Chapter 11

‘Are there no names?’ asked Jessie, as she walked the perimeter of a small grass plot at the rear of the graveyard.

Ger leaned against the ivy-smothered dry-stone wall, which ran around three sides of the ground. ‘No, all the graves are unmarked, and I can’t find any records, but it’s a safe bet that this was where Johanna Markham was buried.’

A breeze rustled through the nearby trees. A lone magpie made an ack ack ack sound, like a machine-gun. The only indication that scores of bodies had been interred here came from a decades-old stone, its surface splotched with lichen. In Memory of Those Who Lost Their Lives in the Great Famine, it said. Jessie must have walked past these walls a thousand times, but now that she was inside, and now that she knew what had happened here, she found the experience unexpectedly moving.

Ger had finished work for the day, and she was having a late lunch. This was her fourth day at the Seashell Café, and while she wouldn’t admit it to Lorna, the job wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. Her colleagues, Ashling from Clooneven and Ivana from Croatia, were a laugh, and she’d yet to come across any completely obnoxious customers. Given that they sold only sandwiches, pastries and ice cream, there was nothing overly onerous or foul-smelling about the work. And who didn’t like the scent of fresh coffee?

She’d forgotten some of Clooneven’s qualities: the long, long evenings, the people who insisted on swimming regardless of the weather, and the fact that sea and sand retained the power to excite children. She’d also forgotten how people changed when they went on holiday, how even the weariest mothers and most semi-detached fathers tried on different lives. Oh, and corny as it sounded, she’d forgotten what it was like when the night sky was filled with stars. In Dublin, they were usually masked by an orange haze.

Several of the girls from her year at school had called in on the pretext of buying coffee. Their real mission, she sensed, had been to check if the rumours were true. They’d wanted a side order of smugness with their flat white.

‘Yeah, I’m giving Lorna a hand,’ she’d said to Venetia Lillis, as though she was making a charitable donation to her sister.

‘You’re constantly surprising us,’ replied Venetia, who was engaged to the local GP and wore her status like a crown.

Jessie suspected the girls’ WhatsApp group was hopping with confirmation of her return. Lads, it’s true! Hilarious to see her with the hair tied back and the apron on. No, I didn’t mention the TV show. The state of her!

She told herself not to worry about their judgement. She couldn’t allow herself to think of this as going home. As retreating or bailing out. She was performing a four-month act of contrition, and when her duty was done, she could go back to her old life.

‘Why didn’t they teach us things like this – interesting things, I mean – when we were at school?’ she asked, as she joined Ger beside the wall.

‘They did, only your head was elsewhere.’

She smiled. ‘I can’t argue with you there.’

She’d told him why she was working for her sister but only in the most general terms. ‘I’m at a loose end,’ she’d said, ‘and Lorna needs a dig-out.’ Although he hadn’t questioned her story, she had the feeling he was suspicious.

‘I suppose there’s every danger Bridget was buried here too,’ she said. ‘It’d be good to learn more.’

‘I’ve done a bit of work,’ said Ger.

‘Have you found her?’

‘If only it was that easy. For a start, I assumed she was married, which means her last name was no longer Markham. And, if you look at the records, there were thousands upon thousands of Bridgets. Not to mention all the Biddys, Bríds and Bridgies. I tried to see if I could find a Bridget whose maiden name was Markham, but didn’t have any luck.’ He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. ‘Many of the online search sites have quite high charges, which you might pay if you were an American looking for long-lost family, but . . .’

‘. . . Bridget isn’t our family, and we’re not looking to go the full toora-loora-loora on this.’

‘Exactly. So I had a look through a lot of what’s available for free. This is my list.’ He held up the paper, allowing it to flap in the breeze. ‘The parish register only began after the Famine. By that point, there were no Markhams in Clooneven.’

‘Are there any census records?’

‘No. Some were burnt in a fire during the civil war, and others were deliberately destroyed . . . which I suppose goes to show how much interest the authorities had in recording ordinary people’s lives.’

‘Typical.’

‘Anyway,’ he said, easing another piece of paper from his pocket, ‘just as I was about to give up, I found this. It’s in the County Library’s archive. If it does refer to the correct Bridget, and the details are accurate . . .’ He handed over the paper. ‘Here, have a look for yourself.’

The sheet, which had been printed from the library’s website, was headed, Reports and Returns Relating to Evictions in the Kilrush Union. 1847–1849. List of Families Ejected and Houses Levelled in the Townland of Boherbreen, Clooneven. Property of H. Frobisher. Jessie’s eyes scanned the page until she found what Ger was talking about: Head of Family: Bridget Moloney, Widow. Number in Family: 2 Females. Cause: Non-Payment. Quantity of Ground in Holding: 2 acres. Ejected in the superior courts in Dublin by Sir Henry Frobisher or his executors.

‘It’s her,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘More than likely, yeah.’

She looked again at the details. There were twenty-six families on the sheet, some of them with eight or nine children.

‘All that hassle over a cottage and two boggy acres,’ she said. ‘Who else was he going to rent them to? I mean, can you imagine evicting people who were already starving?’

‘I’ve been reading about Sir Henry. He had his defenders, you know. Apparently, he gave a small bit of money to the Church. Oh, and he claimed he couldn’t afford to pay the rates for tenants who weren’t producing anything.’

‘There’s always an excuse for the likes of him.’

That was the trouble with Ger: he was too reasonable. He was forever on the hunt for the other side of the story.

‘So,’ he said, ‘Bridget’s husband must have died from starvation too. Or else he caught some form of Famine fever.’

