Continuum

Chapter One

Life …

The relentless continuum of one thing happening after another: sometimes slow, oftentimes fast, occasionally moving monumentally. History does that. Time does that. Life does that.

The year was 1846, and Christmas was but four days away. The situation in Ireland was described in the Guardian newspaper of that date, Tuesday 20 December, as apocalyptic. Hunger and typhus were killing people by the thousands. Coffin makers could not meet the demands, and dead bodies were piled one on top of another in deep pits with boards laid to separate each corpse. Babies, so many babies, were being buried in baskets by desperate, grieving parents trying to preserve some semblance of dignity.

An Gorta Mór is the Gaelic term meaning the Potato Famine. In 1844, the potato crops began to fail after a fungus-like organism spread rapidly throughout Ireland. The plants began well, but leaves withered, and although the growth underground attained a useable size, when dug up the potato was foul-smelling and rotting. The Irish crofters all planted the same potato type, and colloquially it was known as the ‘Irish lumper’. Had other varieties been incorporated, the famine may well have been avoided.

Although the potatoes were corrupted and had become soft, giving off a terrible smell, some people tried to eat them out of desperation. If they were actually able to swallow the disgusting mush, it led to vomiting, with many diners remaining very ill for days.

Initially the devastation was not total. Some farms fared better than others, but as time passed it became obvious that no holding was to be spared, and starvation became the savage reality.

The Great Irish Famine, also known as the Great Hunger, decimated the population for almost two years. It was responsible for the deaths of more than one million souls. Those who were able to remain strong at the beginning of the devastation desperately tried to help their weaker neighbours bury their dead, but as the hunger worsened, many victims were placed in shallow holes and covered with stones. Despite the care taken, foxes often found their way to the raw flesh, and the scavenged corpses became exposed. The long hair on many of the dead women seemed to dance eerily in the wind.

Hunger and hard work will always be at odd ends with one another, and as the population weakened physically, living conditions became the stuff of nightmares. It would be impossible to qualify the mental state of the sufferers, and only those who had lived through wars could possibly identify in any way with the bloodcurdling visions of what had become life on the land.

Food became so scarce and starvation so rampant many farmers moved closer to the coast in the hope of fleeing the torment and seeking a safe haven in England. Hungry people were harvesting the abundant kelp brought in on each tide, boiling it into a slurry and serving it as a soup.

Livestock was not spared the misery. A major portion of the feed given to sheep, cows, and horses consisted of potatoes. These animals were dying of hunger, and their carcasses were left to rot where they fell. Any salvaged meat was eaten by the crofters (farmers), but most simply went to waste because the condition of these animals was so poor they began to putrefy well before death.

The once-beautiful rolling hills of productive farmland became a pockmarked terrain of nightmares, and the stench of rotting flesh, combined with the acrid odour emanating from the soil that housed the rotting potatoes, had created an atmosphere that the God-fearing inhabitants referred to as hell on earth.

Chapter Two

The Diaspora

Some sympathetic mariners smuggled families across to the English Coast, and the major port of disembarkation was Liverpool. But those caring mariners were in the minority. People had become desperate, and many corrupt boat owners would pile people on board, relieving them of everything of value by way of extracting their fee for passage. A large number of these desperate people moved inland to Manchester by travelling up the Mersey River and into the River Irwell in the hope of reaching Salford in Manchester, a distance of thirty-one miles, where so many of their relatives and friends had already settled and were offering assistance.

The wealthy landowners of Ireland, most of whom were English, were more concerned about profit than rendering any relief to the victims. Not all alternate crops were affected by the root-rotting disease causing the potatoes to fail, and of course the potato was the prime source of food, allowing these still-primitive farmers to subsist. The sad fact, however, was that the bulk of these other foods grown were being shipped to England for market pandering, and allowing the ‘landed gentry’ to live their lavish lifestyles either oblivious to, or more likely, simply choosing to ignore the problem. It would be extremely hard to put these greedy attitudes down to not being aware of the plight wreaking havoc throughout Ireland, England’s closest member of her empire.

Much literature was already in print exposing the slum living conditions of the poverty-stricken English working class. Over the one hundred years that preceded the potato famine, England had grown into the most powerful nation on earth—not due to the innumerable wars that had taken place in that century, and not due to the fact that England had created an empire never before even remotely matched by any previous or present regimes.

England had outgrown its antiquated and primitive feudal system of governance and had transformed itself into a nation with inventions, factories, mills, and rail transport. Ordinary men of vision becoming wealthy overnight. This Industrial Revolution brought about a change to the way everything was done, and the demand for workers was extreme. It was said at the time that most workers were regarded by their masters as no more than the coal that fed the fires of the greedy forges catering to the overwhelming industrial development of that time.

Mr Charles Dickens had written a wonderful book, The Parish Boys Progress, later renamed Oliver Twist. It told in brutal reality just how desperate the poor had become and described many of the tragic situations workhouse children found themselves in. The book was serialised, and printing began in 1837, with the complete story told over a two-year period. Some more well-read intellectuals of the day suggested the main character, Oliver, was based on the true story of Robert Blincoe, as told by the author John Waller and printed in 1832. From this a realisation arises, proving that there were serious concerns being put to the public for quite some time regarding the cruel treatment of the working class.

