaped the horrors of the Famine. During the Penal Code days the Irish Catholics were the most harshly treated by the English government, but the Dissenters were also abused by the government. The Dissenters were primarily those of Scottish Presbysterian ancestry. The majority of the Protestant population in the U.S. that you refer to, immigrated in the 1700s and early 1800s. I can't remember the percentage of Washington's Army but it was overwhelming filled with Irish surnames. The wave of Irish immigration during the Great Famine (1845-52 and the aftermath) were mostly poor Irish Catholics escaping starvation and disease caused by the Great Famine. The Protestant population you referred to wished to stay aloof from the new wave of poor Irish immigrants and to separate themselves from these new arrivals from their homeland they referred to themselves as Scotch - Irish (now more popularly spelled Scotts). The term Scotch-Irish came into being during the massive Famine immigration period and it meant Irish Protestant as opposed to the new comer Irish who were mostly Catholic. Ireland had many potato crop failures dating back to the 1700s and another one in the 1870s which saw another round of Irish immigration.What separated Ireland from other areas controlled by England is that the landlords wanted higher profit from their lands. It was not advantageous for the landlords (mostly absentee) to have their land inhabited by Irishmen. It was more profitable to clear the land and use it for something that had a higher income yield. Lord Palmerson had more than 2,000 tenants in County Sligo. He wanted his lands cleared of the Irish and most of them were evicted and sent to Canada on what became known as the "Coffin Ships". Many Irish were sent to Canada because it was part of the Bristish Empire and the strict health standards required in New York were not required by the Canadians. Many were still quarantined at Gross Ill (an island off Quebec). The story of Gross Ill is infamous where thousands from the "Coffin Ships" died. Many landlords did not allow their tenants to fish in the lakes or rivers on their land. This prevented the poor tenant from a source of food. I know first had from our family history what happened regarding fishing off Malin Head, County Donegal. My four grandparents were from Ireland. My grandmother Catherine Doherty Smith from County Donegal was born in 1870 and immigrated to Braddock, Pennsylvania in 1889. When she was growing up the coast guard would patrol the coast off Malin Head and conficate any fish caught by the locals because the fish belonged to the landlord. The records of those transported to Van Dieman's Land and Australia tell a black side of the Famine story. When a tenant (remember most of the land was confiscated from the Irish during the Cromwellian period and after the Battle of the Boyne), killed a rabbit or any animal on the land it was not his to use for food because the landlord owned it. When you read a record of someone transported for theft of an animal, stop and think of the year ( was it the Great Famine or a minor blight year?) and what was stolen. It gives you a very different view of the majority of those transported. There is more to be said on this subject but this post is already too long. The set of circumstances in Ireland were not duplicated in England or Scotland even though other areas suffered. The story of An Gorta Mor is one of heart ache and tragedy. There are a lot of factual history books regarding the tragedy, if these are read instead of revisionist historian accounts, we can gain knowledge of what our ancestors experienced. It is important to remember those who suffered and died during An Gorta Mor. It is an interesing side note that Ireland even today is one of the first countries in the world to respond generously with aid for famine torn areas of the world. Beannachtai, Margaret (Máiread) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maisie Egger" <campsiehills@sbcglobal.net> To: <irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 1:20 PM Subject: Re: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46-PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws Let's not forget, too, that the Quakers, after the first potato failure, tried to educate and convince the native Irish to switch to other crops, but they were so entrenched in growing potatoes that they could not, would not, change their dependence on the it. Not wishing to interject religion here, it is a glittering generality to state, as one lister wrote, that Catholics suffered more than Protestants during the famine, in light of the fact that I read somewhere that the majority of people in the U.S.A with "Irish" names happen to be Protestant. By extension would not this lead one to assume that many Protestants left as a result of the famine? On a more personal note, a little Anglican church near where my girlfriend lives in Cullybackey, Co. Antrim, has graves of a whole family, the father who was the parish priest, his wife and all their children, who perished from starvation as a result of the famine. We have to be very careful in saying that one religious group suffered more than the other. No doubt the Catholics outnumbered the Protestants and this is the reason why their numbers seem to be higher, and not because they were being singled out to be starved more than those of the opposite persuasion. I can't recall the author or title of the book I read many years ago in which of the Quaker efforts were "treated" to try to assuage the horrors of the famine, but the Google article will further shed some light on the times. Please note: the Quakers offered their help to all. Trevelyan is the "baddie" in this whole scheme of things, and not necessarily Queen Victoria, as some "researchers" state. The Highland Clearances (Scottish Gaelic: Fuadaich nan Gàidheal, the expulsion of the Gael), not on the scale of the Irish Famine of the 1840s period, have their "baddies," too, namely the Duke (English) and Countess of Sutherland (Scottish) and their factor Peter Sellar (Scottish) who was acquitted of homicide.

