Drumilly Hill,
Ardrea
12th October 1846
My dearest Jonathan,
I admit, I have been so anxious, even when I kept telling myself that the dreadful gales this week must have disrupted the sailings between Belfast and Heysham and therefore delayed the post. When there was no delivery on Friday or Saturday, presumably because my robust postman had nothing to deliver, I knew I shouldn’t worry. But, nevertheless, I confess I did!
Now I have not just one letter from you, but two, and I do not know where to start. I am so relieved, so delighted by your cheering news and so grateful that you are well that, like a child with a bag of sweeties, I am overwhelmed by choice.
But, as you are always so good about reassuring me that you are well in body, however challenged in spirit, then I must begin by doing the same.
I can say honestly that I have been at work today as usual; the signs of storm damage are obvious all along my way. Sadly, one of those lovely chestnut trees I know I’ve mentioned to you had come down, right across the road, completely blocking my access to the house via the back entrance.
I had to turn around and drive back to the front entrance and ask the lodge-keeper if he could look after Daisy and the trap for me while I walked up and round to the housekeeper’s entrance, as we all call it. I assumed one of the outside staff would come and collect her but he refused completely to allow me to walk up the main drive. He said I was a valued member of staff, not a mere tradesperson. He was so fierce with me I had to laugh at the dear man and do as I was told. So Daisy swept me up in the trap, past the front door and around to the stables as if she lived there, which I suppose in a way she does while I am at work.
There is a fair amount of damage to trees and wooden fences on the estate but as Sir George said: ‘No one’s hurt, that’s all that matters.’
He is the kindest man. I can never be cross with him when he’s being irritable. It must be hard when everyone thinks you are there to solve their problems, especially when it is money. Just because he is a major landowner does not mean he has unlimited resources. And at the moment, he so misses his children. I don’t know why Lady Emma is so anxious to remain in Bath after their family holiday in England but I know Sir George is devoted to the little ones. I’ve seen him out walking with his eldest son in particular. He is just nine, very like his father in looks, and I know Sir George would so love to have him here.
I do hope we don’t have such dreadful storms when you come over for your December visit, especially as you are going up to Donegal where the weather is often more severe than here in Armagh.
Although I do read my newspapers carefully, even if I have been known to fall asleep over them after a long day, I did not know about the Belfast women’s group who have formed a committee to raise funds for destitute people in Connaught, nor did I know about the generous gifts from both the Indian army and the Sultan of Turkey. What you say about the flow of funds from America and from all parts of the community there, not just from Irish emigrants, is such very good news.
I must now tell you that Ben, our senior apprentice who emigrated last May, has been sending dollars regularly to me ‘to use as I see need’; that is why I have asked among the women who sew for the Thursday clothes stall if they have any family or friends in Tartaraghan.
It is only a few short miles away from Ardrea, but until you mentioned it to me, I was not aware of exactly where it lay and I had no idea it had one of the highest densities of population in any rural district in Ireland – over 7,000 souls and poor boggy land in an area only three miles by five miles. The people are, of course, mostly weavers working in their own homes and they are having great difficulties.
One of my neighbours on the market stalls tells me that a web of cloth, sixty yards long and three and a half days’ work, is fetching only two shillings and sixpence – and that is if there is any demand! Weavers with children would need at least five shillings a week for meal and flour along with potatoes to provide even a minimal diet. I’ve been told that a local doctor often called out at night, reports he has seen men still working at 2 a.m. in the morning. The potatoes, as you know, are a complete failure this year, unlike last year when it was partial and there was a good grain harvest as well.
I just hadn’t realised that women cannot join the relief committees that are springing up everywhere and I’m heartened by those Belfast women who have formed their own. What I’m hoping is that if I can find a few women in Tartaraghan to sew for the stall, I can encourage them to form their own committee as well. I’ll then use Ben’s dollars to buy meal and flour in bulk so they can better afford to buy it from their earnings. If I can buy in large enough quantities the committee can then provide, without charge, to those who have no money whatsoever.
My dear, what a practical letter I have written and so little of the thoughts and feelings we’ve been sharing recently, but I am now so overcome by tiredness I cannot begin to speak of other things. I shall, however, send this to you with Sir George’s mail tomorrow afternoon and I promise to write again in the evening.
My loving thoughts are with you,
Your sincere friend,
Sarah
Sarah was sadly aware of the drop in temperature as the month of October moved on. The days were cold and a sharp breeze brought wintry showers and flurries of snow. She got used to travelling home in the now early dusk, knowing that Scottie would be waiting anxiously if she was still on the road when it became fully dark. The only good thing about the flurries of snow, he said, was that it helped to keep the light for a bit longer.
Some of the old people with a reputation for predicting the weather had already said it would be a hard winter. As if the loss of jobs in both towns and in the countryside and the total failure of the potato crop were not burden enough, there was the question of trying to keep warm.
