'Remember your soul, and your liberty' – Famine Roadshow visits Mullingar

Síofra Grant

“Remember your soul, and your liberty.” Those were the last words of James Quinn to his sons just before he died following the gruelling journey from Strokestown to Canada to escape the Famine.

Those words were repeated several times when The National Famine Way Roadshow returned to Mullingar for a presentation in the library.

Speakers were Caroilín Callery, founder of the National Famine Way, Dr Jason King, academic coordinator at the National Famine Museum, and historian Ruth Illingworth.

Caroilín, discussed the trail, and the passport packages that are available to those who follow it. The packages allow participants to follow the journey of the 1490 people who left Strokestown in 1847 and walked along the Royal Canal to Dublin, where they left for North America in the hopes of a better life.

The passports depict vignettes of Daniel Tighe, who was one of those on the perilous journey at just 12 years old. Participants can get passports stamped at various stops throughout the way.

Boat tickets detailing various families are also provided, allowing the pilgrims to follow the journeys of the real people who set out for a better life almost 180 years ago.

Caroilín’s speech covered those features and more, but the most interesting part of her presentation regarded little bronze shoes.

“When we were conceiving this idea somebody said, the Camino has a shell, what do you want to have?” About 25 years ago, a local farmer was knocking down a 19th Century house and he came across a little pair of shoes, bound with a long piece of linen.

“They’d been put into the roof space, and he believed folk tales that held they were put there for good luck. So they’d been sitting there for 20 years, biding their time, waiting to become a part of the story.”

Thus the little shoes became the symbol of the National Famine Way.

“Two thirds of our people were children – women and children are always the ones who suffer the most in times of trauma. The journey was going to be difficult, many of them weren’t going to survive, but for those that did, that binding would always lead back to the home place.

“Once we saw those shoes, we knew what they were and why they were sitting there that long. We worked with the different councils (on the route) to gather information on the shoes.”

Now as you walk the trail, there are 30 places where the shoes are replicated in bronze.

Dr Jason King dealt with the lives of the Quinn siblings, and the Tighes. “What I want to do in my short talk is reflect on the intergenerational transmission of famine memory, particularly in relation to two sets of orphaned siblings, the Tighes and the Quinn brothers.

“The Quinn family travelled along the Royal Canal, now the National Famine Way in May of 1847, passing through here in Mullingar, they travelled onwards to Dublin. They embarked on a steamer to Liverpool and then boarded one of the worst of the coffin ships, the Naomi, which lost almost half of its passengers on board.

“At the quarantine station in Quebec, Peggy, their mother, passed away, three of the five children had passed away, and as James Quinn lay dying in the Lazaretto fever sheds ,his two boys, Patrick and Thomas aged 12 and six, were summoned to his deathbed. He expressed those final words, remember your soul and your liberty.”

Daniel Tighe “was 12 years old. He went with his mother and his uncle and his siblings.” Tragically, Daniel and his sister were the only members of their family who survived the journey to Canada.

Ruth Illingworth told the story of Westmeath during the Famine. She detailed the depth of damage in the county in 1847. “At the time, the people from Strokestown came through Westmeath, the Famine was hitting quite severely, but compared with other parts of Ireland, Westmeath would get off relatively lightly.

“But still, the population of the county would drop by 20% between 1841 and 1851 and the death toll in the county is estimated to be around 16,000.

“The population of Westmeath has still not fully recovered from the effects of the Great Famine – it’s back at 100,000 now, but at the time the Strokestown people were coming through, the population of the county was estimated at 141,000.”

The talks were an eye opening account of the effects of the Famine on the midlands, the bravery of the 1490 who risked everything for a better life for their children, and the dedication of those working on The National Famine Way to remembering them.

For those interested the packages and further information on the Famine Way is available on their website, nationalfamineway.ie.