SNIPPET: Born in Belfast, 1907, John HEWITT was educated at Methodist College and Queen's University Belfast. He worked for 27 years in Belfast Museum and Art Gallery. Passed over for post of director in 1953, apparently because of his left-wing, anti-sectarian politics, HEWITT moved to Coventry as director of the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, 1957. He retired in 1972 and returned to Belfast (Co. Antrim) dying in 1987. "I may appear Planter's Gothic, " he wrote in 1953, "but there is a round tower somewhere inside, and needled through every sentence I utter." He identified with the radicalism of the Presbyterian United Irishmen and of the 18th and 19th century Rhyming Weavers of Antrim and Down, whose work he anthologised. HEWITT struggled to keep viable a submerged Ulster tradition of tolerance and faith in human progress. >From FREEHOLD (The Lonely Heart) Once in a seaside town with time to kill, the windless winter-daylight ebbing chill, the cafes shut till June, the shop blinds drawn, only one pub yet open where a man trundled his barrels off a dray with care, and two men talking, small across the square, I turned from broad street, down a red-brick row, past prams in parlours and infrequent show of thrusting bulbtips, till high steps and porch and rigid statue signalised a church. I climbed the granite past Saint Patrick's knees, saw cross in stone, befingered, ringed with grease, and water in a stroup with oily skin, swung door on stall of booklets and went in to the dim stained-glass cold interior between low pews along a marble floor to where the candles burned, still keeping pace with ugly-coloured Stations of the Cross. Two children tiptoed in and prayed awhile. A shabby woman in a faded shawl came hirpling past me then, and crumpled down, crossing herself and mumbling monotone. I stood and gazed across the altar rail at the tall windows, cold and winter pale; Christ and His Mother, Christ and Lazarus, Christ watching Martha bustle round the house, Christ crowned, with sceptre and a blessing hand. I counted seven candles on the stand; a box of matches of familiar brand lay on a tray. It somehow seemed my right to pay my penny and set up my light, not to this coloured Christ nor to His Mother, but single flame to sway with all the other small earnest flames against the crowding gloom which seemed that year descending on our time, suppressed the fancy, smiled a cynic thought, turned clicking heel on marble and went out. Not this my fathers' faith: Their walls are bare; their comfort's all within, if anywhere, I had gone there a vacant hour to pass, to see the sculpture and admire the glass, but left as I had come, a protestant, and all unconscious of my yawning want; too much intent on what to criticise to give my heart the room to realise that which endures the tides of time so long cannot be always absolutely wrong; not even with a friendly thought or human for the two children and the praying woman. The years since then have proved I should have stayed and mercy might have touched me till I prayed. For now I scorn no man's or child's belief in any symbol that may succour grief if we remember whence life first arose and how within us yet that river flows; and how the fabled shapes in dream's deep sea still evidence our continuity with being's seamless garment, web and thread. O windblown grass upon the mounded dead, O seed in crevice of the frost-split rock, the power that fixed your root shall take us back, though endlessly through aeons we are thrust as luminous or unreflecting dust. -- John Hewitt (1907-1987)

Much has been written in the last few days about the Irish Famine. I have not noted too many specific references in these conversations. A must read is "The Great Hunger" by Cecil Woodham Smith, an English scholar and student of the famine. I found it objective and in my opinion, unbiased. One point she emphasizes is that other crops grown by the Irish Catholic TENENT farmers, were used to pay rent to the landlords for their farms. This explains the export of food from a starving nation. In one of her final conclusions, she essentially accuses England of genocide. Another read that is not so available except on line, is the State of New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education which includes the Irish Famine Commission. www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/irish/irish_pf.html This study is extremely detailed and most helpful. With respect to the early Irish settlers in the American colonies, they were for the most part, Scots-Irish Presbyterians from Ulster who were equally discriminated under the penal laws because of their Religion. They did not have the same ties to the land that the native Irish had so they left for America, settling primarily in the south east.

Historical fact : ...no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries (England and Ireland) as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation. ----- Original Message ----- From: "donkelly" <ocollaugh@comcast.net> To: <irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:05 PM Subject: Re: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46 -PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws > > Historically true. Potatoes were the only crops that failed. Corn, wheat > and other crops did not fail and there was plenty of food there. It may or > may not be true that the Irish farmers sold their produce to England while > their countrymen/women/children, were starving. > > -- > don kelly > > -------------- Original message ---------------------- > From: "Dot" <dot@naturalhealth.fsbusiness.co.uk> >> I am sorry I had to laugh to myself at this a little. Hundreds of >> thousands >> of poor Irish died in the potato famine - as anyone will know who has >> visited Ireland and see the graves. I think this is an example of the >> English massaging the facts a little! What it doesnt say is - most of >> the >> food subsidies went to the Protestants (which were mainly powerful >> English >> families and Scots) and the Catholics were left to starve. >> >> Dot xx >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Jean R." <jeanrice@cet.com> >> To: <IrelandGenWeb-L@rootsweb.com> >> Cc: <TRANSCRIPTIONS-EIRE-L@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 6:29 PM >> Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46 - >> PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws >> >> >> > >> > SNIPPET: "Scenes of starvation were commonplace in Ireland by the end >> > of >> > 1846, but they had been a year in the making. Actual starvation had >> > been >> > averted at first, when the British government under Prime Minister >> > Robert >> > PEEL moved aggressively to counter the potato famine in 1845. PEEL was >> > an >> > old hand on matters Irish; he had been the government's chief secretary >> > in >> > Ireland, which meant that he was responsible for implementing >> > government >> > policy on the island. One of those policies was the introduction of a >> > police force to keep watch over the rebellious Irish, and so even today >> > it >> > is not unusual to hear the police referred to as "peelers." PEEL had >> > received an early warning of the potential disaster in Ireland when >> > potatoes >> > on the Continent and in England failed several times before the blight >> > was >> > detected in Ireland. While the potato was notoriously fickle, any >> > report >> > of >> > its failure was bound to be greeted with apprehension, for even in >> > England, >> > the poor depended on the potato as a twice-a-day staple. In Ireland, >> > the >> > poor had nothing else, as everyone from prime minister to farm laborer >> > knew. >> > An Irish newspaper referred to the potato as 'the poor man's >> > property' -- >> > the only property the poor owned. William GLADSTONE, the future >> > British >> > leader, understood what might happen: "Ireland, Ireland, that cloud in >> > the >> > West, that coming