But because the British government said the famine was over, there was no relief.
One night, a week after the New Year, Michael came home very angry. “A delay today with the coach and this official from London and some others waited in the forge. I had to listen to him go on and on about how the British people had been too generous to the Irish—a mistake. We must be healthy enough now. Some tenants were shooting at their landlords. Should have left us hungry and weak. He told the others that he’d seen battalions of soldiers on the road from Dublin. ‘A taste of the steel, that’s what’s needed,’ he said, ‘not a mouthful of free soup!’
“At first I said nothing while these men in their great heavy coats and beaver hats insulted the Irish people. Called us paupers! As if we were a different species—not human.” He imitated the English accent: “‘The footpaths better be cleared of the paupers’ bodies or fever will infect the town!’ one man said. And then the official answered, ‘They’re not dying fast enough.’ Well, I couldn’t let that pass. I pointed my hammer at him. ‘Not dying fast enough?’ I shook the hammer, but he wasn’t bothered. He looked at the other men. ‘This fellow doesn’t understand,’ he said to them. And then he started to instruct me, Honora, saying that wars and plagues and famine were nature’s way of reducing surplus population. He told me that the famous Nassau Senior, professor of economics at Oxford and an adviser to the government, is troubled that only a million of us have died. ‘That’s scarcely enough to do much good,’ this Nassau said.”
“Oh, God,” I said.
“Then the official told me, ‘Ireland will now be turned over to those who can make it pay. The land cleared and a great influx of capital, that’s what Ireland needs. Your country will look back on this blight as a great blessing!’
“I took a step toward him, ready to lift the hammer up and strike that evil man, but the boss shouted at me, ‘We’ve got horses waiting for their shoes!’ I stopped. The head blacksmith is a good enough fellow, and I respect the agent, Mrs. Carrigan.”
“Hard on you to stay quiet, Michael, but you have to.”
“I know. But, Honora, I’ve started to hear about these new Confederation Clubs that Young Ireland has started—Patrick’s friends—John Mitchel, Thomas Meagher, William Smith O’Brien. They’re giving speeches around the country, calling for the people to rise up.”
“Young Ireland would be better passing out food,” I said.
Night after night, Michael came home with what he’d seen and heard. More and more he talked about the Confederation Clubs and Young Ireland. With two shillings a day and the potatoes in the pit, he could lift his head and see the dimensions of our disaster.
“We’re a people on the edge of extinction,” he said, “and no one seems bothered about it.”
February came, and the snowdrops. Last year, I’d cut up the stems and made a soup with them. Now I took the children to pick a bunch of flowers for Mam. We put them in the tin can left from the soup line and went to Bearna. Michael’s two shillings a day had helped Da redeem his nets, and he was out with the fleet. Bearna was shaking itself awake, though the fever hospital near Máire’s cottage still spread its stench over the village and the wagonloads of corpses came out through the gates every night.
We were helping one another. Máire and Mam took a share of Da’s catch to Mother Columba at Presentation Convent and to Sister Mary Agnes at the Sisters of Mercy. The nuns fed thousands every day with no help at all from the government. Aid still came from America, from the Quakers and other kind souls. And Michael couldn’t pass a beggar in Galway but that he gave them a penny.
As we walked into the cottage, I saw Mam sitting, hands folded, looking into the fire. Praying for some news of Joseph and Hughie, and Dennis’s girls.
We’d heard nothing, though many American letters were coming now. The Clancys, the Wards, the Muldowneys, all received their passage money—the sailing season begun and the rescue under way again, the ones who’d escaped reaching back for those left behind. But nothing from our brothers or Patrick Kelly. I’d put Amerikay away from me. “I’d be betraying Michael,” I’d told Máire. “He’d know if I were still dreaming of going.”
“Here, Mam, a bit of spring for you.” I handed her the flowers.
“Thank you. Take some to Máire. She’s got her cottage looking very neat and tidy, Honora.”
“It’s nice for you to have her and her children near,” I said to Mam.
“It is,” Mam said. “Johnny Og went out in the boat with your da.”
“My ones are playing on the strand with the other children,” I said.