In one of the many reports and documents that came to Sir George’s desk, Sarah had read that the cost of keeping up even the most miserably small turf fire for a week was sixpence. It had also become clear that with no money at all coming in, many people had already sold items of clothing in order to buy food; now, dressed in rags, they were exposed to cold as well as hunger.
Work at the forge was quiet, but not much beyond the normal pattern for the short days when there was so little work on the land. There were still horses to be shod and tools to mend and Sam and Scottie had tackled a couple of orders for farm gates from some of the gentlemen farmers in the area. Given two workers instead of four and her own reliable income to subsidise their wages, Sarah was not immediately concerned about either Sam and his family, or about Scottie.
As for her good friend Mary-Anne, she and her two sons had a small, regular income from her sewing and from the farm, where they produced between them milk, butter, eggs and vegetables as well as hay. Jamsey had bought two piglets early in the year and hoped to have them fattened for Christmas when there was always demand for pork from the big houses.
‘My goodness, missus, that was a treat indeed,’ said Sam, putting down his knife and fork after cleaning his plate and licking his lips. ‘It’s the quare while since we’ve had spuds. If it’s not a rude question, how did ye come by them?’
Sarah laughed as she watched Scottie scrape up the last vestiges of the tasty champ she’d made with some of Mary-Anne’s butter and chopped scallions from the garden. Sam breathed a great sigh of satisfaction as she finished her own portion and then shared the small remains from the saucepan equally between Scottie and him.
‘You’ve Sir George to thank for those, as well as for giving me today off, “for overtime” as he always says. He had a big delivery of potatoes and vegetables earlier in the week and all the day staff got some to take home. I’ve a few more left and I’m watching like a hawk in case I see them begin to weep or start to smell, though I must admit they do look very robust to me. I’m wondering if they came from abroad. It’s hardly manners to ask, is it?’
‘Indeed no,’ said Sam quickly, as his small second helping disappeared as rapidly as the first. ‘Shure isn’t it good of the man to share what he has – there’s manys that wou’dn’t, an’ cou’den care less.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ she said, piling up their very clean plates. ‘We’ve neighbours enough getting no help at all. Do you know Tartaraghan, Sam? I know it’s not very far away but I didn’t know anything about it till I read a letter to Sir George from one of their clergy.’
‘I know Tartaraghan,’ said Scottie abruptly, ‘but only from Mr McMahon,’ he added, looking from Sarah to Sam and back again. ‘It has over seven thousand people in a rural district, five miles long by three miles wide, running from beyond Loughgall down to the shores of Lough Neagh,’ he began, his voice flat and featureless, his eyes focused on the grain of the well-scrubbed table. ‘It’s poor, boggy land with great patches of woodland and no real villages,’ he went on, still not looking at either of them. ‘The man who owns most of it, I forget his name, Sir Something Obre, lives in Belgium at a spa for the good of his health. He has a factor to collect his rents,’ he said, his feelings clear in his tightened lips and over-bright eyes when he finally looked up at them.
‘Well, ye certainly know more’n I do, though I know there’s many like him,’ said Sam, looking at his young workmate sharply and seeing his distress. ‘The wife’s granny comes from Milltown, down towards the shore, but she an’ her fam’ly up an’ away t’ Belfast a good while ago, some place called Ballymacarrett. Her ones were all weavers, even the childer worked at windin’, whatever that is,’ he said honestly, as he sat back in his chair and crossed himself, as he always did after he had eaten.
‘Two of the women who sew for the market are from Tartaraghan,’ said Sarah, looking at Scottie. ‘Do you not go there to collect from them?’
‘No, that must be Jamsey,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We have to divide up the jobs between us. He has to do the further away ones because Mrs Halligan doesn’t need their trap as much as you need yours.’
Sarah nodded as she stood up to make them mugs of tea. One of the two Tartaraghan women, Sophie Lawson, had come to the stall at the Thursday market last week simply to thank her for taking their work and selling it. She’d looked so tired when she arrived and made herself known, that Sarah wondered if she’d had to walk all the way to Armagh, seven or perhaps eight miles if she hadn’t got a lift.
What Sophie had said to her then, Sarah had reported to Jonathan in a letter that very evening. Without the Thursday market, Sophie would have no money at all coming in, she’d told him. Like most of her neighbours, her husband was a weaver: there was no market for his unfinished webs of cloth with cheap cloth already dyed and finished coming in from overseas at a lower price. There was no other kind of work to be had in the neighbourhood, apart from a bit of extra farm work at the harvest, and that was now long past. They’d heard about relief work being started in other parts of Ireland but there was nothing like that where she lived. They had five children and only a bit of a garden for potatoes. The potatoes were all lost and the few turnips they’d had were now all used up.
