MARY WRAPPED UP THE CHILDREN WARMLY, FOR IT WAS BITTERLY COLD outside as they prepared to set off on the long walk to Skibbereen.
‘Where are we going, Mammy?’ asked Nora, curious.
‘We are walking all the way into town to get the soup,’ she tried to explain.
Kathleen and Honora Barry had both told her of the big soup kitchen that had opened in the mill by the river. Nell and her family had gone there twice already, joining the long lines of people waiting for a portion.
‘It’s the grandest soup ever,’ Nell had declared. ‘There was enough even to help fill those hungry boys of mine!’
Brigid had announced shortly after that she too was taking her children into town to take the soup as there was nothing in their cottage for them.
‘My heart is scalded with it, Mary, watching them all go hungry!’ she had fretted.
So the two friends decided to journey the four miles to town together, their nine children walking along beside them.
After only a mile or two, Annie demanded to be lifted up and carried.
‘She has you wrapped around her little finger,’ teased Brigid.
They passed close to the roadworks at Oldcourt, near the pier where John and Denis were employed, but caught no sight of their husbands.
Growing tired, the children slowed down … for none of them had the strength or energy for walking they had before the hunger came.
‘It’s only another two miles,’ Mary cajoled them, ‘and then there is a grand feed of soup waiting for you.’
‘I’m tired,’ complained Brigid’s youngest, wanting to sit down and rest only a half-mile later.
‘It’s only a little bit further,’ promised her mother.
As they neared the town, the road began to get busier. Hundreds of people were all making their way to the soup kitchen. The children huddled close to their mothers for fear of getting lost.
‘We need to get a ticket at the dispensary first,’ explained Brigid.
They then joined the long line of people all along Bridge Street, making their way slowly towards the mill …
Mary had never seen the like of it as they turned on to Ilen Street. Old and young, hungry and weak, all were lined up, some with their tin cups, to enter the soup kitchen. Some were so exhausted and starved that they could barely walk. Their legs and arms were like sticks dressed in rags. Hunger was etched on their thin faces. A man checked their tickets and beckoned them forwards.
Inside the mill was hot and steamy and packed. They could see a huge boiler, and two large serving pots, filled with soup. Behind that, a group of women in aprons were cutting and preparing more vegetables to put in the boiler.
The children grew nervous as they neared the server, a red-faced woman who ladled out a half-bowl of soup for each of them. She gave Con and James – Brigid’s eldest boy – a larger ration than the younger ones. She then filled Mary’s can with a pint of soup and pointed out where they could get a hunk of bread each before sitting down at the long narrow dining tables to eat.
‘Can I get some extra to take home for my husband, please?’ Mary begged.
‘We can’t be doing that,’ the woman said, shaking her head. ‘Or else there wouldn’t be a drop of soup left for all the people here.’
Mary took her seat with Brigid and the children, and made sure that Tim and Annie ate.
The soup was salty, made with carrots and turnip, onion, rice, barley and a little beef. She ate it slowly, not wanting to turn her stomach as she had eaten little for the past two days. The bread she would save for John. Brigid’s three boys gulped it down quickly, as did Con, while Nora said little but took it spoonful by spoonful, savouring it. There was little conversation around them as everyone concentrated on their meal.
At the table next to theirs, a pale-faced boy of about eight was shaking his head. Despite his mother’s pleas he refused to take the soup, telling her he was no longer hungry. The poor woman dipped her finger into the bowl and made him suck it as if he were a baby.
‘Suck, my little peata,’ she crooned. ‘Suck, my little lamb child.’
Before long, a bell rang to signal that all those eating must move on and make way for the next group. A tall young woman came over to collect their bowls and spoons for washing, and urged them to leave.
The soup had warmed them and filled their stomachs, and Mary felt better for it.
Con shouted out when he caught a glimpse of his cousin Jude in the distance, lining up on Ilen Street with his mother, Kathleen.
Mary ran over to speak to them.
‘Even though it’s near on our doorstep, we’ll be here a good two hours or more, waiting.’ Kathleen shrugged. ‘Take your children home before it rains and sure, I’ll see you the next day.’
Walking the long miles home took an age, for the younger ones complained. Tim kept saying that his foot hurt, while Brigid’s youngest, Sally, claimed the soup had made her stomach sick!
‘Aren’t they the grand family we have, after them all being fed!’ Brigid sighed as the rain began to fall, soaking them all through.
Mary was glad to get home and sit at the warmth of her own fire. Taking out her scissors, needle and thread, she began to fashion a special pocket concealed in the folds of her wide skirt where she would hide her can on their next visit to the soup kitchen. She would use a lid made of thick cloth to contain a half-pint of leftover soup, which she would save for John.
Every day the children complained about the long miles they now walked to Skibbereen, but Mary would hear none of it. The soup would take the worst of the hunger off them. She would not let them starve like others around them or watch the flesh fall from their young bones. So they walked the hungry road …