EPISODE 89 BUNMAHON AND KNOCKMAHON…MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE THOSE MINERS
EPISODE 89 BUNMAHON AND KNOCKMAHON….MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE THOSE MINERS
Look closely. See Barney Dwan resting comfortably on the cliffs of Knockmahon in 1960. Behind him
is one of the adits he showed me back then. When I think of that 1960 adventure today in 2020 I am surprised
that none of my work crew seemed to have any connection with the miners of Knockmahon between 1840 and 1880.
But I never asked really as we spent most of our time keeping cows from eating our cables.
I This picture of an Irish cottage was taken in Knockmahon in 1960. Had there been cameras invented in 1850, many
such pictures could have been taken. (alan skeoch)
alan skeoch
August 2020
I suppose most people who think of Ireland’s past history immediately say “Potato Famine” or
“The Great Hunger”. For good reason since 1 million Irish people starved to death in the 1840’s
and another 1 million fled Ireland for North America and Canada where living conditions were
somewhat better. The population of Ireland dropped from 8 million to 6 million in those years.
Today, August 7, 2020, it is easier for us to understand those bad years. We are in the midst
of the greatest Pandemic of our lives…Covid 19 has killed thousands of people already and
predictions are that eventually a million people will have succumbed to that tiny virus.
HOW DID THE POTATO FAMINE AFFECT BUNMAHON AND KNOCKMAHON?
The Irish miners of County Waterford were a mysterious people to me…ghosts in
my mind when I worked
over the old mine remnants in 1960. No one ever told me they were descendants
of those 2,000 men, women and children who dug, sorted and shipped oopper ore
from that thick but single vein of ore evident on the cliffs and eventually disappearing
into faults and tiny traces one mile inland from the sea. That vein reached 800 feet
below the ground…much of it out under the Atlantic Ocean.
Who were these people? Many of them remain a mystery but thanks to the research
of Desman Cowman, a high school teacher in the Christian Brothers school in Tramore…
Thanks to his impeccable research some of the curtain of mystery has been pulled
aside.
Here is what we know about those people…gleaned from fragments.
There was a leader who tried to shepherd the mine families through the starvation
years. He was a miner from Cornwall who came to Knockmahon along with many
other Cornwall miners. His name was Pentheric. (sp?) As early as1841 the spectre of starvation
hung over Bunmahon and mine manager Pentheric imported a large cargo of potatoes
and oatmeal which was sold cheaply to the mine families.
But it was not enough. By the dark year of 1846 deaths were common..
“There is a great increase
of fever in the district. From 150 to 200 are unemployed in the village of Bunmahon. A
considerable increase of fever is apprehended from the scarcity and high price of food.” (Feb. 1846)
“…a mining population of about 3,000 (guesiimate?) … some of these are in a state of
great destitution. They will no longer be supp[orted by the people of Kill and Newtown.
…Only 116 pounds (money) left. Lorenzo Power and Richard Purdy have left for Dublin to get some
emergency help.” (May, 1846)
“133 tons of Indian meal have been distributed since 2nd of June among 3,520 people.”
“A large quantity was distributed gratuitously and in return for work. (widening and straightening
public roads)…Any that had employment were sold the meal for prices ranging from 1/2 d to
6 d per stone (halfpence to sixpence). Half a stone being allowed per person per week.
The objects of relief in this district are chiefly cotters, farm labourers and miners.” (August 24, 1846)
(*Note: Indian meal, i.e. corn meal, was difficult for Irish people to process and eat so it did
not always stave off starvation)
“No more money to buy meal.: (Sept. 30,1846)
“The hinterland of Bonmahon is one of the great distressed parts of this country….There is apathy
to all farming orations and the ground is neglected.” )Feb. 22, 1847)
“Out of population of 5,000 in Kill-Knockmahon area on one day 3,500 applied for relief. There
were 1,400 on relief when food ran out.” (May to September 1847)
“The rest is silence. The dimensions of the disaster emerge in the census of 1851. One third of
the population of Bunmahon hadn’t survived … 628 people out of the 1,771 population recorded in 1841
had simply vanished and their fate goes unrecorded. The shanty-town survived. (But) 76 of the 90
habitations there were gone…about a quarter of the labouring class in the hinterland of the mines
seem to have vanished. The human agonies behind these figures can well be imagined but no
record survives detail them.” (Des Cowman, quotes gleaned from reports of Mining Company of
Ireland)
So that dark decade from 1841 to 1850 has left only spotty records for us to consider. Miners
and mine families just did not keep records. Most, it seems, could not read or write. And any
that could do so were too tired and too hungry to put their grief in print.