Families were slowly recovering—wages from Boston and New York sent fishing boats out from Bearna. We were the lucky ones, surely, though I never forgot that Michael had gotten his job at the forge because the last two blacksmiths took the fever and died.
“Wrong to rejoice with misfortune all around us,” Mam said. “Dennis and Josie and a dozen of our neighbors lost. It’d be such a comfort to know Joseph and Hughie were safe.”
“They’re good lads and you’re powerful with your prayers. We’ll be hearing from them.”
March brought a craze for sowing potatoes I couldn’t believe.
I walked up to the ridges where Michael was laying out our seed potatoes on Sunday, the only day he didn’t work at the forge—and let Father Gilley try to say anything.
The ground had taken a long time to thaw, but Michael hadn’t begrudged the freeze.
“Cold kills the blight,” he said. “It did last year. Look at the hillside.”
In the distance we could see figures everywhere, bending over their rows, setting potatoes into the beds. In Rusheen, Shanballyduff, Cappagh and every townland—all planting.
“Where did they find the seed potatoes?” I said.
“We are a resilient people, Honora. Anyone who survived this far must have a singular talent for finding a way. And also there are fewer . . .
He stopped but I finished his sentence. “Fewer people looking for seed potatoes?”
He nodded. “Another good harvest will make all the difference. Men who couldn’t sow potatoes last year are doing it now. That’s what I told the Confederation fellow from Dublin.”
“So they’re around again?”
“They are. Mitchel’s got his own paper now,
United Irishman
. He wrote that we should take to the streets like the French did.”
“The French?”
“Crowds in Paris drove their king out, one two three, Mitchel says. He’s asking why the West is asleep.”
“Tell him the West is hungry.”
“The West will wake, Honora. Remember how the boys sang that during the chestnut raid? Ah, but that was the day poor little Grellan . . . God rest his soul.” He stopped.
“Amen,” I said.
Only two years ago—a lifetime of sorrow lived in such a short time.
But now because of Michael’s labor and sound potatoes we would survive. Please God.
“Shall I do the sums, Michael?”
“Do them.”
“You’ve earned twelve shillings a week for twelve weeks so that’s seven pounds two shillings. Subtract the three pounds we gave Da to redeem his and the other fishermen’s nets and the money for seed, which left three pounds.”
“Good,” Michael said.
“Then there’s the pennies you spent for the tin whistle.”
“Jamesy’s taken to it.”
“He has,” I said.
“I’ve given a shilling or two to Mother Columba,” he said.
“That’s all right—I’ve allowed for that and the pennies you hand out to beggars.”
“It’s very hard to pass them by.”
“We have two pounds, five shillings now. We’ll need to buy food during the summer, hungry months when the pratties are finished. But this money and your pay should be enough to see us through.”
“We’ll have enough to help your family and the neighbors,” Michael said.
“We will. And if the fishing goes well, if we all stay healthy, if . . .”
“Bad luck to line up too many ‘ifs,’ Honora. I’m working at a decent wage. What more can we ask?”
“We should be able to save twelve pounds by Saint Michael’s Day,” I said. “In case the agent does come for the rent.”
“A good harvest and no blight will see us right,” Michael said. “Look at our neighbors.” He pointed to the fields.
“More courage needed to find and plant these potatoes than to rush through the streets of Paris,” I said.
Two weeks later, Michael brought the
Galway Vindicator
home from the forge.
“Listen to this, Honora. Smith O’Brien says that as a direct descendant of Brian Boru he has the right to create an armed National Guard. Thousands are signing up to join this force. And read this—” He pointed to the headline:
IRISH BRIGADE FORMING IN AMERICA
. “That’s it, Honora. That’s what Patrick’s been doing. That’s why we haven’t heard from him—he’s recruited Irishmen to come home and stand with us. Imagine thousands of armed men landed on the shores of Galway Bay, joining with this new National Guard. Smith O’Brien says the Irish fellows serving in the British army and in the police won’t fire on their own people. They’ll join us—all together, men again—taking back our country at the very moment the British thought they’d destroyed us. And Patrick there, raising Grellan’s crozier. Jackson will run away, Honora, and so will the English officials, foremen, and food traders. Beware the risen people.” He started to sing.
