{"id":5068,"date":"2020-06-28T07:21:40","date_gmt":"2020-06-28T11:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=5068"},"modified":"2020-06-28T07:24:45","modified_gmt":"2020-06-28T11:24:45","slug":"episode-76-life-as-an-irish-copper-miner-in-bunmahon-county-waterford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=5068","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 76 LIFE AS AN IRISH COPPER MINER IN BUNMAHON, COUNTY WATERFORD"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Note:  Here is  part of the flesh and blood history of  Bunmahon and Knockmahon.<\/div>\n
We are lucky to have  first person descriptions\u2026fragmentary, earthy, nasty, quite wonderful.<\/div>\n
No tome to do this  all in one run thought..so here is  Episode 76<\/div>\n

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alan<\/div>\n

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EPISODE  76   LIFE AS AN IRISH COPPER MINER IN BUNMAHON, COUNTY WATERFORD  1840 TO 1876<\/p>\n


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THE INVISIBLE  PEOPLE<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
June 2020<\/div>\n

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It is hard to visualize the life of an Irish copper miner at Knockmahon minion the 19th century.<\/div>\n
The image that is  locked in my mind is the darkness\u2026absolute darkness as the hundreds  of<\/div>\n
miners  descended on wooden ladder deep into the bowles of Knockmahon.  And  then when<\/div>\n
they reached their various levels some of them proceeded southward in passageways  excavated<\/div>\n
under the sea.   In the dark.   With the steady trickling of sea water drip..drip..dripping.  Suction<\/div>\n
pumps driven by two steam engines far above the men tried to keep ahead of the water but<\/div>\n
the miners must have known that a collapse of the ceiling would mean certain death.  <\/div>\n

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Today, in 2020, those ancient workings are preserved intact by the very water that <\/div>\n
threatened those miners.   The darkness remains absolute.<\/div>\n

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\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/5.Mineral-Flows-inside-the-mines-@Copper-Coast-Geopark.jpg<\/a>” class=””><\/div>\n

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Today, tourists can  go underground at Knockmahon\u2026the upper workings.   Today Bunmahon is alive but not  like it was in the 19th cetury It will never<\/div>\n
be a copper mining community again.  Which, I must say, is a good thing.   You can go  to Bunmahon and really  imagine<\/div>\n
what copper mining must have been like in those years between 1840 and 1875.   And I hear the Bunmahon pub has<\/div>\n
reopened so you can get a pint of Guinness which you would have had difficulty getting in the 1860\u2019s.<\/div>\n

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An Irish  historian, Des Cowman, has scrupulously researched life in these copper mines<\/div>\n
His book encapsulates the lives  of these men and women of the Bujmhahon 19th century<\/div>\n
community.<\/div>\n

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I was rather surprised in 1960 to find that not one of our employees more anyone else<\/div>\n
in Bunmahon seemed to have much knowledge about these miners.  They just evaporated<\/div>\n
into thin air.  In reality the miners moved on\u2026overwhelmingly they moved to the copper<\/div>\n
mines of North America.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Below are snippets from the historical records unearthed by Des  Cowman.  <\/div>\n
I will make a comment but I will try to present first hand evidence.  It may seem a<\/div>\n
bit chaotic but remember it is scraps like these that historians tell their tales.<\/div>\n

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THE SETTING<\/div>\n

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\u201cA considerable stream of dirty water\u2026very foul smell\u2026flows down  the Bonmahon hill<\/div>\n
towards the shanty town\u2026sand  from the dunes blown into the gutters choking them so<\/div>\n
the sewage accumulates in  ponds and becomes stagnant\u2026most cffensiveanddangeorus<\/div>\n
to the health.  Indeed, almost  the entire population of this  slum disappeared with the famine.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Here stood 90 one-roomed bothans scattered along the road from Knockmahon\u2026700 people\u2026<\/div>\n
39 of these bothans housed more than one family.<\/div>\n

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THE MINERS<\/div>\n

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I doubt there are any pictures of the real copper miners of Bunmahon.  Photography<\/div>\n
was rather experimental at the time.   Why bother taking pictures of the lower class<\/div>\n
when the upper class were so willing?   <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
But we can find  pictures that are darn close to the reality of Bunmahon\u2026the depravity<\/div>\n
will be missing.   The strange things about most of these miners was their sobriety.<\/div>\n
The Temperance Movement was a big success in Bunmahon.  Not at first when 200<\/div>\n
gallons of whisky was consumed on paydays.  But early in the history of the community<\/div>\n
whisky consumpition dropped to a  gallon or two.  And the pubs dropped from 21 to 1.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
They built a Temperance Hall for $1,000 which  became and is  still the Catholic<\/div>\n
Church in the old village of Knockmahon on the east bank of the Mahon River and<\/div>\n
close to what was  once the heart of the copper mine.  Poor people,  yes.  For sure.<\/div>\n

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The miners exhibit the unmistakeable signs  of  debilited constitutions.   Their faces are sallow, they<\/div>\n
have an anxious expression in countenance and their bodies are thin.  (1860\u2019s British report on<\/div>\n
Cornish Miners many of  whom migrated to Knockmahon and Bunmahon.)<\/div>\n

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\u201cAt he border of middle age, or soon after, their health begins to fail, \u2026 they rapidly acqwjuire the feebleness<\/div>\n
of declining years \u2014 A person of fifty is old for a  miner.\u201d   (1860\u2019s report to Br. parliament)<\/div>\n

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“debilitated constitutions\u201d  but not as bad as coal and lead miners. No methane to contend  with for instance.<\/div>\n

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In1845 Knockmahon was 800 feet below the surface with about 70 work stations at various levels.  Work<\/div>\n
was done by six man crews who aced as  independent subcontractors with the company.  They agreed<\/div>\n
to raise so many tons of ore at a fixed price with a bonus for overage.  One month agreements\u2026a kind<\/div>\n
of  auction of the ore-faces.  Winners got the good  ore faces. Competed with each  other in other words.<\/div>\n

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Other six man teams  hollowed  out shafts, braced the walls\u2026again by agreement  to excavate so<\/div>\n
much rock for a fixed price.   <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
This  system kept the miners and shaft diggers competing with each other.  Not as employees of<\/div>\n
the company.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
THE DAILY ROUTINE<\/div>\n

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COMING NEXT\u2026.REALLY ALL PART OF EPISODE 76<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note:  Here is  part of the flesh and blood history of  Bunmahon and Knockmahon. We are lucky to have  first person descriptions\u2026fragmentary, earthy, nasty, quite wonderful. No tome to do this  all in one run thought..so here is  Episode 76 alan EPISODE  76   LIFE AS AN IRISH COPPER MINER IN BUNMAHON, COUNTY WATERFORD  1840 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}