Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-01T20:08:32.133Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changing fortunes on the Aran Islands in the 1890s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Brian Harvey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

By the turn of the twentieth century the west of Ireland had become a geographical expression synonymous with poverty and destitution. Whilst in the eighteenth century Connacht was regarded as inaccessible, it was not considered to be overpopulated, hungry or poverty-stricken. Its economic and social condition began to change for the worse in the nineteenth century. From 1816-17 onwards the western seaboard was affected more and more severely by a series of famines and localised distress and typhus. Hardship on the islands off Mayo and Galway was so severe in 1822-3 that London philanthropists set up a committee to launch a large-scale relief programme. The committee blamed the distress on potato failure, ‘want of employment’, high rents and low agricultural prices.

The deterioration in economic and social conditions is considered to have been exacerbated by the equalisation of the currencies of, and the removal of tariffs between, Ireland and Great Britain in the mid 1820s. Some rural industries, like textiles, glass and kelp-production, were wiped out. The resistance of the western economy to natural disaster was thereby severely weakened. The western isles were hit badly by the distress of 1835 and even more so by the Great Famine ten years later. Rents remained high whilst incomes fell.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 107 , May 1991 , pp. 237 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Simms, J.G., ‘Connacht in the eighteenth century’ in I.H.S., ix, no. 42 (Sept. 1958), pp 116-33Google Scholar.

2 O’Neill, Timothy P., ‘The state, poverty and distress in Ireland, 1815-45’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University College, Dublin, 1971)Google Scholar.

3 Report of the committee for the relief of the distressed districts in Ireland appointed at … the City of London Tavern on the 7th of May, 1822 (London, 1823), pp 1-31.

4 Ibid. and appendix.

5 Almquist, E.L., ‘Mayo and beyond: land, domestic industry and rural transformation in the Irish west’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Boston University Graduate School, 1977), pp 132, 146Google Scholar.

6 Burke, Helen, The people and the poor law (Dublin, 1986), p. 170 Google Scholar.

7 Preliminary report from her majesty’s commissioners on agriculture, [C. 2778], H.C. 1881, xv, 1-24; Report of her majesty’s commissioners of inquiry into the working of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, and the acts amending the same, [C. 2779], H.C. 1881, xviii, 1-68.

8 Second report of the royal commissioners on technical instruction, vol. I [C. 3981], H.C, 1884, xxix, 531.

9 Report from the select committee on industries (Ireland), H.C. 1884-5 (288), ix, pp iii, iv, 1-713.

10 Ireland, John de Courcy, Ireland’s sea fisheries: a history (Dublin, 1981), pp 69, 75-6Google Scholar.

11 Tenth report of the Local Government Board for Ireland, [C. 3311], H.C, 1882, xxxi, 9, 158; Eleventh report …, [C. 3581], H.C, 1883, xxix, 20; Twelfth report …, [C. 4051], H.C, 1884, xxxviii, 11, 24

12 Michael Davitt, ‘Remedies for Irish distress’ in Contemporary Review, Nov. 1890, p. 626.

13 Curtis, P., Coercion and conciliation in Ireland, 1880-1892: a study in Conservative unionism (Princeton, 1963), p. 372 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Tom Ferris, ‘The real power is still locked in government hands: how the semi-states reached the millionaire status’ in Irish Independent, 8 Jan. 1980.

15 Burke, Oliver J., The south isles of Aran (County Galway) (London, 1887), pp 66–70 Google Scholar.

16 Browne, C.R., ‘The ethnography of Inishbofin and Inishshark, County Galway’ in R.I.A. Proc., xix (1893-6), pp 317-70Google Scholar.

17 Burke, Aran, pp 72-3.

18 Congested Districts Board for Ireland, Base-line reports (Dublin, 1894)Google Scholar. This is a series of privately printed reports; they can be found collected in one volume in T.C.D. Library, MS Press A.711.

19 Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891 (54 & 55 Vict., c.48).

