BRIDEEN: The Journeys of a 19th-century Irishwoman

An epic saga of the Irish diaspora, BRIDEEN tells the story of the author's real-life ancestor. Bridget Sweeney was a survivor of the Great Hunger of 1847, and her subsequent life was swept up in the great upheavals of the 19th century: the industrial revolution in England, the Civil War in the U.S., and the European settlement of the American Midwest. The book’s narrative is punctuated with fragments from history, in the form of quotes, ads, newspaper articles and lyrics from Irish traditional ballads. Irish trad music forms a thread that runs through the entire story. This podcast gives a free Preview of the early chapters of this novel-in-progress, in Audio and Text formats. 

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Comparing it with all similar visitations in these latitudes, of which there exists any record, we would say that, for (the violence of the hurricane, and deplorable effects which followed, as well as for its extensive sweep, embracing as it did the whole island in its destructive career), it remains not only without a parallel, but leaves faraway in the distance all that ever occurred in Ireland before…Every part of Ireland - every field, every town, every village in Ireland have felt its dire effects, from Galway to Dublin — from the Giant's Causeway to Valencia. It has been, we repeat, the most awful calamity with which a people were afflicted. 

Dublin Evening Post 12 January 1839

It was the sixth day of January, Twelfth Night, the Feast of the Epiphany, Nollaig na mBan, which some call “Women’s Christmas” and others “Little Christmas.” The days leading up to that night were a time of signs and wonders. And the first of those signs was the seals.

All along the coast people reported that a great number of seals had come out of the water and settled on the rocks along the shore. It was common enough to see a seal or two on dry land, but never in such numbers. Elsewhere were sighted huge flocks of starlings flying up and down, crows screeching and crowds of sheep huddled in the fields. The skies were illuminated by bright red streaks, dazzling beams of the Northern Lights. The country people often took occurrences such as these as signs of a coming storm. But there was only a light dusting of snow, covering the ground like a warm blanket.

The day, a Sunday, began well enough. The children were out enjoying themselves in the snow. Indoors all was flutter and bustle, for this was Little Christmas, and everybody was looking forward to the evening's festivities. Around mid-day, the weather became unseasonably warm and humid. The temperature soared, melting all the snow within hours. An unearthly silence came over the land, a stillness so quiet and calm that the flame of a candle burned in the open air without the faintest flicker, and voices in ordinary speaking tones floated between farmhouses more than a mile apart. Toward evening, a warm wind arose, balmy and mild, at first caressing the coast, then gathering in strength. The people felt uneasy so they went to tighten things, especially the hay and the stacks of oats. The man of the house had to go out and put props up against them so they would not be taken with the storm. All the people sat at their fires and thought everything was all right when they had the hay and oats secured. But it was not.

The wind changed and rose to gale force around bedtime; by midnight it blossomed into a hurricane. There was a rumbling noise, like thunder followed by a blast of wind that swept forward like a tornado. Houses shook so that glass and delph were thrown from shelves. Towns and cities were enveloped in darkness, people became frantic, fleeing their homes or sheltering in fields as their dwellings crumbled.

As the wind swept in from the Atlantic, it howled like a banshee, For long hours the storm raged. Slates were ripped off and chimneys came tumbling down, causing whole towns to blaze. Terrified people sheltered indoors for fear of falling masonry and slates. There was little rain, but where it fell the force of the raindrops broke panes of glass, however small. Men, women and children knelt and prayed in the flickering light of turf fires and rush candles. Those who were in bed got up quickly and dressed themselves. Many ran out into the fields and gardens. Some had a lucky escape, for soon afterwards the house they had fled from was leveled to the ground. Most of the houses were thatched and when the roof was blown off the wind came in and sparks were blown all over the house causing it to catch fire. Many houses were burnt to the ground.

People caught outside had to crawl on their hands and knees. They were not able to hear each other talking over the howling of the wind, and had to communicate in sign language. Such was the ferocity of the howling wind, an awful booming like the deep, continuous groan of thunder. Many thought that the strong winds heralded the end of the world, foretold in superstition to happen on Oíche Nollaig na mBan. People began to say the Rosary, praying for the storm to be over.

Thousands of trees were felled, many cattle were killed ands pigs were seen bounding through the air. The River Shannon burst its banks and little could be heard over the din of the high winds. The storm reached Dublin around midnight where upwards of 40 houses were levelled, hundreds were damaged or left open to the elements and nearly 5,000 dwellings lost part of their roofs. Many other towns and cities were devastated, including Galway, Birr, and Portlaoise. And as if at the storm’s capricious whim, other places escaped almost unscathed, including Cork City and Drogheda. 