‘It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? She was probably younger than us and she’d already lost both parents and her husband. I’ve never been a fan of all that it-puts-everything-in-perspective guff. It just seems like another way of making you feel guilty. In this case, though, I’ll make an exception.’

‘That makes two of us. Actually, you can include the class, so that makes twenty-eight of us.’

She folded the evictions list and handed it back to him. ‘Did you find anything else?’

‘Once I reckoned I had her full name, I tried to see if I could find a notice of her death. A lot of the records are online, so I looked up women called Bridget Moloney whose deaths had been registered in Clooneven. There were a few, but none sounded right. Either their age or place of birth was wrong.’

‘So either our Bridget didn’t die around here, or she married again.’

‘Or she died before 1864 when the records began.’

Jessie checked her watch. She should have been back in the café ten minutes ago. ‘I wish I could stay and talk this through. I can’t risk falling out with my new boss, though.’

‘Maybe we could have a chat later in the week? Go for a drink or something?’

After her conversation with Etty, it had occurred to Jessie that tracing her own family’s story might make more sense. Even if they hadn’t made the history books, it would be interesting to know how they’d fared during the Famine. She was already invested in Bridget’s story, though: a life so different from her own yet lived on the same fields and streets.

‘You’re on,’ she said to Ger. ‘In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find out anything else.’

The Seashell Café was quiet, so Ivana went home early, leaving Jessie to clean up and count the takings. Say what you like about Lorna, and Jessie said plenty, she had built an attractive business. The front of the café was painted pistachio green while the interior was decorated in cobalt blue and white. Small stoneware vases stood on the bleached-wood tables, and seaside-themed paintings dotted the walls.

She was about to put the ‘Closed’ sign on the door when a man arrived. Before she could stop him, he’d swerved past and was standing in front of the stainless-steel counter.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘you’re too late. I’ve already switched everything off.’

‘Nah, you’re all right, love,’ he replied in a south Dublin drawl. ‘I’m not here to buy anything. I’m looking for Lorna.’

Jessie bristled at his use of ‘love’. She didn’t mind local old lads calling her ‘pet’ or ‘sweetheart’. She’d grown up with it. This guy, however, with his dark goatee, expensive runners and cheap leather jacket, was too smooth for her liking.

‘As you can see, she’s not here. I haven’t come across her since this morning. Why don’t you try the arcade?’

He tipped his head to one side. ‘If I’m not mistaken, you’re the famous sister, aren’t you?’

Here we go again. ‘Yep, that’s me.’ She tried to keep the impatience from her voice. ‘What’s your name? I can tell Lorna you were looking for her.’

‘There’s no need to tell her anything.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because here she is.’

Lorna pushed open the door and entered the café. She placed her large cream handbag on the counter.

‘I called you,’ said the man, jangling the change in his pocket. ‘You didn’t answer, so I thought I’d come and find you. Instead, I met . . . it’s Jessie, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ said Lorna. There was an unmistakable smell of salon shampoo from her hair. ‘I didn’t hear my phone.’ She checked the clock on the far wall. ‘You’re early.’

‘Only a minute or two. You know how much I hate poor timekeeping.’

Silence stretched between them. Jessie, still wondering who the man was and why he was there, sent a questioning look to her sister. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Never better,’ replied the man.

Lorna pulled at one earlobe. Her gaze slid towards him, but she addressed Jessie. ‘Weren’t you about to finish up?’ She was speaking slightly differently, as if trying to make her accent less rural.

‘I’ve got to wipe down the fridge and count the takings.’

The silence returned. Lorna and the man continued to look at each other, like they were sharing secret signals.

Jessie picked up a cloth. ‘Don’t worry, I can be speedy when I have to be.’

‘You can leave that to me,’ said her sister.

After dinner, Jessie went to her bedroom, took out her laptop and opened the website where Ger had found the list of evictions. She scrolled down, seeing townland after townland, family after family. She assumed that many of those forced out of their homes had ended up in the workhouse in Kilrush.

Another file contained a record of workhouse deaths. It covered only 1850 and 1851, but again the list was lengthy. The family names, all of them familiar, filled the screen: Harvey, Haugh, Hayes, Hehir. It read like a roll call of her class at school. Her own family name was there, as was Ger’s. The records showed that people had died of dysentery, consumption, smallpox and typhus. They had suffered from measles, bronchitis, fever and jaundice.

Biddy Bourke had been four months old when she died, Connor Corbett, six weeks. Pat Crowe had died on the day he was born. Michael Cunningham had been eighty-three. Few others had been older than sixty. There were notes beside some of the deaths. One man had been admitted in ‘a hopeless state’. Another was described as ‘a mere skeleton’. A third had been admitted ‘when all but dead’. Mary Cavanagh, aged fifty, was described as ‘a feeble old woman’.

Part mesmerised, part fearful, Jessie moved slowly down the page. Finally, she arrived at the Moloneys. There were three Bridgets. She breathed in quickly, then looked again. One had been fifty-nine, one forty-seven, the third just five.

It was entirely possible that her Bridget had died before 1850. She knew that. All the same, she was relieved.

The next file was different. It contained a series of reports from a London news magazine. A journalist and an artist had travelled to west Clare to document the catastrophe. The style was of its time, but the writing was compelling. The third dispatch was particularly moving. Halfway through, Jessie paused and returned to the start of the paragraph. She reread it. Then she read it once more. Even though the name wasn’t quite right, she was hit by a jolt of recognition. She looked at the accompanying sketch. Without going any further, she rang Ger.

‘I’ve found her,’ she said.