Galway Culture & Science
Like most towns in Ireland, Galway was used to food shortages; they had occurred here in 1816, 1817, 1822, 1831, and in 1842 there were food riots in the city. Nobody, however, was prepared for what happened in 1845 when the potato crop failed. As winter approached, the situation did not seem any worse than usual, though people were concerned about food being exported from the docks while there was a shortage locally.
As the full extent of the crop failure became evident, the workhouse became overcrowded, the Fever Hospital on Beggar’s Bridge (which got its name from inmates begging on the bridge) was full of destitutes, and people would commit crimes to get sent to the (overcrowded) jail just so they could be fed. A relief committee was set up in March 1846, but as the year drew to a close, it was evident that many would not survive the winter,
In December 1846 Rev John Darcy, a Protestant clergyman, set up the first soup kitchen which was located in Back Street. The Dominicans set one up in the Claddagh, and there were others in the Presentation Convent, the Convent of Mercy, St Vincent’s Convent, Merchants Road, Barna, and also in Lombard Street which was known as the Orphan’s Breakfast Institute, and was located in the Monastery School. These kitchens fed some 7,500 people per day.
The winter of 1846/47 was the most severe in living memory, and the number of deaths from hunger in the city averaged between 25 and 30 a week. Auxiliary workhouses opened in Newtownsmyth, Merchants Road, Barna, and Dangan. Epidemics of cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery broke out, and by May 1847, these fevers were accounting for 100 deaths a week. During 1847 and 1848, 11,000 inmates died in Galway workhouse. On the bitterly cold morning of January 26, 1848, two children were found naked and dead on High Street, and another on an adjoining street.
Historic paintings of Galway are scarce enough so it is always good to come across them. Our image today is one of the Claddagh painted by Charles Lamb in the 1930s. It is hardly surprising that visitors, painters, poets, and novelists were attracted to this fishing village that was in Galway, but not of it. They were all fascinated by the odd assortment of thatched cottages, built at haphazard angles, with intersecting streets and lanes in which one could lose one’s way within a couple of acres. Sometimes they were built in irregular squares or circles around little greens where the young children played. The houses were very small, and while some showed signs of poverty, most were very clean and neat. The back doors of many of the houses looked into the front door of their neighbours, and though the buildings were quaint, picturesque, and romantic, modern sanitation was unknown there.