Although Sarah knew Jonathan would use what she’d sent him and report their plight immediately to the Quaker Relief Committee, she also knew the central committee was so pressed by requests for help it might take some time for them to set up soup kitchens in Tartaraghan. In the meantime, she had Ben’s dollars and a contact with a trader who was known to be very fair.
Last week, she’d bought as much meal and flour as the dollars would cover and then, with some of her own earnings, bought a few pounds worth of heavy fabric from her brother in Lurgan. He said he’d managed a specially reduced price for her, but she was perfectly sure that some of the reduction had been a subsidy from his own money. That fabric would give some more women a start making clothing for the stall. Hopefully the money it brought in would keep them going till some further help arrived.
‘Sam, I wonder if you could manage tomorrow without this young man,’ she said, as she fetched the teapot from the dresser.
‘I’m sure it wou’d be for a good reason, comin’ from you, Mrs Hamilton,’ he said, nodding his head.
‘Well, we can’t do much but it’s better than nothing. I’ve bought meal and flour with Ben’s dollars,’ she explained, ‘and I want to take it to Tartaraghan and get Sophie Lawson to help share it out to those worst off. The problem is it’s so heavy. It was cheaper to buy in big sacks but I’ll need Scottie to help me – if you don’t mind, Scottie,’ she said, glancing at him.
He just looked at her. It was a look which said that he would always do whatever she wanted.
The last Saturday in October dawned bright and cold, dazzling sun beaming from an icy blue sky as Scottie and Sarah manoeuvred the heavy sacks delivered by a carter earlier in the week. Even with their hard work struggling to get the heavy sacks up into the trap, they both felt the cold as they prepared to set off towards Tartaraghan. The Tartaraghan Road is not well known. It is only signposted on the outskirts of Loughgall. Sarah drew her old woollen shawl around her as she squeezed into her seat between two sacks of meal and let Scottie take up the reins.
The sunlight didn’t last, but as the sky clouded over they were grateful that the biting wind eased somewhat. They drove through familiar territory and soon passed Mr McMahon’s house on the outskirts of Loughgall. Scottie pointed it out to her before they turned north and then west on the Tartaraghan Road, following Jamsey’s careful directions.
Although there were thatched cabins dotted randomly along the road, the faint light from a now overcast, grey sky revealed little sign of human beings, only a dim, green, low-lying area with little sign of cultivation or people working. Beyond great stretches of boggy fields, dark patches of woodland stretched to the horizon. They obscured any sight of the wide acres of the biggest lough in the British Isles, one which Sarah had never visited but had seen gleaming in the sunlight from below the monument on Cannon Hill, one of John’s favourite Sunday walks.
Somewhere they must have taken a wrong turn, but one road seemed little different from any other and there were few landmarks to guide them, apart from a square church tower which appeared briefly and was then obscured by yet another patch of dark woodland.
Jamsey had mentioned the church which was near to Sophie Lawson’s home and Sarah was aware that it was the rector of that church who had written to Sir George asking for assistance. It was the obvious place for them to start their morning’s work. Finally they got there, directed by a woman ill-clad for the damp cold, carrying a basket of turf to a neighbour’s cottage.
There was no room in the trap so they couldn’t even offer her a lift, but Sarah leant down and told her to be sure to visit Sophie Lawson when she had done her errand, so she could carry home some meal in her basket.
Sarah would never forget the look on the woman’s face as she blessed them and gave thanks for the offer. So many people, cold and hungry, hiding in their cabins to escape the even more miserable cold of outdoors was a stark contrast to the indifference of a gentleman in Belgium: warm, well clothed and well fed, pressing for his rents and threatening them with eviction if they didn’t pay up.
They did manage what they had planned to do, delivering a large sack to each of the churches, then being warmly welcomed by Sophie who had a wood fire that smelt of pine branches. They stood over it, hands extended over the cheerful blaze, noses twitching with the scent of resin, while Sophie made them tea, asking them exactly what they wanted her to do with the sack they had brought for her.
‘Just use your own judgement, Sophie. Ask for a penny a pound from people if they have any income at all and keep it till you see Scottie here or Jamsey. Any money you can collect means we can buy more. But if you know they have no money give them what they need for a week and we’ll see what we can do for them then.’
Sophie nodded as she made the tea and offered some bread, apologising that she had no butter or jam. They both thanked her for the offer but Sarah insisted she had their lunch in two paper bags.
‘What d’ye want for the fabric, Sarah?’
‘I thought maybe a penny a yard, but not to be paid until something sold for them on the stall. Same reason. If we can bring in some money, however little, we can buy more. And someone might send us a present of money like Ben did. We can only hope, can’t we?’ she replied, grateful to feel warm again.
