By Robin M. Tagliaferri, FHM Executive Director

MyTownMatters and the Forbes House Museum are happy to offer a series of short stories and illustrations on Ireland’s Great Famine and its connection to Milton and Boston. Since 2011, the FHM has been collaborating with scholars and civic groups from the United States and Ireland, researching the Great Famine, which took place from 1845 to 1852. The FHM Great Famine project seeks to raise awareness for the historic 1847 humanitarian voyage of Captain Robert Bennet Forbes (1804- 1889), who transported 800 tons of food and other provisions to Cork, Ireland aboard the USS Jamestown at the height of the Famine.

In the last installment, early humanitarian efforts for Ireland were highlighted, including the work of Reverend Thomas J. O’ Flaherty, who established the Irish Charitable Fund in Boston in December 1845. The contribution of the Society of Friends (Quakers) was explored at some length with information on the well-organized network of committees and soup houses, and the drafting of the document, Transactions of the Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends during the Famine in Ireland in 1846 and 1847.

From fall 1846 through the early winter of 1847, social and political strife was taking place in Boston that diverted focus from Ireland’s Famine. Opinions were divided on the slavery issue and the imminent Mexican- American War of 1846-48. Nativists, in the form of anti-immigrant gangs, fueled riots among ethnic groups, targeting Irish neighborhoods.

To complicate matters, the Boston Repeal Association, a political movement with membership on both sides of the Atlantic, believed that repeal of the Acts of Union of 1800, an act of Parliament that created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was the key to solving Ireland’s problems. Thus, in a meeting in December 1846, the Association requested from its members an increase in donations for the Repeal, while failing to address the famine.

Arriving in Boston by packet ships once or twice monthly, English and European journals contained no alarm or distress about the famine, further distorting the urgency of the crisis. In fact, some publications printed prejudicial views of the suffering Irish. In the 1967 publication, Massachusetts Help to Ireland During the Great Famine, H. A. Crosby Forbes and Henry Lee wrote:

Many English publications characterized reports of the famine as hyperbole and the pleas for help as merely the cry of professional beggars and revolutionaries. A long article from the London Times, reprinted in the Daily Advertiser of October 23, 1846, reported rumblings against British authority. “Such are the thanks,” it declared, “that the Government gets for attempting to palliate great afflictions and satisfy corresponding demands by an inevitable but ruinous benefice…The Government provided work for a people who love it not… For our own part we regard the potato blight as a blessing. When the Celts once cease to be potatophagic, they must become carnivorous… with this will come steadiness, regularity and perseverance…”

Meanwhile in Ireland, James Mahony (c. 1816- c. 1859), continued his work as an illustrator in the ravaged region of west Cork, the area most effected by the famine. Sent by the Illustrated London News at the height of the tragedy, Mahony captured the horrors of starvation and death. His illustrations brought shock to readers in England and abroad, eventually mobilizing the public to action.

Upon arriving in Cork, Mahony first visited the towns of Clonakilty, Skibbereen, Ballidichob (or Ballydehob) and Aghadoe. Now, we find him in Skull (or Schull).

This sobering scene depicts a man by the name of Mullins, lying on the floor of his hut wrapped in rags. Sitting with suit and top hat is Dr. Robert Traill, vicar of the parish of Skull, the highest ranking Anglican or Church of England clergyman in the parish. Traill was reported to be a compassionate soul, who died of disease contracted in the course of his relief work during the famine. It was by invitation of Dr. Traill that Mahony visited Skull.

“A specimen of the in-door horrors of Skull may be seen in the annexed sketch of the hut of a poor man named Mullins, who lay dying in a corner upon a heap of straw, supplied by the Relief Committee, whilst his three wretched children crouched over a few embers of turf, as if to raise the last remaining spark of life. This poor man, it appears, had buried his wife some five days previously, and was, in all probability, on the eve of joining her, when he was found out by the untiring efforts of the Vicar, who, for a few short days, saved him from that which no kindness could ultimately avert. Our Artist assures us that the dimensions of the hut do not exceed ten feet square; adding that, to make the sketch, he was compelled to stand up to his ankles in the dirt and filth upon the floor.” [London Telegraph]

This actual printed copy was displayed in the 1967 exhibition at the Forbes House Museum, “Massachusetts Help to Ireland During the Great Famine.” Notice the pin marks at the corners. FHM permanent collection.

Given all the tumult in mid- 19th century Boston, it seemed unlikely that any response to Ireland’s crisis would come in the winter of 1847, but we shall see differently in upcoming installments of this series. Forbes and Lee write:

[Appearances [in Boston] were by and large deceptive. In the months to come, when Ireland’s need at last became evident, the forces uniting the community would prove far stronger than those dividing it. Beneath the many local rivalries and prejudices lay a common heritage of religious and moral beliefs that would draw an almost uniform response from men of all faiths and walks of life.

The Forbes House Museum is very grateful to 02186/My Town Matters and its editor, Frank Schroth for the opportunity to submit feature articles to the public. A sixth installation in the series, “Forbes House Museum and Ireland’s Great Famine: Who Knows the Story?” will appear in early February.

Sources/Credits for this article include:

Forbes, H. A. Crosby Forbes, Ph.D., Massachusetts Help to Ireland During the Great Famine, Captain Robert Bennet Forbes House, Milton, MA, 1967

Geary, Laurence, Ph.D., Historian and Professor, School of History, University College Cork, Ireland, email correspondence and fact checking, 31 December 2014 to 13 January 2015

Eye Witness to History, “The Irish Potato Famine, 1847,” 2006 http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/irishfamine.htm

Mahony, James, Sketches in the West of Ireland in the Illustrated London News, National Library of Ireland, Dublin, 1847

Kissane, Noel, The Irish Famine, A Documentary History, National Library of Ireland, Dublin, 1995
Woodham- Smith, Cecil, The Great Hunger, Ireland 1845- 1849, Harper and Row, New York, 1962

To access previous articles in this series:

To access previous article in this series:

• Click here to read Part I, providing background information on Forbes House Museum’s association with the Famine.
• Click here to read Part II, giving readers with an introduction to illustrator, James Mahony
  (c.1816- c.1859), hired by the Illustrated London News to document the Great Famine.
• Click here to read Part III, highlighting the scholars who have contributed to the project thus far and information on James Mahoney’s illustration, Old Chapel- Lane in Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland.
• Click here to read Part IV, detailing the first humanitarian efforts at the height of the Famine from Boston and from the Society of Friends.