But the people in Connaught suffered the most, especially the towns and villages of Mayo who took the full brunt of the savage wind. In Castlebar, the Church of Ireland steeple was blown down almost at once, and the wind was so strong it knocked the roof off the wake-house, and the mourners had to take the corpse to a newly built house in the district until it was buried.  The chimneys were blown off the roofs of the houses and the people went up on the roofs themselves to try and stop the thatch from flying. But the embers from the turf fires in their hearths set the thatch on fire.

The months before that had been very bad, so many people had not gathered in the hay. It was scattered all around the fields, blown to and fro in the haggards. The oats were in reeks in the fields, and they were carried away by the wind. 

One man went up on his house to keep it from falling in on him. He put his shoulder against the rafter and he thought that no matter what kind of wind would come it would not blow away the house. He said in a loud voice “Try your best, God!” A mighty big breeze came then and knocked the house and all the stables and barns down. It also blew away the man and killed him.

The waves drove the seawaters inland, carrying the spray and foam for miles and poisoning the lakes, rivers, and wells with sea salt for weeks afterward. Fish were found on hills and mountainsides, while salt stuck to trees and fencing many miles from the nearest shore. Boats were smashed to pieces. The bodies of 14 men were washed ashore near Ballina, and six vessels laden with grain were sunk. Near Roundstone, a 300-tonne ship, the ‘Andrew Nugent’, survived two days at sea at the height of the storm. The people on shore lit fires to guide the ship safely to anchor. But as night fell, the boat was swept onto the rocks, and the captain, the pilot, and the 14-strong crew perished within sight of the shore.

Those who lived through the horror of that night never forgot it and were left with a terrible fear of even the slightest wind. Some thought it was God punishing them for their sins. Others thought that the end of the world was at hand. Many blamed it on the sidhe gaoithe, fairies who could stir up a whirlwind. Tales of Oíche na gaoithe móire were told along the west coast for many generations. A few even ended happily, like the child born that night in Ballina, who was given the name “Storm Hanlon.” But the one told most often was the story of the Miracle of the Butter-Churn Child.

It happened in Ballyhean, in the barony of Carra, County of Mayo. She was but a small child at that time and had only just begun to crawl. When she saw her family preparing to leave the cottage, she became frightened and crawled into the butter churn standing in the corner. They looked for her before they left, but could not find her and feared that she had been blown into the sea by the storm. They took refuge in a neighbouring house, at daybreak returning to their roofless, wrecked home. When they went inside they heard a noise coming from the butter-churn. They looked inside and were astonished at the sight of the lost child, alive, breathing, her arms wrapped around the plunger. 

 | Her name was Bridget Sweeney

          “Briddy, the praties! They’re rolling all over the place!”

          Bridget Sweeney looked down at her feet. She was annoyed at Manus, but he was right. The basket she was lugging was much too large for her five-year-old body. It was tipping side to side as she walked, and the fist-sized brown knobs were tumbling out of it. It was the bringing-in time, and she wanted to work alongside the rest of the family to help get the potato crop into the pits and buried for the winter. One or another of her older brothers kept nudging her aside as they trudged through the lazy beds, which made her feel even more like she was just in the way, a bother to everyone.

          She bent down to pick up the fallen praties one by one, and put them back into the basket. But before it had even been refilled, another of her brothers, Michael, came along and swiped it away.

          “The size of you can barely pick it up. I’ll get it, Briddy.”

          She’d asked the family to starting calling her Brideen. She’d heard there was a girl named Bridget over in Islandeady who was called that, and she decided it sounded more grown-up than Briddy. But her brothers laughed and told her it sounded stuck-up, even though the family nickname for her own brother Michael was Mikeen. She decided she didn’t care what they called her. In her own mind, she would be Brideen.

          Brideen looked along the rows of lazy beds and saw just how many more there were to bring in. There were so many, what her Mam called an barr iomarca oibre, a crop so abundant there wouldn’t be enough room in the pits for them all. But Mam always followed that with buíochas le Dia, thanks be to God, because she’d lived through so many times when the crop was sparse. Brideen dimly recalled the winter when she was three, when the store in the pits ran out. She’d felt bad then because Mam and Da gave their praties to eat, because she was the smallest, even though she knew the rest of the family was so hungry.