storm," he wrote. When it came, its winds lashing >> > Britain's political establishment, PEEL and his Conservative Party >> > government scrambled to build makeshift shelters. They quickly ordered >> > supplies of American corn shipped to Ireland, where the food was held >> > in >> > depots for eventual sale to the Irish poor. Public works projects, >> > usually >> > consisting of road building, were devised to give employment to men, >> > women, >> > and children, many of them so weak they could barely expend the energy, >> > but >> > all so desperate that they flocked to the projects. More dramatically, >> > PEEL >> > proposed a genuinely radical and politically courageous reform. For >> > years, >> > British farmers (and, more to the point, British landowners) had >> > enjoyed >> > government sanctioned protections in the form of high taxes on imported >> > grain. The so-called Corn Laws were a linchpin of Britain's >> > agricultural >> > economy and indeed its social structure, for the land-owning >> > aristocrats >> > profited immensely from protection against foreign competition, >> > allowing >> > them to charge artificially high prices for their grain. Those landed >> > aristocrats also happened to be the core of PEEL's party. The prime >> > minister, however, decided that the Corn Laws would have to go, that >> > the >> > emergency in Ireland demanded nothing less. Free trade would lower >> > grain >> > prices and encourage shipments to Ireland, where bread and other grain >> > products could take the potato's place. PEEL told his cabinet that the >> > government could no longer in good conscience purchase corn from >> > America >> > for >> > Ireland while a set of laws kept the price of food artificially high. >> > His >> > colleagues were appalled. As reports of dreadful, though not yet >> > fatal, >> > conditions in Ireland continued to pour into London, the cabinet >> > debated, >> > revolted, and adjourned; then debated, revolted, and adjourned again >> > without >> > taking action, even as conditions in Ireland worsened. But this was no >> > act >> > of callousness, for what PEEL proposed was nothing short of >> > revolutionary. >> > So much of what his colleagues held dear was intertwined with the Corn >> > Laws. >> > Their social, political, and economic dominance was held in place by >> > the >> > artificial prosperity of government-guaranteed profits from the land. >> > Just >> > before Christmas in 1845, PEEL paid the ultimate political price for >> > his >> > courage. With his own cabinet against him, he resigned. QUEEN >> > VICTORIA >> > asked the opposition leader, John RUSSELL, to form a Whig government, >> > but >> > he >> > could not do so because his own party, though pledged to reform the >> > Corn >> > Laws, also was divided on the issue. PEEL once again became prime >> > minister >> > (even though a parliamentary colleague declared that he ought to die an >> > unnatural death) and found himself forced to work with the Whigs to win >> > reforms -- all in the name of saving the Irish poor. He won the battle >> > in >> > June 1846, and shortly thereafter his enemies in both parties combined >> > to >> > oust him once and for all from the prime minister's office. His career >> > was >> > ruined, a casualty of the Irish Famine. Under PEEL, nobody died of >> > starvation in Ireland, though many suffered. With the change of >> > administration in London, however, the situation in Ireland would >> > change, >> > too. In early July 1846, a shipload of American corn was turned away >> > from >> > Ireland on orders of the man PEEL had appointed to oversee relief >> > operations >> > in Ireland. Charles TREVELYAN was a devoutly religious and hardworking >> > young man in his late thirties, and while he owed his assignment to >> > PEEL's >> > patronage, he strongly disagreed with his approach to easing the >> > crisis. >> > In >> > TREVELYAN's eyes, the Famine quite literally was a God-sent opportunity >> > to >> > reorder Irish society. With PEEL out of office, TREVELYAN began to put >> > his >> > own stamp on Britain's response to Ireland's misery. He and the new >> > prime >> > minister, John RUSSELL, were much more compatible. As the new potato >> > crop >> > neared harvest in late July 1846, all seemed well, and it appeared as >> > though >> > the suffering would soon be at an end. TREVELYAN began shutting down >> > relief >> > operations in anticipation of an abundant harvest. Like so many of his >> > peers, TREVELYAN believed that government should not meddle with the >> > marketplace, for the market was nothing less than a reflection of God's >> > will. As TREVELYAN closed up the food depots, he argued that it was >> > "the >> > only way to prevent people from becoming habitually dependent on >> > government." Almost overnight, in early August, the promised harvest, >> > the >> > anticipated salvation, was ruined. The potatoes of Ireland turned >> > black >> > and >> > rancid, and the fields smelled of death itself. Disaster had returned, >> > and >> > now the suffering would be fatal thousands of times of over. A police >> > official wrote: 'A stranger would wonder how these wretched beings >> > find >> > food ... They sleep in their rags and have pawned their bedding.' >> > Landlords >> > began evicting their tenants, sending families into the countryside >> > with >> > nothing save the rags they wore on their backs. The eviction process >> > was >> > stark in its brutality: An eviction party, usually accompanied by >> > constables, arrived to serve notice and, to underscore the point, pull >> > down >> > the roof of the tenant's cottage. The Irish countryside was filled >> > with >> > scenes of families, desperate and weeping, scrambling to retrieve what >> > they >> > could as the eviction party proceeded with its work. After the cottage >> > was >> > razed, most had nowhere else to go. And it was just beginning. The >> > bureaucrats and politicians in London, charged as they were with seeing >> > to >> > it that the Irish people did not become dependent on government >> > assistance, >> > took a decidedly unemotional view of the suffering. TREVELYAN >> > continued >> > with the work he had begun in midsummer, when the potato crop had held >> > such >> > promise. He continued to shut down government-run food depots and >> > public >> > works projects ...." -- Excerpts, "The Irish In America," Coffey & >> > Golway >> > (1997). >> > >> > Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ >> > It is a good place to get help with your family research. >> > Help wanted: County Coordinators >> > ------------------------------- >> > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> > IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >> > the >> > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > >> > >> >> >> >> Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ >> It is a good place to get help with your family research. >> Help wanted: County Coordinators >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >> the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ > It is a good place to get help with your family research. > Help wanted: County Coordinators > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >

