Was our family evicted after the Great Hunger?

Cottage in Gap of Dunloe from the Lawrence collection - typical of cottages around 1900 in the Kerry mountains.

I knew going into all this that my grandmother’s father was Michael Moriarty of Loughane and that her mother was Gubby Sweeney of Coad.  This was family tradition from Ma and her brother Uncle Mike O'Sullivan.

But we just saw that the marriage entry for 1850 in Cahirdaniel Catholic Church lists Michael Moriarty as being from Coad!  His father or brother – Daniel Moriarty – was named in Griffith’s 1852 Valuation of Coad. There were no Moriartys in Upper or Lower Glenlough in the Valuation.

Gubby Sweeney’s relatives were listed in Griffith’s Valuation of Coad – Patrick Sweeney and John Sweeney. Patrick’s descendant, John Sweeney, still lives in the Coad homestead - Johnny Murphy and I bought 2 cars from him in the mid 1980s when we lived in Sneem.

(And just a quick note – I read somewhere that Mary/Abbie/Gubby/Deborah were interchangeable names – I have seen Gubby’s name in these various forms.)

So Michael Moriarty living in Coad married Gobnet/Gubby Sweeney in Cahirdaniel in 1850. Then two years later, Michael Moriarty and Gubby Sweeney had a daughter Mary who was born in Reen, Cahirdaniel.

When I did a search of Griffith’s Valuation for Michael Moriarty in Kilcrohane Parish, there was a Michael Moriarty in Staigue, which is in Castlecove - plus three Michael Moriartys in Sneem – one each in Derreenauliff, Drimnamore, and Derryquin - all three of these townlands are in Sneem. There was no Reen listed. So what happened to our Michael Moriarty?

We know that some landlords and big farmers were in desperate straits financially after the famine. England put the burden of famine relief – especially after the 1848 Irish uprising  - on the local landlords who were to pay taxes to fund relief for these masses of starving Irish. This proved overwhelming for the good landlords who tried to help their tenants by waiving rents, operating soup kitchens, trying to pay for famine relief. Tenants could not pay their rent, and even though some landlords did try to pay their share, there were simply far too many starving people.

In the earlier years of the famine, the people had pawned the little they had to pay their rent – they had to hold onto that land to survive. They couldn’t afford the inflated food prices. No one expected the famine to last so long.  Now they had nothing but rags, starvation and disease – cholera and typhoid - cabin fever - were rampant.  As Paddy Dennehy said, people were dying on the sides of the road – families were dying in their mountain cabins. Bodies were buried in mass graves. Even those living near the sea were dying – the winters were cold – record amounts of snow fell – frequent storms made the seas too rough for fisherman to go out in their curraghs. People did scavenge the shore for seaweed and any small shellfish they could uncover. But there were too many starving people.

Some landlords started clearing their lands of tenants – either by evicting them onto the road or paying their passage to America – to the United States but primarily to Canada, which was a British colony - this made it easier to send them there. Some landlords would make sure the cabins or huts were toppled so the families couldn’t get back in. Then when the land was cleared, they would bring in cattle for grazing - this was far more profitable than tenants who could not pay their rent. But how did these poor evicted people survive? Many didn’t – they died on the road or on mountainsides – on ships crossing the Atlantic – and some died after they reached Canada or the US. But we know that Michael Moriarty and Gubby Sweeney survived – but how and where?

Griffith’s Valuation lists a Michael Moriarty renting a share in the Staigue commonage from James F. Bland – the Sneem landlord. Staigue is in the same area as Coad. He was also renting a house, office, and 33+ acres of land in Lot 2 from Bland, and his holding included Staigue Fort!

I knew the Curran brothers who lived in this exact spot in the 1980s and 90s. I would see them when I would take the kids or visitors to Staigue Fort. I think they were caretakers for the area around the fort. Johnny Murphy said they were supposed to keep the grass cut and keep an eye on the fort. I wish I knew then that one of my ancestors might have lived on their land. I certainly would have peppered them with questions!!

It is interesting that there is an Ellen Moriarty renting Lot 4 - this borders on part of Michael Moriarty’s Lot 1. Surely, Ellen must be a widow. I wonder if her husband was related to Michael? Is that how he arrived in Staigue?

Griffith’s was carried out about 1852 in Kilcrohane Parish. So could Michael and Gobnet Moriarty of Coad have married in 1850 and at some point lived in Reen where Mary Moriarty was born in 1852. I couldn’t find a listing for Reen in Griffith’s. Did Coad landlord Edward Hartopp consolidate his holdings and evict our young family? When the landlords were changing over to grazing cattle, they did not need many farm laborers and did not want any tenants - both of whom were forced to look elsewhere for work and for land to rent. Would our family have moved to Staigue by the time of Griffith’s Valuation? We saw that the landlord at this time in Staigue was James Bland. 

Whatever happened, a safe guess is that our Michael Moriarty and Mary Sweeney – both from Coad - marry in the Cahirdaniel Church on 27 November 1850, which is shortly after the famine and before Griffith’s Valuation.  We have also seen that a Mary Moriarty of Reen in Cahirdaniel was born to Michael Moriarty and Gobnet Sweeney in February 1852. I think this may be our family.

According to Mormon microfilm of the Valuation Office, Michael Moriarty was renting Lots I & J in Glenlough Lower sometime before 1872. So that means he moved to Loughane after 1852 and before 1872. I saw this microfilm in the early 1980s at the Mormon library in Weston or Cambridge, but at that time there was no way to make a copy – so I had to copy everything from the microfilm by hand.

One last note about Coad. According to my cousin Hannah John L. O'Sullivan,  Paddy Sweeney of Coad, whose  son John Sweeney now runs the garage in Coad, is 2^nd cousin to my grandmother, Margaret Moriarty.

So my first goal was to learn about Ma's grandparents. I think I have found them. So where do we go now?