The irish labourers homes were small…in this case one room. Some
miners cottages in Bunmahon had two families living one such home.
Adult males and rural class structure circa 1841 (2) Category Number Per cent Rich Farmers 50,000 2.9 (average holding 80 acres) ‘Snug’ Farmers 100,000 5.9 (average holding 50 acres) Family Farmers 250,000 14.7 (average holding 20 acres and usually not employing labour) Cottiers 300,000 17.7 (average holding five acres) Labourers 1,000,000 58.8 (average holding one acre, though often without any land)
Living standards of the rural poor There were localised famines in 1800, 1817, 1822, 1831, 1835-37 and 1842. Prior to 1838 there was no state welfare system. In 1841, two fifths of Irish homes were one-roomed mud walled cabins. In the words of a contemporary observer: “The hovels which the poor people were building as I passed, solely by their own efforts, were of the most abject description; their walls were formed, in several instances, by the backs of fences; the floors sunk in ditches; the height scarcely enough for a man to stand upright; poles not thicker than a broomstick for couples; a few pieces of grass sods the only covering; and these extending only partially over the thing called a roof; the elderly people miserably clothed; the children all but naked.”3
The one roomed Bothans were makeshift structures often using a
stone farm fence as the back wall. The Bonmahon ‘ bothars’ just disappeared
during the famine. As did their residents
Evictions of Irish rural poor were coupled with the demolition of
their ‘cottages’. Some of these roofless ruins are still evident here
and there in Ireland. At least one was present in 1960 in Bonmahon.
Today, August 7, 2020 the best marker left by these people is the old winding tower
and steam engine house ruins that haunt the land above the cliffs of Knockmahon. There is
however, a modern playground in the village of Knockmahon where once the sorting
shed existed. This was the place where to copper ore was dragged by horse and
cart and later by a rail line to the village. Girls and young women, perhaps 200 of
them , laboured separating the water rock from the valuable ore. There
was a large water wheel that turned a crushing machine grinding the large lumps
of ore into concentrate that was sacked and sent by sailing ship to Swansea, England, for
melting into copper ingots. Big girls and women were paid seven pence per day.
Little girls got four pence per day.
There are a few glimpses of these girls that show the poverty that prevailed.
Several young girls were interviewed and detailed their work day…from dawn
to dusk earning 4d (fourpence) per day. What does fourpence mean?
In 1850 the British pound was worth about $1.25 American. The cost of a
loaf of bread in the United States was 9 cents. This means that the full
day of labour by these young girls of 8 to 12 years old was barely enough
to buy one loaf of bread.
How many loaves of bread can be bought by a person earning minimum wage today?
Not hard to figure. eight hours times $15 per hour = $120. A loaf of bread
costs between $2 and $3 which means a minimum wage worker can buy
40 to 60 loaves of bread from a single day of labour. (I must be wrong here…
need to do more)
Irish miners in United States by the 1880’s
TO BE CONTINUED
alan skeoch
August 2020
Post Script: Some of the Bunmahon miners, perhaps many of them , left Ireland for North America. Their lives
may have improved somewhat but their lives were still unpleasant…see below
Assistant Professor Jim Walsh’s dissertation sheds some light on these Irish migrant miners…perhaps some of
them from Bonmahon.
“Ten years ago, Colorado author Jim Walsh’s dissertation research on 1800s immigration to the Rocky Mountain region led him to the Evergreen Cemetery in Leadville and a previously unwritten chapter of history. There he came upon the “Catholic Free” section beyond the back of the cemetery, which extends for acres into pine forest. Records indicate that over a thousand Irish immigrants—averaging only 26 years in age—are buried there in unmarked graves. During the 1870s and 1880s, impoverished Irish miners flooded into the Rocky Mountains, often never to be heard from again. Rather than finding fortune in the gold and silver boom era, many met with untimely deaths. Walsh, a Clinical Assistant Professor at CU Denver, who now researches and lectures on labor and immigration issues, has felt compelled to find some recognition for those unacknowledged souls.
Colorado Irish Immigrants
“These Irish immigrants, many from the copper mining region of the Beara Penninsula in west County Cork, were buried in what was called the Catholic Free section of Evergreen Cemetery between 1878-1890,” Walsh said. “The sunken graves include hundreds of infants and children. These are the forgotten Irish: destitute, transient, and facing dangerous working conditions. A massive miners’ strike in 1880 led by Irish-born Michael Mooney, failed to improve pay or working conditions for the community. On October 1, we will resurrect their stories and make sure that this space is recognized as sacred Irish space.””