Irish farmers? Erm. Not sure many of the Irish had any land left much after the Plantation of Ulster. Dot McQ ----- Original Message ----- From: "donkelly" <ocollaugh@comcast.net> To: <irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:05 PM Subject: Re: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46 -PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws > > Historically true. Potatoes were the only crops that failed. Corn, wheat > and other crops did not fail and there was plenty of food there. It may or > may not be true that the Irish farmers sold their produce to England while > their countrymen/women/children, were starving. > > -- > don kelly > > -------------- Original message ---------------------- > From: "Dot" <dot@naturalhealth.fsbusiness.co.uk> >> I am sorry I had to laugh to myself at this a little. Hundreds of >> thousands >> of poor Irish died in the potato famine - as anyone will know who has >> visited Ireland and see the graves. I think this is an example of the >> English massaging the facts a little! What it doesnt say is - most of >> the >> food subsidies went to the Protestants (which were mainly powerful >> English >> families and Scots) and the Catholics were left to starve. >> >> Dot xx >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Jean R." <jeanrice@cet.com> >> To: <IrelandGenWeb-L@rootsweb.com> >> Cc: <TRANSCRIPTIONS-EIRE-L@rootsweb.com> >> Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 6:29 PM >> Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46 - >> PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws >> >> >> > >> > SNIPPET: "Scenes of starvation were commonplace in Ireland by the end >> > of >> > 1846, but they had been a year in the making. Actual starvation had >> > been >> > averted at first, when the British government under Prime Minister >> > Robert >> > PEEL moved aggressively to counter the potato famine in 1845. PEEL was >> > an >> > old hand on matters Irish; he had been the government's chief secretary >> > in >> > Ireland, which meant that he was responsible for implementing >> > government >> > policy on the island. One of those policies was the introduction of a >> > police force to keep watch over the rebellious Irish, and so even today >> > it >> > is not unusual to hear the police referred to as "peelers." PEEL had >> > received an early warning of the potential disaster in Ireland when >> > potatoes >> > on the Continent and in England failed several times before the blight >> > was >> > detected in Ireland. While the potato was notoriously fickle, any >> > report >> > of >> > its failure was bound to be greeted with apprehension, for even in >> > England, >> > the poor depended on the potato as a twice-a-day staple. In Ireland, >> > the >> > poor had nothing else, as everyone from prime minister to farm laborer >> > knew. >> > An Irish newspaper referred to the potato as 'the poor man's >> > property' -- >> > the only property the poor owned. William GLADSTONE, the future >> > British >> > leader, understood what might happen: "Ireland, Ireland, that cloud in >> > the >> > West, that coming storm," he wrote. When it came, its winds lashing >> > Britain's political establishment, PEEL and his Conservative Party >> > government scrambled to build makeshift shelters. They quickly ordered >> > supplies of American corn shipped to Ireland, where the food was held >> > in >> > depots for eventual sale to the Irish poor. Public works projects, >> > usually >> > consisting of road building, were devised to give employment to men, >> > women, >> > and children, many of them so weak they could barely expend the energy, >> > but >> > all so desperate that they flocked to the projects. More dramatically, >> > PEEL >> > proposed a genuinely radical and politically courageous reform. For >> > years, >> > British farmers (and, more to the point, British landowners) had >> > enjoyed >> > government sanctioned protections in the form of high taxes on imported >> > grain. The so-called Corn Laws were a linchpin of Britain's >> > agricultural >> > economy and indeed its social structure, for the land-owning >> > aristocrats >> > profited immensely from protection against foreign competition, >> > allowing >> > them to charge artificially high prices for their grain. Those landed >> > aristocrats also happened to be the core of PEEL's party. The prime >> > minister, however, decided that the Corn Laws would have to go, that >> > the >> > emergency in Ireland demanded nothing less. Free trade would lower >> > grain >> > prices and encourage shipments to Ireland, where bread and other grain >> > products could take the potato's place. PEEL told his cabinet that the >> > government could no longer in good conscience purchase corn from >> > America >> > for >> > Ireland while a set of laws kept the price of food artificially high. >> > His >> > colleagues were appalled. As reports of dreadful, though not yet >> > fatal, >> > conditions in Ireland continued to pour into London, the cabinet >> > debated, >> > revolted, and adjourned; then debated, revolted, and adjourned again >> > without >> > taking action, even as conditions in Ireland worsened. But this was no >> > act >> > of callousness, for what PEEL proposed was nothing short of >> > revolutionary. >> > So much of what his colleagues held dear was intertwined with the Corn >> > Laws. >> > Their social, political, and economic dominance was held in place by >> > the >> > artificial prosperity of government-guaranteed profits from the land. >> > Just >> > before Christmas in 1845, PEEL paid the ultimate political price for >> > his >> > courage. With his own cabinet against him, he resigned. QUEEN >> > VICTORIA >> > asked the opposition leader, John RUSSELL, to form a Whig government, >> > but >> > he >> > could not do so because his own party, though pledged to reform the >> > Corn >> > Laws, also was divided on the issue. PEEL once again became prime >> > minister >> > (even though a parliamentary colleague declared that he ought to die an >> > unnatural death) and found himself forced to work with the Whigs to win >> > reforms -- all in the name of saving the Irish poor. He won the battle >> > in >> > June 1846, and shortly thereafter his enemies in both parties combined >> > to >> > oust him once and for all from the prime minister's office. His career >> > was >> > ruined, a casualty of the Irish Famine. Under PEEL, nobody died of >> > starvation in Ireland, though many suffered. With the change of >> > administration in London, however, the situation in Ireland would >> > change, >> > too. In early July 1846, a shipload of American corn was turned away >> > from >> > Ireland on orders of the man PEEL had appointed to oversee relief >> > operations >> > in Ireland. Charles TREVELYAN was a devoutly religious and hardworking >> > young man in his late thirties, and while he owed his assignment to >> > PEEL's >> > patronage, he strongly disagreed with his approach to easing the >> > crisis. >> > In >> > TREVELYAN's eyes, the Famine quite literally was a God-sent opportunity >> > to >> > reorder Irish society. With PEEL out of office, TREVELYAN began to put >> > his >> > own stamp on Britain's response to Ireland's misery. He and the new >> > prime >> > minister, John RUSSELL, were much more compatible. As the new potato >> > crop >> > neared harvest in late July 1846, all seemed well, and it appeared as >> > though >> > the suffering would soon be at an end. TREVELYAN began shutting down >> > relief >> > operations in anticipation of an abundant harvest. Like so many of his >> > peers, TREVELYAN believed that government should not meddle with the >> > marketplace, for the market was nothing less than a reflection of God's >> > will. As TREVELYAN closed up the food depots, he argued that it was >> > "the >> > only way to prevent people from becoming habitually dependent on >> > government." Almost overnight, in early August, the promised harvest, >> > the >> > anticipated salvation, was ruined. The potatoes of Ireland turned >> > black >> > and >> > rancid, and the fields smelled of death itself. Disaster had returned, >> > and >> > now the suffering would be fatal thousands of times of over. A police >> > official wrote: 'A stranger would wonder how these wretched beings >> > find >> > food ... They sleep in their rags and have pawned their bedding.' >> > Landlords >> > began evicting their tenants, sending families into the countryside >> > with >> > nothing save the rags they wore on their backs. The eviction process >> > was >> > stark in its brutality: An eviction party, usually accompanied by >> > constables, arrived to serve notice