          Her gaze drifted from the beds up to the horizon where, many miles to the west, the sharp peak of Croagh Patrick loomed over the landscape. She sometimes felt a twinge of gloom in the shadow of the holy mountain, but today was bright and sunny, and she felt happy thinking of the many blessings the saint had bestowed on the people she loved. As was well known in Mayo, many centuries ago Saint Patrick had fasted for 40 days on that mountaintop. He had chased away the demon birds with his bell, and when he finally descended, he had driven all the snakes in Ireland into Lough Corra. In recognition of his saintliness, God promised St. Patrick He would spare Ireland from the torments of the Last Judgement. Brideen wasn’t sure just what would happen at the Last Judgement, but she was glad it hadn’t yet come to pass, and that when it did come, the people in her world would be protected. As for the pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick, which happened every year on Reek Sunday, Brideen hadn’t yet taken part. She’d asked to go with the family and neighbors this past July, but her parents said she was still too little.

“It’s a hard slog for a little one,” Da had said. “You’d be falling behind. You stay here with Mam and Ciaran and we’ll see about next year.”

Brideen wasn’t all that sorry to have to wait another year. Even from a distance, the mountain looked so forbidding. But she was eager to find out for herself what it was like up there on the summit, looking out over the green fields of Mayo and the waves of the vast ocean lapping at its shores.

***

They lived in a cottage of two rooms, under a thatched roof that her father and brothers had assembled from scraws and rushes and reeds. In the bigger room was an open fireplace, a hob with a hole for the ashes, and a crane suspending the ever-boiling kettle over the flames. A salt box was hung from a nail near the fire to keep the salt dry, next to where stood the bastible, a cast-iron pot oven. On the wall opposite the fireplace was a dresser with shelves holding the milk jugs, and on top a pincer-like holder held a clutch of rushes dipped in fat or tallow if light were needed. At the bottom was an opening where most times sat a clocking hen, and next to it was the settle-bed that functioned as a bench by day, The entire floor of the smaller room was taken up by mats of straw bedding and a wooden ladder up to the sleeping-loft.

The cow usually stayed outside by the doorway, unless the weather was nasty. But there was no way to keep the pig out of the cottage for any length of time. Mam often said she’d rather it was the reverse, the placid cow inside and the restless pig outside. But Brideen didn’t mind. As long as she knew it couldn’t get up into the loft where she slept, she enjoyed the pig’s antics.

As on most nights, they were eleven around the table – Da, Mam and the children: Manus, the oldest, whom Mam was sure would enter the priesthood, maybe to St. Patrick’s down in Tipperary; Máirín, who was about to be betrothed any day now; Siobhan, whom they all wondered if, like Manus, she might also have a vocation and join the sisterhood; then Seamus, Sean Brian, Mikeen, Liam – whom Mam called her four grasradh – then Brideen and Ciaran, the youngest.

There were only a couple of three-legged stools, so Brideen and Liam shared one, while Mam took the other for herself and Ciaran, who was not long out of babyhood. The rest took turns standing or sitting on the settle bench. Tonight the meal was praties, of course, with a dish of salt at each end of the table. It wasn’t the kind of special night when they might have a bit of bacon. But Brideen was pleasantly surprised when Mam put out a bowl of buttermilk to dip the praties in.

There was usually lots of chatter, but tonight Da was holding court, as he often did, about politics and his hero, the Liberator, Daniel O’Connell, who’d held a mass meeting in County Meath a fortnight earlier. Da learned about it, as he did most political developments, at Walsh’s pub, where stories from the newspapers were read aloud.

“There was a huge crowd at the Hill of Tara on the feast of the Assumption. Almost a million people, they said!”

“What’s a million, Da?”

“More than you or anyone can count, my girl. They said it took O'Connell's carriage two hours to proceed through the throng. And there was a harp player in the carriage with him!”

Da told them that O'Connell had declared 1843 the year of Repeal for the Act of Union, the law passed in 1800 that took away Ireland’s right to self-government and put it under British rule. The whole of the Liberator’s public life was dedicated to building and leading the Repeal movement, overwhelmingly supported by the Catholic population of Ireland.

“There’s going to be another meeting, even bigger, in Dublin in early October,” Da said. “I am going to go.”

“That’s near three days’ walk, Da!”

“You’ve never been that far from Mayo!”

Then Manus spoke up.

“Better watch out for yourself. What if they send troops to break it up?”

Brideen was taken aback by his words, but before she could ask about it, Da waved away his concern.

“It was the Liberator himself said that the time is coming when we will have to choose to live as slaves, or to die as freemen. I know which it will be for me.”

***