Irish website covers many of the forgotten scandals of yesteryear - Shameful deeds, intrigue and mystery
By: Patrick Roberts | Published Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 2:06 PM | Updated Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 2:06 PM
 |
From an article by Mary Hayden, ‘Charity Children in
Eighteenth-Century Dublin’ |
I just came across a wonderful site mostly dedicated to strange happenings in Ireland long ago, many culled from newspapers and legal documents at the time.
It's called
Sibling of Daedalus (thanks to
Broadsheet.ie for highlighting it ) and you could spend hours perusing it. It is beautifully illustrated.
Here’s a few examples:
This piece is about a particularly horrific custom in Ireland in the 18th century.
“Children under the age of six years were not received [into the workhouse]. The younger ones were to be cared for by the authorities of the parishes to which they belonged. Now the greater part of these babies were foundlings – the practice of exposing children being scandalously common – and no parish wished to be at the expense of their upbringing.
"It became common for the churchwardens to employ a woman, officially known as a ‘parish nurse’, but commonly known as a ‘lifter’, who made nightly rounds and ‘lifted’ any infants whom she found lying about. She transported them to the next parish and laid them in the first convenient spot. Sometimes she placed a lump of narcotic called ‘diacodim’ in the mouth of the baby, to stupefy it and prevent it from crying; of course it must have happened that the ‘lifter’ of the second parish moved the infant again, perhaps back. One can well believe that, after three or four such removes, the poor baby required nothing other than a grave.”
This one is about another horrific custom if you were male or female and unlucky enough not to be married. This is from "Hall, Ireland, Its Scenery and Character, Vol 1 (1841)":
 |
"Hall, Ireland, Its Scenery and Character,
Vol 1 (1841)" |
“In Waterford, some years ago, the lower classes had a species of amusement, we believe, peculiar to them: it was practised on Ash Wednesday, and was called ‘drawing the log’. It was instituted as a penitential exercise to the bachelors and maidens who permitted Lent to arrive without joining in ‘the holy bands’. The log was a large piece of timber, to which a long rope was attached; it was drawn through the streets of the city, followed by a crowd of men and boys of the lowest grade, armed with bludgeons, shouting ‘Come draw the log, come draw the log, bachelors and maidens, some draw the log’ … the most scandalous scenes of cruelty often ensued; young bachelors and maidens being forced from their homes, tied to ‘the log’ and dragged through the city. The custom has, of late years, been very properly discontinued.”
the Dublin Historical Record, available on the Irish Maritime Museum website here.
Here is an amazing one about sex, intrigue and murder of a baby from 1865 in Ballinasloe’s work house.
“A sad story from the Cork Examiner, 1st June 1865 (courtesy of Ireland Old News), recounting a scandal which must have shocked the Galway town of Ballinasloe":
“BALLINASLOE, SUNDAY, NINE o’CLOCK, P.M.—The Master, Mr. David Breen and Miss Duane, the school mistress, were arrested about three hours ago for the murder of the infant found in the privy of the workhouse on Wednesday last. It appears that on the night of Thursday, the day the inquest was held, the master revealed to his wife the startling fact that he had carried on an illicit intercourse with Miss Duane for some time, and the result of her becoming pregnant by him. He made a similar confession to the Rev. John Cotton Walker, rector of the parish, observing that his conscience would not let him be at ease.
"Intimation being given to John M. Hatchell, Esq., R.M., both he and Miss Duane were arrested by Head-Constable Ellis about six o’clock, and brought to the police barracks. Mr. Breen not only admits the criminal intercourse with the wretched woman but that he was aware of her pregnancy; that in March last she went to Dublin for the purpose of being privately confined, but that, on her return, she wrote him a note, stating she destroyed the child before she went, and told him where she put it, wanting him to have the privy cleared in a few days after, which he declined doing, nor would he think of doing so, only the manure was required for the farm. The wretched woman has, as yet, made no confession of her guilt. I understand a full inquiry will be held to-morrow. The greatest sensation prevailed through every part of the town on hearing of the arrest of the parties.”
Finally, here is more intrigue and derring-do worthy of Agatha Christie
From the Anglo-Celt, December 4th, 1851:
“The Court of Exchequer, too, has furnished its quota to the general fund in the case of MATHEWS v. HARTY, which was an action brought by Mr. Mathews, a Sizar and Scholar of T.C.D., against Doctor Harty, the keeper of a mad house in Dublin, for having had him illegally put up as a dangerous lunatic in Swift’s. It came out upon the defence, that the young man was the illegitimate son of the Doctor by a female who had been attacked with temporary insanity but had recovered. As the case is still at hearing we refrain from observations."
9 Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Smyrnian | Mar 24, 2013, 06:36 PM EDT
Incredibly badly written in the old fashioned tradition. Very poor.
