I had the great honour this week of meeting a woman who came thousands of miles to retrace the path her ancestors took when they left Gorey for America in 1850. Her families name was Breen and Casey, and many Breens and Caseys remain here today. They left as Famine Refugees, leaving Gorey behind for a new world, never to return. As part of our meeting, this woman wanted to know what the town they left was like, what sights and sounds did they see and how bad was it here. In the days that followed, I had two further conversations about the Famine, one down in Johnstown Castle, sitting at the old Workhouse Table that they have in the museum and another with a fellow guide while sitting on a plane flying into London. It struck me that it is often the descendants of those that left who know more about the story than we, the descendants of those who stayed and survived.

So please beg my forgiveness as today’s Blog takes a slightly darker tone! What was life like in Gorey during the Irish Potato Famine.

In the early 1840s, Gorey was a busy market town, with fairs held on different days of the week for various things like cattle, horses and the biggest poultry market in the county! The town was just as sprawling and large as it is today, but landmarks such as St Michaels Church and the Railway line had yet to be built and Courtown Harbour was simply Courtown, there was no harbour yet, though the plans had been written. The lands surrounding Gorey saw much smaller fields, with little hamlets and tiny villages with only a half dozen or so small cottages within them.

Life was very simple, the people who lived in these small farms, growing barley and wheat had names like Breen, Casey, Roche, Stafford and Byrne. Almost everyone owned a horse or donkey, a pig, a few geese, maybe a couple of chickens too and many people co-owned a cow or two or a small flock of sheep with their neighbours for wool, meat, milk, butter and cheese. Children, much like in earlier times had the responsibility of gathering firewood, water and foraging for seasonal items to supplement their plain diets. Oat porridge in the morning, a bowl of potatoes served with a little goose or mutton for a mid-day meal and another bowl of porridge before bed.

Outside every house, you would find neat rows of potatoes growing in drills alongside larger fields filled with oats, wheat and barley. These were there to pay the rent!
Most people still spoke Irish, though English was becoming more common, especially in towns like Gorey with Markets and Fairs drawing people from far afield.

The workhouse had recently opened, it had a capacity of 500 but it was far from filled, it was used as a hospital and as a home for people with serious mental health issues, older prostitutes riddled with venereal diseases & people who had literally no other choice.  A dark unwelcoming place with terrible food, a place families were segregated and a place everyone was expected to spend a minimum of ten hours a day doing back-breaking work to pay their way. Most people would prefer to rely on the charity of strangers and sleep under the stars!

Rumours began in late Spring of 1845 that a disease was killing the potatoes, some brushed it off as scaremongering but others were worried. You could grow enough potatoes on a small plot to feed your family for the year ahead, provided they were stored correctly.  The grains paid the rent but even if they didn’t you would need acres and acres of grain to feed your family all year.

Then in August, word came, the blight had hit a farm in Bunclody and as the weeks passed it spread throughout the county. In September the Wexford Conservative newspaper reported it being particularly bad “between Gorey and the Sea”

This would have been devastating for all those families living here, despite the fact, the grain had almost doubled its usual yield, the extra money earned meant little as the price of potatoes at more than doubled by Christmas such was the shortage.  The Poor Relief Committee made up of wealthier local people and partially funded by donations from various Landlords doubled their efforts, creating work for those who couldn’t afford to buy the potatoes. Lord Courtown donated £10, Lord Ram donated £20 and Grogan Morgan of Johnstown Castle had kindly donated £25 even though he owned no lands in the area such was his concern.

Ten hour days, building walls, digging drainage ditches and breaking rocks down for road building. Hard work, even harder when you consider their circumstances: