The Reality of Life in Victorian Times

I want you to close your eyes, or, better still, open your internal mind’s eye, the one that allows you to see what your imagination paints for you. I want to take you to a time when personal affairs were much simpler, but could be more dangerous. I want to imagine your ancestors of approximately 150 years ago. The year is 1849. The location is Carrickfergus, Ireland. The Great Famine is over, but the effects are still evident. You can walk down the road towards town, and while doing so, you pass a number of houses, some of which the former inhabitants have left to go to either America or Canada. Other empty houses belonged to those who didn’t have the money to buy food to replace the potato crops that failed over the previous few years. Many of these people lost energy and, eventually, the will to live. These are the people who starved to death in their homes on the estates that were supposed to look after the people that lived there. It seems that those that emigrated were the lucky ones.

Now, I want you to imagine a man, one who is shabbily dressed and looking around to see if anyone is looking. This man is in the process of going into a root cellar of a house that looks well kept. He makes it into the cellar and, after about ten minutes, emerges, with his arms full of vegetables. He looks around before coming out of the cellar to make sure that there is no one around. He can’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean that the way is clear. He tries to stay in the shadows and tries to work his way over to the gap in the hedge. He sees no one on the grounds. He makes it to the hedge and starts to crawl through, pushing his load of vegetables ahead of him. He has left a family member on the other side to help him carry the vegetables to his home. As he crawls through, he softly calls his companion. He doesn’t hear any answer, but doesn’t think anything of it, assuming that his companion had moved down the road. As he stands up near the road and picks up his load of vegetables, he thinks that he will have to go looking for his partner. Looking up, he sees his partner, who is being held by the servant of the house. Standing beside the servant is the owner of the house that he had just visited, who is waiting with other servants and a few members of the local police. At this point, both of these men are arrested and taken to the County Gaol in Belfast.

The crime that these men would be charged with is theft. It doesn’t matter that it was food that they stole. It doesn’t matter that, without this food, they would starve to death. It doesn’t matter that they cannot earn the money to feed themselves and their families. They took something that didn’t belong to them. End of story.

Actually, that was not the end of story for many people. These people were lumped in with people who instigated rebellion, stole for other reasons, committed murder, and so forth. The innocent, who were just looking to survive, were children, men, women, and they did not do so lightly. It was against their principles to do so, but it became a choice of life and death.

Carrickfergus was the location of the county gaol prior to 1845. It was also the county seat, looking after the affairs of two counties, County Carrickfergus, which was a county in its own right, and County Antrim. Eventually, County Carrickfergus ended up as part of County Antrim. The gaol was large enough to hold 250 prisoners, of both sexes and all ages. I haven’t been able to find why a new gaol was built in Belfast, but, in 1841, Charles Lanyon designed a new gaol to be built. The actual building was not started until 1843 and was finished in 1845. Prisoners were to be transferred from Carrickfergus to Belfast and the gaol in Carrickfergus was to be closed. One hundred and six prisoners were transferred in 1846. They had to walk the entire way from Carrickfergus to Belfast, a distance of over 40 miles.

Once the prisoners arrived in Belfast, they were taken to the Crumlin Road Gaol and put into individual cells. This prison was built in such a way that prisoners could be isolated when necessary. The cells were mostly used as individual cells, but they occasionally held as many as three prisoners each. The Crumlin Road Gaol was designed with five wings, a hospital building and a small graveyard with additions added later including cottages for prison staff. Four of the five wings housed the prisoners on three levels with Block A being the largest wing. I believe that Block C was the wing that held the female prisoners and maybe also the children. Children were sent to gaol just for stealing a loaf of bread or an article of clothing. History tells us that one such child, Patrick Magee, was sentenced to three months in the Crumlin Road Gaol. He was so desperate that he hung himself in 1858. After this time, children were not allowed to housed in the same facilities as adults.

The Crumlin Road Gaol was across the road from the courthouse. There are passages underground that lead towards the former location of the courthouse. That courthouse had been bombed during the troubled time and was torn down. The passages are now blocked off for public safety.

The gaol also carried out death sentences. Originally, the hangings were done in public where all could see that the sentence was carried out. In 1901, there was a modification done in Block C. One cell was enlarged to more than twice the size of a normal cell. This cell was used for the last days of a condemned prisoner. When the appropriate time approached, the prisoner would be taken through to the execution chamber through a passage that no other prisoner could see. The prisoner was hung and, when dead, was buried. There were a total of seventeen executions held at the Crumlin Road Gaol with the last one being in 1961.

One of the things that prisoners look forward to is to be free. The prison had a number of prison breaks, but it still was still known as Europe’s Alcatraz.

It was decided that the Crumlin Road Gaol would be closed. This happened in 1996. It stood empty until 2010 when it was announced that it would be renovated. In 2012, it opened as a tourist attraction and conference center.

On our tour of Ireland, one of the places that we visited was the Crumlin Road Gaol. We arrived after dark fell, and it has an imposing feeling when you can’t see the facility in daylight. We were taken into the facility through the same door that prisoners would have been taken in. We had a tour of the facility, visiting the administration wing and only one wing of the prison cells, Block C. We had the opportunity of viewing the execution chamber, going in the same way that a condemned prisoner went in. In all, the visit to Crumlin Road Gaol was an eye opener to some of the things that were experienced by some of our ancestors.

