Corkaboy 1847
Corkaboy
By
1847 Edward Griffin was married and living with his new wife Catherine Sheehan
on the Corkaboy townland, literally next door to Ardcanaght and his
Kilgarrylander parish. Most people in 19th C Kerry married into a very small
circle of friends. In 1845, when they married, Catherine Sheehan was 17 and
Edward Griffin was 29. Most people at this time married in their early
twenties. Later, as a result of the Great Famine which reached a peak in
1847-50, the average age was over 30. If Catherine had come from a wealthier
family she would have had a dowry which would then have been used to enable the
husband’s sisters to get married, and on and on it would go.
Corkaboy
townland is an area of 150 acres in the south of Kerry. It runs roughly
north-south, and is approximately 200 metres wide and about 1500 metres long.
Its southern rim abuts the River Maine. To the north, only a few kilometres
beyond the present-day R561 lie the forbidding Slieve Mish mountains – old red
sandstone remnants of the alluvial plain which formed Kerry eons ago. Grassy
and windswept, in the 1840s its glacial valleys were scenes of some of the most
desperately poor in a world of poverty. To the west, the River Maine dawdles
over mudflats before emptying into Castlemaine Harbour, which in turn opens out
to the Atlantic Ocean. There was little to prevent the residents of tiny Corkaboy
being battered by the sometimes ferocious storms which would be a regular
feature of this landscape.
Edward
Griffin had firsthand experience of this during The Night of the Big Wind in
January 1839. It was a storm like no other in Irish history. The day before –
January 5 – had been unusually cold and snowy. Yet the following day (a Sunday,
the 12th day of Christmas) dawned still, warm and clammy. Voices could be heard
from afar through the electric air. Mid-afternoon the rain started to fall and
the wind picked up. Edward Griffin would have been celebrating the Feast of the
Epiphany by attending Mass in the Kilgarrylander parish church in the morning
and gathering with family and friends for lunch. Corkaboy was about to be hit
by the largest hurricane in 300 years.
“The
noise of the sea crashing against the rocks could be heard for miles inland,
above the roar and din of the storm itself. The earth trembled under the
assault; the ocean tossed huge boulders onto the cliff-tops of the Aran
Islands.” (https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/the-night-of-the-big-wind-6-7-january-1839)
In the towns, many died from being crushed by falling chimneys. All the water in the Tuam Canal was blown out. So many birds were killed that there was no birdsong that spring.(https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/the-calm-before-the-big-wind-of-1839-was-particularly-eerie-1.3257684) In the countryside the poor buried their dead as best they could. There were no roads in Edward Griffin’s time, beyond the horse and buggy tracks and paths formed from shepherding animals. The weather and lack of maintenance meant that usually they were muddy and unpredictable. There was no help from afar.
The
Night of the Big Wind became a marker in the lives of a population which had
few markers. In 1901 when authorities were conducting the ten-yearly Census,
older folk who could not remember their birth year were asked how old they were
when they experienced the Night of the Big Wind. From this an age was
estimated.
Corkaboy
was one of thousands of townlands which made up County Kerry. Bordering
Corkaboy was Caherfealane and Keel to the west, Gortaneden to the north, and
Ross to the East. Why do we know Edward and Catherine Griffin lived in
Corkaboy? Because in 1825 Richard Griffith was commissioned by the British
Government to carry out a boundary survey, and later a valuation, of every
property in Ireland. The English Parliament had absorbed Ireland into the UK in
1798, and soon realised they knew very little about it. They had a small matter
to deal with in Europe at the time with someone called Napoleon, which took
some time, but when that was over they put Richard Griffith to the task. It
took him over 40 years to finish the job. He turned his mind to the landowners,
farmers and cottiers of Corkaboy in 1847. His Griffith’s Valuation is one of
the most valuable tools for researching 19th C Ireland today.
According
to Griffith’s Valuation, Corkaboy was divided up into nine valuations which
totalled 154 acres. Timothy Brien tenanted one block, with Edward Rae as the
landlord. Timothy Sheehan tenanted two blocks, paying rent for both to Edward
Rae. But he also sub-leased a block to Redmond Moriarty, so he was both a
tenant and a landlord. In Edward Griffin’s case, he was a co-tenant with
Timothy Sheehan, of 17 acres, with Edward Rae again as landlord. John Sheehan
also rented a block, but his landlord was his namesake (brother?), Timothy
Sheehan. Edward Rae is listed as “In Fee”, which means he actually owned the
land listed in his name. John Rae – brother, father, son? – is also listed as a
landowner. The last tenant is a woman, Elizabeth Neill, paying rent to John
Rae.
So
land tenure in Corkaboy was a complex mix of outright ownership, renting,
co-renting and sub-leasing. Some surnames dominate – Rae and Sheehan
specifically, although in other townlands the mix is different. It is clear
Edward Rae (and possibly John Rae) are the major landholders. The fact that
Edward Griffin was not even a sole tenant suggests that he was barely above the
level of labourer, the lowest level in the Irish economic system at the time.