20 S.P.O., C.S.O., R.P. 1894/8153.

21 Robert A. Thompson to western division of R.I.C., Spiddal, 13 July 1891 (ibid.).

22 Note by under-secretary, 4 Aug. 1891 (ibid.).

23 W.S. Green, inspector of fisheries, 6 Aug. 1891 (ibid.).

24 W.L. Micks to West Ridgeway, 6 Nov. 1891 (ibid.).

25 Minute 25294 of finance division of Treasury, 7 Nov. 1891 (ibid.).

26 G.P.O., London, to under-secretary, 15 Mar. 1892 (ibid.).

27 Fr McPhilpin to chief secretary, 10 Feb. 1894 (ibid.).

28 Ibid.

29 Memorial from Inisheer signed by 36 islanders (ibid.).

30 Congested Districts Board, Minutes, 12 Oct. 1900. A set of these printed minutes is in N.L.I., L.O. 2333.

31 Robinson, Henry, Memories, wise and otherwise (London, 1923), p. 112 Google Scholar.

32 W.L. Micks to under-secretary, 19 Feb. 1894 (C.S.O., R.P. 1894/8153).

33 C.S.O., R.P. 1892/2766.

34 Ibid., R.P. 1893/9040.

35 Congested Districts Board, Minutes, 12 May 1892.

36 Ibid., 9 June l892.

37 Fr McPhilpin to chief secretary, received 15 Feb. 1894 (C.S.O., R.P. 1894/8153).

38 C.S.O., 20 Feb. 1894, Minute 2351.

39 Galway Express, 10 Feb. 1894.

40 Ibid.

41 Sergeant M. Gleeson to western division, R.I.C., 18 Feb. 1894 (C.S.O., R.P. 1894/8153).

42 Chief secretary to Fr McPhilpin, 1 Mar. 1894, extract from minute 3008 (ibid.).

43 Fr McPhilpin to chief secretary, 4 Mar. 1894 (telegram) (ibid.).

44 Under-secretary to Dowdall, n.d. (ibid.).

45 H.A. Robinson to chief secretary, 14 Mar. 1894 (ibid.).

46 Irish Catholic Directory, 1895, p. 312.

47 Fr McDonald to chief secretary, 4 Apr. 1894 (C.S.O., R.P. 1894/8153).

48 Report by Major Ruttledge-Fair, 5 Apr. 1894 (ibid.).

49 Report by Major Ruttledge-Fair, Kilronan, 7 Apr. 1894 (ibid.).

50 Resolutions of Galway board of guardians, 11 and 16 Apr. 1894 (ibid.); Galway Express, 21 Apr. 1894.

51 C.S.O., R.P. 1894/8153.

52 Galway Express, 26 Apr. 1894.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 Freeman’s Journal, 3 May 1894.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 Resolution of the Galway board of guardians, 27 June 1894 (C.S.O., R.P. 1894/8153).

59 Micks, W.L., An account of the constitution, administration and dissolution of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland from 1891 to 1923 (Dublin, 1925), p. 42 Google Scholar.

60 Congested Districts Board, Minutes, 8 May 1923.

61 Hedderman, B.N., Glimpses of my life in Aran: some experiences of a district nurse (Bristol, 1917), p. 80 Google Scholar.

62 Mould, Daphne Pochin, The Aran Islands (Newton Abbot, 1972), p. 152 Google Scholar.

63 Micks, Congested Districts Board, p. 73.

64 Cross, Irish White, Report for 1922 and accounts to 31 August 1922 (Dublin, 1922), pp 70–71 Google Scholar.

65 S.P.O., Cabinet minutes and files, SI 693.

66 Ibid.

67 Ireland, Ireland’s sea fisheries.

68 These figures are the result of an examination of successive annual reports.

69 Hansard 4, lvii, 1442-76 (13 May 1898).

70 Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland): minutes of evidence taken before the departmental committee of inquiry, pp 868-9 [C. 3574], H.C. 1907, xviii, 934-5.