and, to underscore the point, pull >> > down >> > the roof of the tenant's cottage. The Irish countryside was filled >> > with >> > scenes of families, desperate and weeping, scrambling to retrieve what >> > they >> > could as the eviction party proceeded with its work. After the cottage >> > was >> > razed, most had nowhere else to go. And it was just beginning. The >> > bureaucrats and politicians in London, charged as they were with seeing >> > to >> > it that the Irish people did not become dependent on government >> > assistance, >> > took a decidedly unemotional view of the suffering. TREVELYAN >> > continued >> > with the work he had begun in midsummer, when the potato crop had held >> > such >> > promise. He continued to shut down government-run food depots and >> > public >> > works projects ...." -- Excerpts, "The Irish In America," Coffey & >> > Golway >> > (1997). >> > >> > Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ >> > It is a good place to get help with your family research. >> > Help wanted: County Coordinators >> > ------------------------------- >> > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> > IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >> > the >> > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > >> > >> >> >> >> Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ >> It is a good place to get help with your family research. >> Help wanted: County Coordinators >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without >> the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ > It is a good place to get help with your family research. > Help wanted: County Coordinators > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >

Let's not forget, too, that the Quakers, after the first potato failure, tried to educate and convince the native Irish to switch to other crops, but they were so entrenched in growing potatoes that they could not, would not, change their dependence on the it. Not wishing to interject religion here, it is a glittering generality to state, as one lister wrote, that Catholics suffered more than Protestants during the famine, in light of the fact that I read somewhere that the majority of people in the U.S.A with "Irish" names happen to be Protestant. By extension would not this lead one to assume that many Protestants left as a result of the famine? On a more personal note, a little Anglican church near where my girlfriend lives in Cullybackey, Co. Antrim, has graves of a whole family, the father who was the parish priest, his wife and all their children, who perished from starvation as a result of the famine. We have to be very careful in saying that one religious group suffered more than the other. No doubt the Catholics outnumbered the Protestants and this is the reason why their numbers seem to be higher, and not because they were being singled out to be starved more than those of the opposite persuasion. I can't recall the author or title of the book I read many years ago in which of the Quaker efforts were "treated" to try to assuage the horrors of the famine, but the Google article will further shed some light on the times. Please note: the Quakers offered their help to all. Trevelyan is the "baddie" in this whole scheme of things, and not necessarily Queen Victoria, as some "researchers" state. The Highland Clearances (Scottish Gaelic: Fuadaich nan Gàidheal, the expulsion of the Gael), not on the scale of the Irish Famine of the 1840s period, have their "baddies," too, namely the Duke (English) and Countess of Sutherland (Scottish) and their factor Peter Sellar (Scottish) who was acquitted of homicide. "While the collapse of the clan system can be attributed more to economic factors and the repression that followed the Battle of Culloden, the widespread evictions resulting from the Clearances severely affected the viability of the Highland population and culture. To this day, the population in the Scottish Highlands is sparse and the culture is diluted, and there are many more sheep than people. Although the 1901 census did return 230,806 Gaelic speakers in Scotland, today this number has fallen to below 60,000. Counties of Scotland in which over 50% of the population spoke Gaelic as their native language in 1901, included Sutherland (71.75%), Ross and Cromarty (71.76%), Inverness (64.85%) and Argyll (54.35%). Small but substantial percentages of Gaelic speakers were recorded in counties such as Nairn, Bute, Perth and Caithness. What the Clearances started, however, the First World War almost completed. A huge percentage of Scots were among the vast numbers killed, and this greatly affected the remaining population of Gaelic speakers in Scotland. The 1921 census, the first conducted after the end of the war, showed a significant decrease in the proportion of the population that spoke Gaelic. The percentage of Gaelic speakers in Argyll had fallen to well below 50% (34.56%), and the other counties mentioned above had experienced similar decreases. Sutherland's Gaelic-speaking population was now barely above 50%, while Inverness and Ross and Cromarty had fallen to 50.91% and 60.20%, respectively. However, the Clearances did result in significant emigration of Highlanders to North America and Australasia - where today are found considerably more descendants of Highlanders than in Scotland itself. One estimate for Cape Breton, Nova Scotia has 25,000 Gaelic-speaking Scots arriving as immigrants between 1775 and 1850. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were an estimated 100,000 Gaelic speakers in Cape Breton, but because of economic migration to English-speaking areas and the lack of Gaelic education in the Nova Scotian school system, the numbers of Gaelic speakers fell dramatically. By the beginning of the 21st century, the number of native Gaelic speakers had fallen to well below 1,000.[4]" Private Relief Efforts During the Irish Famine "The Society of Friends, or Quakers, first became involved with the Irish Famine in November, 1846, when some Dublin-based members formed a Central Relief Committee. They intended that their assistance supplement other relief. However, the relief provided by the Quakers proved crucial in keeping people alive when other relief systems failed. A number of Quakers were critical of government relief policies, holding them to be inadequate and misjudged. The Quakers donated food, mostly American flour, rice, biscuits, and Indian meal along with clothes and bedding. They set up soup kitchens, purchased seed, and provided funds for local employment. During 1846-1847, the Quakers gave approximately 200,000 Pounds for relief in Ireland. The British Relief Association was founded in 1847, and raised money in England, America and Australia. They benefited from a "Queen's Letter" from Victoria appealing for money to relieve the distress in Ireland. The total raised was 171,533 Pounds. A second "Queen's Letter" in October of 1847, reflected a hardening in British public opinion, as it raised hardly any additional funds. In total, the British Relief Association raised approximately 470,000 Pounds. In August, 1847, when the Association had a balance of 200,000 Pounds, their agent in Ireland, Polish Count Strzelecki, proposed that the money be spent to help schoolchildren in the west of Ireland. The British Treasury Secretary, Charles Edward Trevelyan, warned against it, fearing "it might produce the impression that the lavish charitable system of last season was intended to be renewed." Strzelecki proved adamant and Treyelan conceded that a small portion of the funds could be used for that purpose. Donations for the Irish Famine came from distant and unexpected sources. Calcutta, India sent 16,500 Pounds in 1847, Bombay another 3,000. Florence, Italy, Antigua, France, Jamaica, and Barbados sent contributions. The Choctaw tribe in North America sent $710. Many major cities in America set up Relief Committees for Ireland, and Jewish synagogues in