Our ancestors had hard lives. Even the poorest in Canada have a better life than most of our ancestors. We need to celebrate their lives, that they had the stamina and determination to live and to improve life for their children and painted the dream of a good life for their children for inspiration to continue down the same road.

Doagh Famine Village

Doagh Famine Village is an outdoor museum in County Donegal just over half an hour from Derry. The village itself was lived in until about 20 years ago by the family of the man who owns this museum. The displays are mostly under cover due to the amount of rain that falls. This is a seasonal museum, open from the middle of March until the end of October.

Doagh Famine Village follows the history of a family from the 1840s until today. Almost all of the buildings have thatched roofs and are interesting to see. The tour was led by Pat Doherty who started off in the house that he grew up in. I think that it was a shock to many of us that people still lived in houses that dated from the mid 1800s and in conditions that we would find difficult to believe. The people in the area depended on the sea for a lot of their food resources. Mr Doherty gave us a description of how the food was gathered and prepared.

Mr Doherty also gave us a good description of how daily life was like when he was growing up. This was not much different from what his ancestors had experienced in the mid 1800s. The houses were generally simple, a kitchen where most of the household work was done, possibly a parlour where guests would have been entertained. But many a young one would get into trouble when they went in with dirty shoes or clothes. A room for parents to sleep in and usually a loft for the children. There were no bathrooms as we know them. The family washed at the kitchen sink and used an outhouse. Bath night was when the wooden bathtub was hauled out and filled with hot water that had been heated over the kitchen fire. The father of the family would have his bath first, followed by the mother, and then the children from oldest to youngest. Clothes were washed by hand and then dried by wind power.

After Mr Doherty was finished his tour, he told us about some of the other displays that were available including the display showing how the republicans were kept safe from His Majesty’s forces, and the Haunted House. There is even a display for the Travelling People, otherwise known as Tinkers, or in some cases, Gypsies.

The houses each had different displays including a kitchen, a parlour, an Irish wake, and others. It made for an entertaining and educational afternoon. One of my favourite amusements was the Haunted House. After all, I have been through Nightmares in Niagara Falls. Why wouldn’t I go through a mere haunted house?

Would I go again? Yes, I think that I would as history is sometimes hard to understand with one reading or one presentation. The village did have some focus on the Great Famine, but I found that it had more focus on the politics of a violent time period covering the establishment of the Republic and the consequential establishment of Northern Ireland, with its problems and some of the solutions that came from the persistence of the Irish people for peace.

The Ulster Historic Foundation

There is an organization that is devoted to the preservation of the documents for the Province of Ulster in Ireland. Many people outside of Ireland have a misconception of Ulster. The Province of Ulster has nine counties, six of which are in Northern Ireland. The other three are part of the Republic of Ireland. The six counties that are part of Northern Ireland are: County Antrim, County Armagh, County Cavan, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Londonderry, and County Tyrone. Counties Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan are in the Republic. Even though the headquarters for the Ulster Historic Foundation is in Belfast, they do search out the records for the three counties that are in the south.

When an appointment for a tour group is booked, it usually begins with a slide presentation explaining the history of some of the history of Ulster. The presentation that I was at included information on the Ulster Plantations. This was information that I had never heard before. I do have an understanding of European history but I do admit that I have never really taken the opportunity to study Irish history. This would be an interesting topic to study.

After the presentation, a break for refreshments will take place. During this time, you will have a chance to look at some of their literature that will give you an idea whether or not you will need to look at their holdings, browse through their bookstore, and just chat, asking questions about their organization.

Some of the members of our group were able to have some time to discuss their brick walls and how to solve them with members of the Foundation. At this time, the only thing that I could do any research on was the origins of the surnames that I am researching. I found that three out of my major four Irish surnames that I am researching have roots in England.

We spent about three to four hours at their facilities and, I believe that each one of us walked out of there with a bit more information than before we went in.

The Foundation has a website at:

http://www.ancestryireland.com/

They have a number of categories that you can look at, and under each category there are a number of pages that have different topics. Most of these pages you can see without being a member, but if you want to look at any of their databases, you need to be a member. Membership costs in the neighbourhood of £38 a year, £99 for five years, or £230 for a lifetime membership. They also have a Family Research Starter Kit for £47.99 which includes a year’s membership, 24 credits, Researching Scots-Irish Ancestors, and more. There is also a pay-as-you-go option but it won’t get you into their databases.

If you are planning a trip to Ireland and you have research to do in Northern Ireland, you might be best to take out a membership and have a good look at their databases. I have looked at the list of databases and have seen that there is at least one of them that I would like to look at. By looking at their databases, you should be able to find something to help you along your way.

Currently, I am not a member of the Guild but I am not ruling out the possibility that, in the future, I may find that their holdings may help my search.

The Foundation does send some of their members on tour in North America, and, (now this is according to me), Europe or other places where Irish ancestors migrated to when they had to leave the Emerald Isle. Part of the reason why the Foundation does this is to make people aware that they exist and that they do have these holdings. Another reason why this is done is for fundraising. This organization does not receive any money from government sources and depends on sales, research fees, memberships, and donations.