Sophie’s house was spotlessly clean and there was a glass jar with a handful of late flowering dahlias on the kitchen table. With her children gone to visit her mother, she’d been working on her current piece of sewing: it sat on a stool by her chair in the window, wrapped in an old but clean piece of torn linen.
She looked at Sarah and said, ‘Sure hope is all we’ve got, if we let go of that we’re finished.’
‘Well, we’ll not do that if we’re still fit to stand, will we, Scottie?’ she said, turning to him, as he looked round the bright room, his eye lighting upon some books.
‘Are you a reader then?’ Sophie asked.
He nodded shyly and then plucked up the courage to ask if he might look at them.
‘Surely, go ahead. I want Sarah to meet the other woman who sews for the stall. I didn’t actually know her till we found out about the stall. She lives a wee bit down the road,’ Sophie said, as they moved towards the open door. ‘We’ll call back and collect you to take Sarah home,’ she said over her shoulder, laughing when she saw Scottie promptly choosing one of the books and sitting himself down by the fire.
They were struck by a chill air as they went out together but the wind had dropped away completely. It was more damp than cold. They talked easily, Sophie speaking about her father who had been a teacher but who had died of fever when she was only a girl.
‘So who brought you up, Sophie?’ Sarah asked, wondering if children who had lost their parents always recognised each other.
‘A kind neighbour with no children of her own,’ Sophie replied promptly. ‘I married her son, but he was jealous of the children when they came along and he used to beat me. In the end, I was glad when he left me. I don’t know where he is. I sometimes tell people I don’t know, that he’s a weaver looking for work, but I couldn’t tell you that, could I?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you always tell the truth about things. You tell it the way it is and you expect the same in return. My father told me always to trust Quakers for their yea was yea and their nay was nay. And I’ve noticed you always mean what you say …’
Sophie broke off as they stopped by the closed door of her neighbour’s house.
‘Oh Sarah, I’m sorry. I’ve taken you away from the fire and I should have remembered Rachel goes to see her mother most mornings once she gets her own work done. That’s probably where she is now,’ she said apologetically.
She was about to say something else when they saw a woman hurrying to meet them. She appeared to be carrying a bale of cloth in both hands, but as she got nearer they could see it was not a regular bale, it was something wrapped in layers of white linen.
It became obvious what the burden was as she came up to them. The well-wrapped parcel was a dead child, its tiny face white as marble.
‘Mrs Lawson and you, lady, who iver ye are, can ye help me? I don’ care where I die or where they put me, but I want a coffun for this wee one an’ I haven a ha’penny to m’name. I’m no beggar. I’m not askin’ for food or anythin’ else, just a wee coffun for the chile so she’ll rest aisy. I’ll follow her soon enough. But they’ll not put her in the holy groun’ if there’s no coffun – they’ll put her under the hedge.’
Sarah had to swallow hard and try not to cry. What had she to cry about, she that had food, and fire, and friends, and a man that loved her, albeit it far away and not able to marry her.
She took out her purse. ‘Do you know how much it would cost?’
‘Maybe two shillings, maybe three. She’s very small for two years old. I couldn’t bring meself to ask the man who makes thim, when I knowed I had nothin’ to give him.’
Sarah opened her purse and found three shillings and a single penny. She gave the silver to the woman and the penny to Sophie.
‘If you go to Sophie’s house, she’ll give you meal,’ Sarah began trying to avoid the woman’s profuse thanks. ‘Have you a fire?’
‘I have whin I collect sticks.’
‘Can you sew?’
‘Aye, I’m a brave han’ at that. Work clothes and trousers an’ suchlike,’ she said, looking puzzled. ‘But sure what use am I, wi’ no husban’ an’ no childer left … I’d be better dead. If I saw me wee love inta the churchyard, I’d go willin’ enough.’
‘Would you not stay and give us a hand?’ said Sophie abruptly.
‘What d’ye mean?’
Sarah listened as Sophie outlined the plan they’d just put together to get food into the area until the soup kitchens could be set up and, still talking together, the three women walked back towards Sophie’s house which was on the way to the church. As they passed Daisy and the trap, tethered to a fence post, Sarah got up on the step, leant into the body of the vehicle and pulled out a paper bag from under the driver’s seat.
‘Here, that’ll keep you going till you cook some porridge,’ she said, putting it into her hand. ‘Will the little one lie in the church till the coffin’s made?’
‘Aye. He’s a good man, the rector. He’d not say no now that a coffun is comin’. That’s why I’ve swaddled her, but I can’t lay her in a manger like our Lord. She cou’dnt lie in church if I hadn’t a coffun. I can’t thank ye’s enough,’ she added, her voice suddenly thick with emotion and relief.
‘Don’t thank us, just give us a hand after you’ve been to the rector. Sophie will help you, and you’ll help others. We must keep up hope,’ she added, as she handed over the paper bag with some bread and jam for her lunch.