'The greenest grass in the country is always in a Famine graveyard'

Kate Pendred

At the height of the Famine in 1849 there were 50 burials a week in the graveyard at Robinstown, Mullingar, and 16 people employed there full time as starvation, cholera, typhoid and yellow fever ripped through the population, local historian Seamus O’Brien revealed at the Famine funeral re-enactment on Sunday.

Sixty percent of the town’s 5,000 inhabitants were paupers, he said.

Seamus led the 100 plus who attended on a tour of the old workhouse, now St Mary’s Hospital, one of the few workhouses left standing in the country, as part of the Heritage Week event. At one stage there was an attempt to demolish it, he said, as he welcomed former TD Paul McGrath who, he said, “was very much involved in helping us put the brake on that”.

St Mary’s is one of the oldest buildings in Mullingar, built just three years before the Famine started, Seamus said. It was built on land owned by Sir Richard Levinge of Knockdrin Castle, and Sir Hugh Morgan Tuite from Sonna House laid the foundation block in 1941.

The workhouse was built to house 800, but at the height of the Famine there were 1,200 in it, sleeping two and three to a bed, which was a straw mattress spread on a raised platform either side of a gangway. The inmates got two meals a day, a bowl of stirabout at 7am and potatoes and buttermilk at 4pm.

The women worked in the laundry and kitchens or picked oakum. The men worked in the quarry or the farm, both attached to the workhouse, or on the Famine relief wall around it.

Men and women, boys and girls, were separated, which, Seamus said, was a huge blow to families and engendered dread and hatred of the workhouse.

Seamus pointed out the St Paul’s building, which was the fever hospital, and the section where the St Anne’s building stood before it was demolished and its stone used to build the Island of Ireland Peace Tower in Belgium. Seamus said the demolition of St Anne’s caused huge controversy in the town, and awakened an awareness of the need to preserve St Mary’s.

One of the few surviving workhouses in Ireland, it is now the centre of myriad of medical interventions, Seamus commented.

He pointed out that the workhouse was built in 1841, the old Cathedral and the courthouse were built in the 1830s, St Loman’s Hospital and the refashioned Market House in the 1850s, and All Saints Church was refurbished in the 1820s.

As the funeral re-enactment proceeded to the Famine graveyard, Des Walsh, who was part of the Famine graveyard restoration from the outset, acted as MC. He welcomed Bishop Denis Nulty, who led the re-enactment, saying that as a curate in the parish in 1994, the then Fr Nulty had led the first walk. He also welcomed Rev Ian Horner who, he said, had attended the Famine graveyard annual celebrations last year during his first week as Rector of the Mullingar Union of Parishes.

Bishop Nulty recalled that first Famine walk in 1994 and the meetings beforehand with Detty Cornally, Dinah Whelehan and Marcella Rouse, the team from St Mary’s Hospital including the matron Miss Greene and Margaret McAndrew, Br Hannigan and Br Crummy of Coláiste Mhuire, and the enterprise committee, who were the driving force. He remembered those who have died: Fr Frank Farrell, Seamus Whelan, Tony Cotter, Br Sean Hannigan, Sr Maureen, Christy Neary, Noel O’Connor, Detty Cornally, Dinah Whelehan, Christina Mohan-Fagan and Sarah Caffrey.

Bishop Nulty sang Holy Ground, a hymn composed by Liam Lawton from Edenderry on the occasion of his ordination as bishop 13 years ago.

“The greenest grass in the country is always in a Famine graveyard,” Bishop Nulty remarked. He said the Famine caused huge heartbreak across the land, and urged all to think of the 266 million people affected by Famine around the world at the moment.

Bishop Nulty welcomed the geophysical survey that has been carried out on the graveyard saying: “It is hugely important to identify the potential nature and extent of burials in this site.”

Rev Horner read from the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes and he and Bishop Nulty planted an evergreen oak tree in the graveyard to mark the occasion.

Cian Hogan of the Discovery Programme, who carried out the geophysical survey, explained some of the findings, but pointed out that the data gathered will have to be analysed. A report will be forwarded to the Famine Graveyard Committee, who commissioned the survey with the aid of the Heritage Council.

It is hoped that the survey will identify the potential nature and extent of the burials as part of an initiative to improve access at the graveyard.