That chainless wave and lovely land
Freedom and nationhood demand
Paddy and Jamesy ran over. The boys listened with eyes wide and heads back and clapped their hands as Michael gave out the final verse in his strong, clear voice.
But, hark! a voice like thunder spake
The West’s awake, the West’s awake
Sing, Oh! hurrah! let England quake
We’ll watch till death for Erin’s sake!
The boys and Bridget laughed. Stephen said, “Da! Da!”
Till death. We’ve clawed our way back to life, and now he has to take on death?
“Hoo-rah! Hoo-rah!” the boys shouted.
My sons—only seven and five—unafraid, looking up at their da. A glorious thing if the exiles did return—the Wild Geese come back at last, with muskets on their shoulders and money in their pockets to chase away all those who’d profited from our misery, to claim the land that holds so many unmarked graves now. Would it console the dead to rest in the soil of their own nation?
But at the end of March, the British arrested John Mitchel for sedition. He was found guilty by a jury packed with government supporters, condemned by the words in the
United Irishman
that stirred Michael. In May Mitchel left Ireland, transported for fourteen years. Meagher and Smith O’Brien would be next. But Young Ireland would not be silent.
“They’re traveling the country, speaking to great crowds of people. The rising will come
before
the leaders can be jailed,” Michael said. It was early June now.
The children slept as we talked in low tones by the fire.
“I thought Young Ireland was going to wait until after the harvest.”
Michael shrugged.
“What about Patrick and the fellows from America?”
“They could be on the seas now,” he said.
“Could be? Doesn’t Smith O’Brien know? What about the English? Surely they are watching. Michael, they’ll arrest the lot of you. And Patrick’s still a wanted man.” I sat straight up. “Michael, you haven’t told the fellows at the Confederation meetings about Patrick, have you, haven’t said he’s your brother?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Michael, Patrick’s a danger to us. You can’t talk—”
“There’s only a few fellows know I’m related to the man who raised Grellan’s crozier at the demonstration.”
“Michael, you know there’s bound to be at least one informer among you.”
“Not these men, Honora. And besides, what will it matter if they know? After the revolution Patrick will be a hero.”
Michael soothed me with stories of all the countries that were chasing out kings and tyrants, and that now was Ireland’s chance and why couldn’t I have some faith?
But I thought of the soldiers who’d come that winter morning, singing their song, “Croppies, lie down,” and Jackson, a bad enemy waiting his chance to strike at us.
Michael slept, dreaming a brave man’s dream, and I lay awake worrying.
“The Church has taken against Young Ireland,” he said to me a few days later.
“That’s bad,” I said.
“Orders from Rome. The British will recognize the Vatican for the first time since Henry the Eighth, if the Irish behave.”
“Where are you getting this?”
“The fellows at the Confederation Club,” he said.
“So we’re to be done in by history again,” I said.
Paddy and Jamesy were awake and listening. Paddy stood up and said, “Until Ireland takes her place among the nations of the earth, let no man write my epitaph,” and Jamesy followed with: “The Harp is new-strung and shall be heard!”
“Very nice,” I said, and looked at Michael.
“Da taught us!”
“I see.”
“And listen, Mam.” Jamesy took out the tin whistle Michael had bought him and started to play “A Nation Once Again.”
“You see, Mam,” said Paddy, “Jamesy will march beside me playing that tune when we fight the Sassenach.”
Stephen, walking and talking now, shouted, “Hoo-rah!”
Brave words. Michael was planting the old hope in their young hearts. Freedom. A Nation Once Again. Our language, our songs, our stories, ourselves. A government that wouldn’t let its people starve to death while sending away the harvest to feed England. Jamesy and Paddy would remember these nights no matter what happened to Young Ireland. And they’d tell their sons, bury the seed deep within them, then tap down the scraws to protect the dream. Good. We needed that hope to survive, but . . .
“Kellys Abu,” I said. “But remember, boys, glory comes from living for Ireland, not from dying for Ireland. Am I right, Michael?”
“You are, Honora,” he said.
But the boys only looked at me. The Warriors of the Red Branch
fought.
“You’re dead!” they’d shout when they thrust their imaginary swords at one another.
“Da,” Paddy said, “let’s sing the one about the minstrel boy who fell in battle but his harp kept playing.”