Joe Glackin | Mar 11, 2013, 09:04 PM EDT
@jacersagain. Go raibh agat a chara agus Beannacht De. Its the first time I actually seen the words in print and they strike hard Thanks for your effort and time on this as those other comments
jacersagain | Mar 08, 2013, 05:07 PM EST
Hey Joe Glackin – just so’s people know what you mean, here’s the words of the song made famous by Irish folk group Planxty of which I was a great fan(hoping it posts rightly!) The Well Below the Valley A gentleman was passing by He asked for a drink as he got dry At the well below the valley-o Green grows the lily-o Right among the bushes-o "Me cup is full unto the brim If I were to stoop I might fall in" "If your true love was passing by You'd fill him a drink as he got dry" She swore by grass, she swore by corn That her true love had never been born He said "Young maid, you swear in wrong For six children you had born" "If you be a man of noble fame You'll tell to me the father of them" "There's two of them by your uncle Dan" "Another two by your brother John" "Another two by your father dear" "If you be a man of noble esteem You'll tell to me what did happen to them" "There's two buried 'neath the stable door" "Another two near the kitchen door" "Another two buried beneath the wall" "If you be a man of noble fame You'll tell to me what will happen to mysel' " "You'll be seven years a-ringing the bell" "You'll be seven more a-porting in hell" "I'll be seven years a-ringing the bell But the Lord above may save me soul from porting in hell.”
jacersagain | Mar 08, 2013, 04:37 PM EST
And now here’s how the opening of a Magdalen Home in Dublin City was reported in the Freeman’s Journal on March 28th 1892 (121 yrs ago): “The Magdalens: Blessing of New Building by His Grace, Archbishop of Dublin - Yesterday the Magdalen Asylum, St. Mary’s Retreat, Lower Gloucester Street, was the scene of a most solemn and imposing ceremony. The beautiful new church of St. Mary Magdalen and the building connected with it, which have been recently finished, were blessed by His Grace, the Archbishop of Dublin, in presence of a representative and influential gathering of the clergy and laity. The building, of which the sacred editics (sp? - the print is blurred on this word) form the crowning glory, are without exception the most unique and important of their class in Dublin. Their object, to afford shelter and solace to repentant women, the self-sacrificing and untiring devotion of the French Sisters of Charity, who, as ministering angels, direct the operations of the institution; and the fact that this is the only Catholic Magdalen Asylum within the city bounds, all tend to mark the Gloucester street establishment as one of the most pre-eminently deserving of the charity of our people. There is a debt of £4000 due in connection with the new buildings of the institution, and there can be little doubt that it will not be allowed to weigh long on the shoulders of the Sisters, the appeal on whose behalf yesterday met with a most encouraging response’.”
jacersagain | Mar 08, 2013, 04:33 PM EST
(From below) First, a report in the Freeman’s Journal 162 yrs ago, printed March 14th 1851, on a “Robbery at the South Union Workhouse: Michael Tracey, Thomas Heavy, James Coogan, John Donovan, all urchins under 14 years of age, were charged with having in their possession two pairs of trousers and some other articles of wearing apparel, for which they could not satisfactorily account. They were met on the previous day by some of the police, having the property on them, and being unable to render satisfactory answers to the questions put to them on the occasion, they were taken into custody, and confined in the Newmarket station-house for the night. The prisoners had been inmates of the workhouse, but had been lately discharged from it. ¬ Mr. Wood Gibson Jones, a relieving officer of the union, identified the clothes as being the property of the guardians, and deposed to his belief of the goods having been stolen from the workhouse. ¬ The bench (i.e. the judge) dealt summarily with the case by ordering four dozen lashes to be inflicted on each of the offenders.”
jacersagain | Mar 08, 2013, 04:23 PM EST
I think it is all too easy, from our perspective of right and wrong today, to rush to ill-judgement of what people of decades and even of over a century ago saw as being a “good” way to deal with social problems in Ireland. Perchance, I happened on some newspaper reports in a Dublin paper this week under the heading of “From the Archives” – two of which I’m going to post as verbatim transcripts complete with as-printed commas and semi-colons (colons are my own to mark a headline break; I have also used ¬ as a para-break), one on a Magdalen Home and the other on a pre-cursor of Magdalen Homes, the infamous Workhouses (á la Charles Dickens writings) dotted around many parts of Ireland, ruins of some are still to be seen today. The report on the workhouse robbery was printed just 3 years after the Irish Famine, so you can gauge just how desperate young destitute people were at that time and how they were dealt the “justice” of the day for their ‘injustice’. Please read both of them, noting the peculiarity of English words and expressions of those times and make up your own mind on the perspectives of those times vs. the perspectives of our times of today. Perhaps it might bring a new light of understanding by us people of today that will not be so harsh on what Irish society of by-gone decades and centuries had to live with and how they coped with it. Whatever you decide, may you be thankful you were not living in those times and be thankful of what we have in today’s society.
Joe Glackin | Mar 06, 2013, 06:20 PM EST
Christy Moore,s "Well Below The Valley" is a stark reminder of similar to above horrific events.
sdaedalus | Mar 05, 2013, 04:10 AM EST
Thanks very much for kind article... much appreciated!
merefalow | Mar 04, 2013, 07:55 PM EST
NOTHING MUCH CHANGES,IN AN ATTEMPT TO SAVE MONEY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT NO LONGER INCARCERATES MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE,but under a programn laughingly entitled care in the community,drug them up and let them loose,resulting in inumerable assaults murders rapes etc etc,only last week a innocent woman was stabbed to death by a scitsophrenic who had begged to be taken into care.she was released after 6 years for((wait for it,stabbing her mother to death)and yet she was out to do it again in less than 6 years.discracefull.another loonie chopped a grandmothers head completely off,so you dont have to go back to 18th century ireland,its still happening now.