America and Britain contributed generously." -------------------------- Last of all: The main difference between the Scots and the Irish seems to be that the Scots (a more pragmatic race?) just seem to "get on with it" and do not dwell so much on the past. Yes, if we do not pay attention to the past we tend to repeat it (Edmind Burke, to paraphrase), but it is unhealthy for any nation to constantly hark back on events instead of looking forward to making sure that similar events do not recur. My opinion! Maisie ---------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- 1) Historically true. Potatoes were the only crops that failed. Corn, wheat and other crops did not fail and there was plenty of food there. It may or may not be true that the Irish farmers sold their produce to England while their countrymen/women/children, were starving. > -------------------------------------------- 2) What it doesnt say is - most of the food subsidies went to the Protestants (which were mainly powerful English families and Scots) and the Catholics were left to starve. ------------------------------------------- Original Message From: "Jean R." jeanrice@cet.com >> Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 6:29 PM >> Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46 - >> PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws SNIPPET: "Scenes of starvation were commonplace in Ireland by the end of >> > 1846, but they had been a year in the making. Actual starvation had been >> > averted at first, when the British government under Prime Minister Robert >> > PEEL moved aggressively to counter the potato famine in 1845. PEEL was an >> > old hand on matters Irish; he had been the government's chief secretary in >> > Ireland, which meant that he was responsible for implementing government >> > policy on the island. One of those policies was the introduction of a >> > police force to keep watch over the rebellious Irish, and so even today it >> > is not unusual to hear the police referred to as "peelers." PEEL had >> > received an early warning of the potential disaster in Ireland when >> > potatoes >> > on the Continent and in England failed several times before the blight was >> > detected in Ireland. While the potato was notoriously fickle, any report >> > of >> > its failure was bound to be greeted with apprehension, for even in >> > England, >> > the poor depended on the potato as a twice-a-day staple. In Ireland, the >> > poor had nothing else, as everyone from prime minister to farm laborer >> > knew. etcetera ----------------------------------------- >> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A PRAYER Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart, Naught is all else to me, save that Thou art. Thou my best thought by day and by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. Be Thou my wisdom. Thou my true word; I ever with Thee, Thou with me, Lord, Thou my great father. I Thy dear son; Thou in me dwelling, I with Thee one. Be Thou my battle-shield, sword for the fight, Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight. Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower; Raise Thou me heavenward, power of my power. Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise, Thou mine inheritance now and always. Thou, and Thou only, first in my heart, High king of heaven, my treasure Thou art. King of the seven heavens, grant me for dole, Thy love in my heart, Thy light in my soul. Thy light from my soul, Thy love from my heart, King of the seven heavens, may they never depart. With the high king of heaven, after victory won, May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun! Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, Still be my vision, O Ruler of all. -- Anon. (8th c.?) - Translated by Eleanor Hull

Historically true. Potatoes were the only crops that failed. Corn, wheat and other crops did not fail and there was plenty of food there. It may or may not be true that the Irish farmers sold their produce to England while their countrymen/women/children, were starving. -- don kelly -------------- Original message ---------------------- From: "Dot" <dot@naturalhealth.fsbusiness.co.uk> > I am sorry I had to laugh to myself at this a little. Hundreds of thousands > of poor Irish died in the potato famine - as anyone will know who has > visited Ireland and see the graves. I think this is an example of the > English massaging the facts a little! What it doesnt say is - most of the > food subsidies went to the Protestants (which were mainly powerful English > families and Scots) and the Catholics were left to starve. > > Dot xx > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jean R." <jeanrice@cet.com> > To: <IrelandGenWeb-L@rootsweb.com> > Cc: <TRANSCRIPTIONS-EIRE-L@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 6:29 PM > Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46 - > PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws > > > > > > SNIPPET: "Scenes of starvation were commonplace in Ireland by the end of > > 1846, but they had been a year in the making. Actual starvation had been > > averted at first, when the British government under Prime Minister Robert > > PEEL moved aggressively to counter the potato famine in 1845. PEEL was an > > old hand on matters Irish; he had been the government's chief secretary in > > Ireland, which meant that he was responsible for implementing government > > policy on the island. One of those policies was the introduction of a > > police force to keep watch over the rebellious Irish, and so even today it > > is not unusual to hear the police referred to as "peelers." PEEL had > > received an early warning of the potential disaster in Ireland when > > potatoes > > on the Continent and in England failed several times before the blight was > > detected in Ireland. While the potato was notoriously fickle, any report > > of > > its failure was bound to be greeted with apprehension, for even in > > England, > > the poor depended on the potato as a twice-a-day staple. In Ireland, the > > poor had nothing else, as everyone from prime minister to farm laborer > > knew. > > An Irish newspaper referred to the potato as 'the poor man's property' -- > > the only property the poor owned. William GLADSTONE, the future British > > leader, understood what might happen: "Ireland, Ireland, that cloud in > > the > > West, that coming storm," he wrote. When it came, its winds lashing > > Britain's political establishment, PEEL and his Conservative Party > > government scrambled to build makeshift shelters. They quickly ordered > > supplies of American corn shipped to Ireland, where the food was held in > > depots for eventual sale to the Irish poor. Public works projects, > > usually > > consisting of road building, were devised to give employment to men, > > women, > > and children, many of them so weak they could barely expend the energy, > > but > > all so desperate that they flocked to the projects. More dramatically, > > PEEL > > proposed a genuinely radical and politically courageous reform. For > > years, > > British farmers (and, more to the point, British landowners) had enjoyed > > government sanctioned protections in the form of high taxes on imported > > grain. The so-called Corn Laws were a linchpin of Britain's agricultural > > economy and indeed its social structure, for the land-owning aristocrats > > profited immensely from protection against foreign competition, allowing > > them to charge artificially high prices for their grain. Those landed > > aristocrats also happened to be the core of PEEL's party. The prime > > minister, however, decided that the Corn Laws would have to go, that the > > emergency in Ireland demanded nothing less. Free trade would lower grain > > prices and encourage shipments to Ireland, where bread and other grain > > products could take the potato's place. PEEL told his cabinet that the > > government could no longer in good