Creagh
JOHN HAD SAT AND LISTENED QUIETLY AS MARY TOLD HIM ABOUT THE death of the dressmaker and her unexpected generosity. Upset and nervous, Mary showed him the money she had raised from pawning the woman’s few possessions.
‘Am I a desperate thief for taking Honora’s things and selling them?’ she fretted. ‘Perhaps I should have left everything as it was.’
John studied the few short words.
‘Miss Barry wrote you this note,’ he said. ‘Obviously the poor woman was all alone and afraid of dying. You were the one who visited her more than most. She helped you as best she could, by giving you some work when she had it.’
‘I feel so guilty that I did not get the chance to say goodbye to her or pray over her.’
‘She is at peace now,’ he soothed, ‘but I think it is clear that as she neared her end, she intended for you to get your wages and follow her wishes.’
‘I will never forget her for it,’ Mary said softly, finally giving in to tears at the loss of her friend.
As spring turned to summer and the days grew warmer, the Sullivans’ fields lay bare. Like all their neighbours, they had no money for seed potatoes and were still afraid to plant them. Mary had sown half a field of turnips and cabbages because at least they were crops upon which they could rely.
All around them her family saw small farms and holdings empty as starving families were forced either to abandon their holdings or give up their land. The landlord’s agents were ruthless and turned out men, women and children on to the roads.
‘If they come near us we will use Honora’s money to pay the rent,’ Mary offered.
‘I fear it is too late,’ John said. ‘The landlords and their gombeen men want to rid the land of people like us. They want to clear small tenants off their holdings and turn the fields to tillage and pasture.’
Fear crawled in Mary’s stomach. What would happen if they were put off their land? They had six children to think of now.
‘Four families were evicted off their holding up near the Old Hill Road four days ago,’ John said, his face serious. ‘I am going to the Learys’ to meet Denis and a few of the other men to talk about it. There’s a rumour that anyone with more than a quarter-acre will get no relief or assistance of any kind unless they give up their holding.’
The sun was dipping in the red sky when he returned home that evening. Anger and dismay were written across his face as he beckoned her to come outside.
‘What is it, John?’ she urged.
‘It’s all true. This new quarter-acre law affects tenants like us. Anyone with more than a quarter-acre must give up their holding if they want to get a bowl of soup or a bed in the workhouse. Imagine, a man must renounce the field he has worked for thirty or forty years in order to get any type of assistance – a bite to eat for his child or a bed for his sick wife to lie in. What kind of law is that?’
‘It’s cruel!’
‘Cruelty doesn’t come into it!’ he spat bitterly. ‘All across the Mizzen they are tumbling the cottages, pulling down the thatch and kicking out the doors so people cannot find any shelter there. They’re forcing people to move from their home place. All they want is to clear the place of small tenants.’
‘Where are people going?’ she ventured.
‘It’s some choice,’ he said scornfully. ‘The road with nothing, or the workhouse. I’ve heard that the Union’s guardians are making each landlord pay a contribution to the keep of their tenants there. Some are offering to assist with paying their passage to Québec and New York. I’ll not give up this place easily.’
Mary could sense her husband’s rage and sadness at the prospect that they might be forced to leave Creagh.
‘John Sullivan, I tell you, if we are put out of here, this family will not set foot in the workhouse,’ she told him firmly. ‘Flor and Molly wouldn’t go because they would have been separated, and I’ll not be separated from you and the children.’
‘Then we’ll take passage to North America, like Pat did.’
‘Leave Cork? Leave Ireland?’
‘Aye, what else can a man do if he is left with no roof over his head and no land to work but travel the ocean in search of a new life away from this misery? Pat was the wise man who left when he could.’
Mary tossed and turned all night as John’s words ran through her head, over and over. How could they ever leave this, their home place?