Lissadell House and Gardens, Sligo, Ireland
Famine Years
In creating the parklands in the 1840s Robert Gore Booth acquired the 875 acre town land of Ballygilgan, assisting the emigration of 52 families to Quebec: in 1839 he paid each person £2 a head for disturbance, £4 for every acre of good land, and sea passage in the Pomona.
Those who refused to emigrate were offered land elsewhere in Sligo. He also acquired a neighbouring estate, and both purchases were funded by the sale and mortgage of family property in England.
Lissadell itself was not mortgaged for these purchases, and it is doubtful if tradition is correct in saying that the estate was mortgaged for famine relief in the 1840's. Robert did offer some help during the famine: he chaired four famine relief committees and distributed bread and oatmeal.
Distribution of food to the starving in the Riding Arena at Lissadell
VOICES FROM THE PAST
Select Committee of the House of Lords on Colonization from Ireland in 1848, Robert Gore Booth gave this evidence:
"I think usually they are very willing to emigrate when absolutely obliged to quit the land; but they have a very strong affection for the ground they have resided upon, and would, in many instances, prefer existing upon it to getting rich elsewhere. They are an uncertain people; they sometimes take a dislike to move, but when forced to do so by circumstances they preferred emigration to the holding an indifferent farm which required much labour.
Q: Was it in fact a voluntary emigration, undertaken with the goodwill of the people themselves, or was it in any respect a compulsory emigration ?
A: I never compelled any individual. If a man could not go back to his own farm, he had the choice of going to another farm-inferior ground, but a sufficient quantity for his means - in a different part of the estate. No man was compelled to go by me."
Letter from The parish priest at Carney to Caroline Gore Booth 1847:
"Mr O'Gara's compliments to Lady Gore Booth and he has the honour to inform her that the destitute poor are permitted the use of broth etc, every day during Lent the first and last Wednesdays and all Fridays excepted. He feels not to advert to the most extensive, indiscriminate and unostentatious charities, performed by her Ladyship and so gratefully remembered by the poor of God, that the respectful regard, exhibited by her for the religious convictions of the Roman Catholic people of this District, entitle her to the eternal gratitude of every friend of suffering humanity, as well as of freedom of conscience. It will he trusts be consoling to her Ladyship to learn that the humble prayers of God's humble creatures are offered every night, and in every house, for the spiritual and temporal welfare of every member of her Ladyship's family."
In 1971 the longest serving Fianna Fáil member of Sligo County Council, Eugene Gilbride of Grange, wrote:
"Would it perchance be that the benevolent Sir Robert preferred horses, bullocks and trees to the Irish people whom he so professedly loved? My duty is now to use my effort to undo the work of Robert Gore Booth and create as many homes as possible on the Lissadell Estate. In doing so I am carrying out the wishes of the late Countess Markievicz. I knew the Countess well. She came down to Sligo to help me in the 1927 election, and spoke on my behalf."
FAMINE YEARS : VOICES FROM OVERSEAS
Letter to Sir R. Gore Boothe Colonial Land & Emigration Office 9 Park Street Westminster 20th November 1847
Sir, With respect to the enclosed extracts of the Government Emigration Agent at Saint Johns New Brunswick relative to the condition & class of emigrants stated to have been sent out from your estate in the course of the past season. The commissioners of Colonial Lands and Emigration have thought that you would very probably desire to see these statements & I am therefore directed to forward them to you, & to say that should you wish to offer any remarks upon them, the Commissioners will be very happy to receive them. -- I have the honor to be Sir, Your obedient Servant, S. Walcott , Secretary.
Extracts of reports Govt. Emigration Agent at St. John's, New Brunswick -
1. About one-third of those who have arrived have re-emigrated to the United States. A large number of those who remain have become a public charge, from their inability to work, and utter destitution. Among those at present chargeable are many of the emigrants by the AEolus, from Sligo. The passengers by this vessel, 500 in number, state that they were 'exported' by their landlord, Sir Robert Gore Booth, who paid their passage-money in order to disencumber his estate. Several of these people will, in all probability become a permanent charge on the public funds; and this shovelling of helpless paupers, without any provision for them here, if continued, will inflict very serious injury on a this colony. This case of the passengers by the AEolus is mentioned, as it will necessarily come under consideration hereafter, and should, without delay, be noticed and condemned.
2. I have to report the arrival of the barque Yeoman from Sligo, 514 passengers, and brig Alice from Galway, 125 passengers, and enclose ship returns, to which I refer. The whole of the passengers by the Yeoman were tenants on the estate of Sir Robert Gore Booth, Bart., at Lissidell, near Sligo, and are sent out at his individual expense, they having yielded up their several holdings on his estate as a consideration for their passage and expenses. They were amply provided with provisions of the best description, in every variety for the voyage, and no pains have been spared to render them comfortable. They are to receive a week’s allowance of provisions on landing, after which they must shift for themselves. These passengers appear somewhat superior to those which came from the same estate by the AEolus, a large proportion of whom are now a public charge. I examined the passengers by the Yeoman very strictly, and informed them that all those who could not or would not provide for themselves, would in all probability be sent back again to Sligo. The master of the Yeoman informs me that the ship Lady Sale, may be expected in a few days from Sligo, with another 500 from Sir Robert Gore Booth's estate; and I therefore reserve certain observations I am desirous of making until after the arrival of the Lady Sale.
3. In the Lady Sale three deaths occurred on the voyage, and 15 persons are sick on board. The passengers by the Lady Sale are from the estate of Robert Gore Boothe, Bart., and are reported to be of a worse class than those which have arrived by the AEolus and Yeoman from the same estate. Many of them will become a public burthen from the moment of their landing.
4. The passengers by the ship Lady Sale are tenantry from the estate of Sir Robert Gore Boothe, and sent out at his expense. No less than 176 adult females embarked in the Lady Sale, of whom nine are widows, with 57 children. Judging from the samples of Sir Robert Gore Boothe's tenantry which have already arrived here, another infliction of paupers may be expected in this instance, with a large proportion of widows and orphans.
Signed M.H. Perlay, The Hon. John S. Saunders, Provl. Secretary .
FAMINE YEARS : 16th CENTURY SLIGO
Following a series of Elizabethan invasions, the poet Edmund Spenser (then living in Cork, and no friend to Ireland) was moved to record that the local people:
‘..were brought to such wretchedness at this time that any strong heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands for their legs would not bear them. They looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves. They did eat of the dead carrions… and if they found a plot of watercress, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able to continue like this, so that in a short space of time there were none left and a most populous country suddenly left void of men and beast.’
Elizabeth's armies marched through Ulster and down to Sligo. The Irish chieftains were beaten and forced to abandon Irish customs, language, religion and laws: 'one must utterly destroy the customs and practices' so that 'the next generation of Irishe must in thought and heart and every else become Englishe'. In 1567 Sligo chief Donough O’Conor was captured and taken prisoner to England by Paul Gore, an ancestor of the Gore Booth family of Lissadell. He was released on condition of submission and conformity, which he rejected on his return to Sligo. In 1584 the arrival of a huge invading force under the command of Richard Bingham forced the O’Conor Sligo into further submission, and his land was divided up as payment among the Cromwellian adventurers and soldiers.
The main beneficiaries in Sligo were the Gore-Booth family of Lissadell who were given 32,000 acres and John Temple, who was granted 12,000 acres, and whose descendent Henry Temple (Lord Palmerston) built himself a country house at Classiebawn (pictured right).
Stable Block and Coach House