conscience purchase corn from America > > for > > Ireland while a set of laws kept the price of food artificially high. His > > colleagues were appalled. As reports of dreadful, though not yet fatal, > > conditions in Ireland continued to pour into London, the cabinet debated, > > revolted, and adjourned; then debated, revolted, and adjourned again > > without > > taking action, even as conditions in Ireland worsened. But this was no > > act > > of callousness, for what PEEL proposed was nothing short of revolutionary. > > So much of what his colleagues held dear was intertwined with the Corn > > Laws. > > Their social, political, and economic dominance was held in place by the > > artificial prosperity of government-guaranteed profits from the land. > > Just > > before Christmas in 1845, PEEL paid the ultimate political price for his > > courage. With his own cabinet against him, he resigned. QUEEN VICTORIA > > asked the opposition leader, John RUSSELL, to form a Whig government, but > > he > > could not do so because his own party, though pledged to reform the Corn > > Laws, also was divided on the issue. PEEL once again became prime > > minister > > (even though a parliamentary colleague declared that he ought to die an > > unnatural death) and found himself forced to work with the Whigs to win > > reforms -- all in the name of saving the Irish poor. He won the battle in > > June 1846, and shortly thereafter his enemies in both parties combined to > > oust him once and for all from the prime minister's office. His career > > was > > ruined, a casualty of the Irish Famine. Under PEEL, nobody died of > > starvation in Ireland, though many suffered. With the change of > > administration in London, however, the situation in Ireland would change, > > too. In early July 1846, a shipload of American corn was turned away from > > Ireland on orders of the man PEEL had appointed to oversee relief > > operations > > in Ireland. Charles TREVELYAN was a devoutly religious and hardworking > > young man in his late thirties, and while he owed his assignment to PEEL's > > patronage, he strongly disagreed with his approach to easing the crisis. > > In > > TREVELYAN's eyes, the Famine quite literally was a God-sent opportunity to > > reorder Irish society. With PEEL out of office, TREVELYAN began to put > > his > > own stamp on Britain's response to Ireland's misery. He and the new prime > > minister, John RUSSELL, were much more compatible. As the new potato crop > > neared harvest in late July 1846, all seemed well, and it appeared as > > though > > the suffering would soon be at an end. TREVELYAN began shutting down > > relief > > operations in anticipation of an abundant harvest. Like so many of his > > peers, TREVELYAN believed that government should not meddle with the > > marketplace, for the market was nothing less than a reflection of God's > > will. As TREVELYAN closed up the food depots, he argued that it was "the > > only way to prevent people from becoming habitually dependent on > > government." Almost overnight, in early August, the promised harvest, the > > anticipated salvation, was ruined. The potatoes of Ireland turned black > > and > > rancid, and the fields smelled of death itself. Disaster had returned, > > and > > now the suffering would be fatal thousands of times of over. A police > > official wrote: 'A stranger would wonder how these wretched beings find > > food ... They sleep in their rags and have pawned their bedding.' > > Landlords > > began evicting their tenants, sending families into the countryside with > > nothing save the rags they wore on their backs. The eviction process was > > stark in its brutality: An eviction party, usually accompanied by > > constables, arrived to serve notice and, to underscore the point, pull > > down > > the roof of the tenant's cottage. The Irish countryside was filled with > > scenes of families, desperate and weeping, scrambling to retrieve what > > they > > could as the eviction party proceeded with its work. After the cottage > > was > > razed, most had nowhere else to go. And it was just beginning. The > > bureaucrats and politicians in London, charged as they were with seeing to > > it that the Irish people did not become dependent on government > > assistance, > > took a decidedly unemotional view of the suffering. TREVELYAN continued > > with the work he had begun in midsummer, when the potato crop had held > > such > > promise. He continued to shut down government-run food depots and public > > works projects ...." -- Excerpts, "The Irish In America," Coffey & Golway > > (1997). > > > > Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ > > It is a good place to get help with your family research. > > Help wanted: County Coordinators > > ------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > > IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > > > > > > Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ > It is a good place to get help with your family research. > Help wanted: County Coordinators > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

I am sorry I had to laugh to myself at this a little. Hundreds of thousands of poor Irish died in the potato famine - as anyone will know who has visited Ireland and see the graves. I think this is an example of the English massaging the facts a little! What it doesnt say is - most of the food subsidies went to the Protestants (which were mainly powerful English families and Scots) and the Catholics were left to starve. Dot xx ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean R." <jeanrice@cet.com> To: <IrelandGenWeb-L@rootsweb.com> Cc: <TRANSCRIPTIONS-EIRE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, September 29, 2008 6:29 PM Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Great Famine: British Government 1845-46 - PrimeMinister Robert PEEL's Response - Corn Laws > > SNIPPET: "Scenes of starvation were commonplace in Ireland by the end of > 1846, but they had been a year in the making. Actual starvation had been > averted at first, when the British government under Prime Minister Robert > PEEL moved aggressively to counter the potato famine in 1845. PEEL was an > old hand on matters Irish; he had been the government's chief secretary in > Ireland, which meant that he was responsible for implementing government > policy on the island. One of those policies was the introduction of a > police force to keep watch over the rebellious Irish, and so even today it > is not unusual to hear the police referred to as "peelers." PEEL had > received an early warning of the potential disaster in Ireland when > potatoes > on the Continent and in England failed several times before the blight was > detected in Ireland. While the potato was notoriously fickle, any report > of > its failure was bound to be greeted with apprehension, for even in > England, > the poor depended on the potato as a twice-a-day staple. In Ireland, the > poor had nothing else, as everyone from prime minister to farm laborer > knew. > An Irish newspaper referred to the potato as 'the poor man's property' -- > the only property the poor owned. William GLADSTONE, the future British > leader, understood what might happen: "Ireland, Ireland, that cloud in > the > West, that coming storm," he wrote. When it came, its winds lashing > Britain's political establishment, PEEL and his Conservative Party > government scrambled to build makeshift shelters. They quickly ordered > supplies of American corn shipped to Ireland, where the food was held in > depots for eventual sale to the Irish poor. Public works projects, > usually > consisting of road building, were devised to give employment to men, > women, > and children, many of them so weak they could barely expend the energy, > but > all so desperate that they flocked to the projects. More dramatically, > PEEL > proposed a genuinely radical and politically courageous reform. For > years, > British farmers (and, more