Edward
Griffin’s shared tenancy with Timothy Sheehan was the northernmost section,
furthest from the sea, and along the road from Castledrum to Dingle. It was
flat land, between the barren Slieve Mish Mountains to the north and
Castlemaine Harbour to the south. As a cottier Edward Griffin grew some corn
and potatoes, and perhaps had a cow. After the Napoleonic Wars were settled in
the 1820s new markets for Irish goods meant that this way of life was coming to
an end. Rent increases were common, and Edward Griffin found that he could not
live without working as a labourer elsewhere, which meant that he would be up
before sunup, and arrive home late. Often, he would be away for days at a time,
building county roads or harvesting for wealthier farmers who could afford to
pay for labour.
Gerald
Griffin was an Irish novelist from Limerick who wrote about one event which
would have been typical – All Saints Eve, October 31. “The peasant sees, at
this period at least, the assurance of present abundance around him. He beholds
the vast extent of land all cultivated….. gardens of stubble covered with
shocks of wheat, oats and barley…fields of potatoes… the stroke of the flail,
and the clack of the water-mill are in his ear…” It’s the end of the season,
and time to give thanks. “…he sees the potatoes, they are his and his pig’s by
right, and he and his pig are merry fellows while they last, and while they can
procure a turfen fire, or the smoke of a fire, to warm the little cabin about
them.”
It’s
easy to place Edward Griffin and young Catherine in amongst this group as they
gather to celebrate All Saint’s Eve when Gerald Griffin was writing in 1842.
Celebrations take place “at the house of a respectable farmer…The earthen
floor has been swept as clean as a new pin; the two elderly rulers of the
mansion were placed side by side in two venerable, high-backed, carved wooden
chairs, near a blazing turf fire.” Everyone was there - “…their daughter, a bright-haired
Munster lass… all alive with spirit and jocund health… contending with and far
overmatching the wits of two rustic beaus, the one the assistant of the village
apothecary, the other a wild, rude, red-faced savage.” “The school-master, the
seneschal [Master of the House], , half a dozen neighbours, and a few
shy-looking, rosy-cheeked girls… while Paddy the gorsoon [young servant] and
two maid-servants sat whispering together…”
Then
the fun started. First the singing. The “jolly-looking fellow in the corner…
stretching out his unstockinged, polished and marbly legs… snapped his fingers,
and made glad the heart of his ancient host by leading out the famous old
chorus…
I
love ten-pence, jolly, jolly ten-pence;
I
love ten-pence better than my life;
I
spent a penny of it,
I
lent a penny of it,
I
took eight-pence home to my wife.
All the way down to
I
love two-pence, jolly, jolly two-pence;
I
love two-pence better than my life;
I
spent a penny of it,
I
lent a penny of it,
I
took NOTHING home to my wife!
Laughter
all round. Then, let the games begin –
The chorus having died away in a most musical
discord, a clear space was made in the midst, and a fat faced little urchin,
clambering up the back of one of the high chairs, lowered from the roof a sort
of apparatus made of two laths crossed, and suspended from one of the bacon
hooks above by a whip-cord, fastened from the centre. A large bag of apples was
now brought forward from the corner of the room, and two of the sleekest and
largest affixed to the extremities of one of the cross-sticks, while the other
was furnished with two short bits of candle, lighted. When the balance was
fairly adjusted, and the whole machine lowered to the level of the mouths of
the guests, it was sent twirling round with the touch of a finger; the fun
being now, to see who would fix his or her teeth in the immense apple, while in
rapid motion, and avoid taking, instead, the unwelcome inch of lighted candle,
which appeared to be whisking round in pursuit.
More
apples came out floating in a barrel, and much merriment followed as young and
old alike tried to bite into them to win the game for family pride, or to
impress the prospective boyfriend or girlfriend. As the evening passed and
tiredness crept in, the noise faded and all that could be heard were the
gossiping old cronies in the smoky shadows by the fire who had been unnoticed
previously.
“What
is it ye’re doing there?” exclaimed the old master of the house, looking
towards the corner with an expression of face in which much real curiosity some
assumed ridicule were blended.
“Oyeh
thin nothing in the world,” replied a smoke-dried, crow-footed, white-haired,
yet sharp-eyed hag, whose last three teeth were employed in masticating a piece
of “that vile, roguish tobacco.” “Nothing – only we to be talking among
ourselves of ould time – and things – the quare doings that used to be there
long ago –
Onst
on a time
When
pigs drank wine
And
turkeys smoked tobaccy..”
Gerald Griffin "Holland-tide" in The Aylmers of Bally Aylmer 1842
1842.
Edward was 26 and Catherine was 14. Within three years they would be married.
No doubt if they were not present at the All Saint’s Eve festivities described
above by Gerald Griffin, they would have been at something similar many times,
and no doubt glances were cast across the crowded, smoky room. There was a
certain inevitability about marriages in County Kerry, given people usually
married within a tight circle of acquaintances. There is no certainty that
Timothy Sheehan, Edward’s co-tenant – was related to Catherine Sheehan, but if
not there is a high probability that the young Catherine was from one of the
many Sheehan families nearby.
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