to the point, British landowners) had enjoyed > government sanctioned protections in the form of high taxes on imported > grain. The so-called Corn Laws were a linchpin of Britain's agricultural > economy and indeed its social structure, for the land-owning aristocrats > profited immensely from protection against foreign competition, allowing > them to charge artificially high prices for their grain. Those landed > aristocrats also happened to be the core of PEEL's party. The prime > minister, however, decided that the Corn Laws would have to go, that the > emergency in Ireland demanded nothing less. Free trade would lower grain > prices and encourage shipments to Ireland, where bread and other grain > products could take the potato's place. PEEL told his cabinet that the > government could no longer in good conscience purchase corn from America > for > Ireland while a set of laws kept the price of food artificially high. His > colleagues were appalled. As reports of dreadful, though not yet fatal, > conditions in Ireland continued to pour into London, the cabinet debated, > revolted, and adjourned; then debated, revolted, and adjourned again > without > taking action, even as conditions in Ireland worsened. But this was no > act > of callousness, for what PEEL proposed was nothing short of revolutionary. > So much of what his colleagues held dear was intertwined with the Corn > Laws. > Their social, political, and economic dominance was held in place by the > artificial prosperity of government-guaranteed profits from the land. > Just > before Christmas in 1845, PEEL paid the ultimate political price for his > courage. With his own cabinet against him, he resigned. QUEEN VICTORIA > asked the opposition leader, John RUSSELL, to form a Whig government, but > he > could not do so because his own party, though pledged to reform the Corn > Laws, also was divided on the issue. PEEL once again became prime > minister > (even though a parliamentary colleague declared that he ought to die an > unnatural death) and found himself forced to work with the Whigs to win > reforms -- all in the name of saving the Irish poor. He won the battle in > June 1846, and shortly thereafter his enemies in both parties combined to > oust him once and for all from the prime minister's office. His career > was > ruined, a casualty of the Irish Famine. Under PEEL, nobody died of > starvation in Ireland, though many suffered. With the change of > administration in London, however, the situation in Ireland would change, > too. In early July 1846, a shipload of American corn was turned away from > Ireland on orders of the man PEEL had appointed to oversee relief > operations > in Ireland. Charles TREVELYAN was a devoutly religious and hardworking > young man in his late thirties, and while he owed his assignment to PEEL's > patronage, he strongly disagreed with his approach to easing the crisis. > In > TREVELYAN's eyes, the Famine quite literally was a God-sent opportunity to > reorder Irish society. With PEEL out of office, TREVELYAN began to put > his > own stamp on Britain's response to Ireland's misery. He and the new prime > minister, John RUSSELL, were much more compatible. As the new potato crop > neared harvest in late July 1846, all seemed well, and it appeared as > though > the suffering would soon be at an end. TREVELYAN began shutting down > relief > operations in anticipation of an abundant harvest. Like so many of his > peers, TREVELYAN believed that government should not meddle with the > marketplace, for the market was nothing less than a reflection of God's > will. As TREVELYAN closed up the food depots, he argued that it was "the > only way to prevent people from becoming habitually dependent on > government." Almost overnight, in early August, the promised harvest, the > anticipated salvation, was ruined. The potatoes of Ireland turned black > and > rancid, and the fields smelled of death itself. Disaster had returned, > and > now the suffering would be fatal thousands of times of over. A police > official wrote: 'A stranger would wonder how these wretched beings find > food ... They sleep in their rags and have pawned their bedding.' > Landlords > began evicting their tenants, sending families into the countryside with > nothing save the rags they wore on their backs. The eviction process was > stark in its brutality: An eviction party, usually accompanied by > constables, arrived to serve notice and, to underscore the point, pull > down > the roof of the tenant's cottage. The Irish countryside was filled with > scenes of families, desperate and weeping, scrambling to retrieve what > they > could as the eviction party proceeded with its work. After the cottage > was > razed, most had nowhere else to go. And it was just beginning. The > bureaucrats and politicians in London, charged as they were with seeing to > it that the Irish people did not become dependent on government > assistance, > took a decidedly unemotional view of the suffering. TREVELYAN continued > with the work he had begun in midsummer, when the potato crop had held > such > promise. He continued to shut down government-run food depots and public > works projects ...." -- Excerpts, "The Irish In America," Coffey & Golway > (1997). > > Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ > It is a good place to get help with your family research. > Help wanted: County Coordinators > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >

Mary I have found this for Western Australia at this stage, not sure whether it is related to your person or not Australian Electoral Rolls, 1901-1936 Name: Jeremiah McCarthy Gender: Male Electoral Year: 1916 State: Western Australia District: Fremantle Subdistrict: South Fremantle Address: 27 Jenkin Street Occupation: Labourer OR Australian Electoral Rolls, 1901-1936 Name: Jeremiah McCarthy Gender: Male Electoral Year: 1925 State: Western Australia District: Forrest Subdistrict: Forrest Address: Plavins Mill Occupation: Labourer The second one is more likely to be your man. There are scans available if you want me to send to you. Kind regards Jacquie Perth, Western Australia -----Original Message----- From: irelandgenweb-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:irelandgenweb-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Mary Simpson Sent: Tuesday, 30 September 2008 6:54 PM To: irelandgenweb@rootsweb.com; Rootsweb Cork Subject: [Irish Genealogy] Emigration to Australia Do any of the Australian listers have any advice please on searching for a JEREMIAH McCARTHY ( yes, I know, mea maxima culpa ) who is thought to have left the Ballymartle area of Cork in the later 1880s for Australia? Apparently he never married and on his death left bequests to his siblings families back home and in England. In the late 1920's my father and his brothers and sister ( Jeremiah's nephews and niece ) emigrated to Western Australia to farm between Westonia and Walgoolan. This may have been land farmed by Jeremiah. Are there any 1890 1900 Australian census that are on-line? Where do you start? Mary Check out the Ireland GenWeb website at: http://www.irelandgenweb.com/ It is a good place to get help with your family research. Help wanted: County Coordinators ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRELANDGENWEB-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Do any of the Australian listers have any advice please on searching for a JEREMIAH McCARTHY ( yes, I know, mea maxima culpa ) who is thought to have left the Ballymartle area of Cork in the later 1880s for Australia? Apparently he never married and on his death left bequests to his siblings families back home and in England. In the late 1920's my father and his brothers and sister ( Jeremiah's nephews and niece ) emigrated to Western Australia to farm between Westonia and Walgoolan. This may have been land farmed by Jeremiah. Are there any 1890 1900 Australian census that are on-line? Where do you start? Mary