Queen Victoria began her reign in the same year that Oliver Twist went to print. At that time, the British Empire was the largest wealth-generating conglomerate in the world. Yet it appeared that the queen chose to do next to nothing to intervene or help with aid to assist the rapidly increasing number of her starving Irish subjects. Evidence of a five pound donation was recorded as coming from the queen and possibly another two thousand-pound contribution at a later date through a British famine relief agency. The wealth being plundered out of India alone during this time in the name of the empire makes her effort insulting.

England’s wealth and financial security had never been stronger. To contextualise the time, consider this. On Sunday, 19 July 1843, the SS Great Britain, designed and built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was launched at Bristol by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German husband. This, the first propeller-driven, iron-hulled steamship totally revolutionised shipping. She was more than one hundred metres long and weighed in excess of 1,930 tonnes. Prince Albert was a staunch supporter of the progress and development he saw all around him. He encouraged his queen to do the same. They did not hide away. They travelled the countryside, and Albert in particular was captivated by the rapidly expanding railway network beginning to traverse all of England.

In the following year, 1844, a consortium of wealthy businessmen and engineers were building the railway line from Manchester over the Pennines to link with Sheffield. None of this was driven by tourism. It was capitalism at full stretch. They must have been aware.

The British government fared no better. The Poor Law Act, declared in England in 1834 and extended to Ireland in 1838, offered no assistance to farmers. In fact, it compounded the problem by declaring that all out of work ‘able-bodied indigents’ be sent to labour in the squalid conditions of the workhouses.

This allowed unscrupulous businesses of the time to press these able-bodied indigents, so many of whom were merely children, into service. In reality, all workers, often complete families, became slaves upon being sent to the workhouses. They were all made to wear uniforms and sleep in overcrowded dormitories on beds no more than two feet wide.

There was absolutely no consideration given to hygiene, health, or hunger. Although cruelty seemed to be the order of the day and physical punishments were brutally meted out for the smallest of rule infringements, the authorities did little to right the escalating list of complaints. Families were segregated and often only saw one another briefly in passing. The food supplied was barely enough to keep the workers standing upright, never mind provide the energy that would be needed to complete the long day’s labour, often extending to sixteen hours.

This appalling fact alone, if considered, paints a picture of the cruelty and inhumanity on open display everywhere and every day in the life of workers. Breakfast consisted of gruel. This stew-like concoction could best be compared to porridge but had additional ingredients thrown in, depending on what was cheap and available. Stale vegetables and legumes chopped into pieces were often added.

There was no consideration given to proper diet, but the business overseers did know the value of a full belly when it came to work output. The gruel was served hot. A ladle was used to drop the slop directly into the outstretched palm of the worker. It did not dribble out and fall to the ground because it was so thick. The workers simply ate the slop directly out of the palm of their hands. No plates, no spoons, no dignity.

Many of the shaking, outstretched hands could hold no more than a small spoonful. Children aged 4 or 5 do not have big hands. Another meal was served in the evenings, but that barely kept the workforce alive.

Children were harvested from orphanages, and good money could be earned by unscrupulous operators in the child slave trade. Some children were worked so hard that they were no longer productive and therefore returned to the orphanage, only to be replaced by yet another child slave. The owners of many of the mills housed the child labourers on-site. They would be locked in cramped and damp dormitories, often leading to the spread of disease and dysentery. They were called apprentices and were only turned free when they reached age 17. When the female workers were no longer required by the mills, they often found that they were too old for alternate employment. If they could not marry, many turned to prostitution.

It was reported that in one of the disgusting workhouses, a brawl broke out between workers who were pounding animal bones into powder to be used for farming fertiliser. The bones contained marrow, and food was the issue as the starving inmates fought for it.

Chapter Three

The Connellys

The Industrial Revolution in England had begun in earnest around 1740, almost one hundred years earlier. As factories sprang up all over the English West Coast, the demand for labour was exploding. This is what began the rift between the deliberately imported Irish workforce and the locals who had been there from the beginning. The Irish were prepared to work for less money, and tensions led to many ructions between the workers. These tensions escalated exponentially as the relentless Potato Famine forced many more thousands of Irish folk to head to England.

In 1844, two men met in Paris, and after finding that they had much in common became lifelong friends. The philosophies borne of this pairing that offered so much to the working class in their lifetimes would, over the next one hundred years, make the devastation of the Potato Famine appear as a mere hiccup in history. Frederick Engles was the clear-thinking, organised, and astute one side of the same coin that found itself often weighed down by its own reverse face, where sat Karl Marx, who could bluster on and confuse issues.

In 1846, Joseph and Grace Connelly, through no fault of their own, found themselves and what was left of their seven children living a life that could never have been imagined three years earlier. The home they had abandoned several months before was all Joseph Connelly had ever known.

His father, Patrick, had originally rented the small crofters cottage, and Joseph considered himself blessed because he and his two sisters, Kate and Tess, had enjoyed a carefree childhood. Joseph’s mother, Irene, was always able to set a plentiful table, and although the children worked hard on the small holding, their laughter far outweighed any concerns they might have had due to their modest circumstances.

Their small home consisted of a windowless stone structure with a straw roof. There was one bedroom, and the remaining area made up a kitchen with a wood stove. Two ancient chairs and a timber slab table were the only items of furniture. It was customary to sleep as many family members in the one bed as possible, and the remainder slept on the floor. Joseph did not mind his position on the floor as he was able to lie near the woodstove for heat. He kept it stoked so the warmth was there for all to enjoy each cold morning.

The state education system was in its infancy, and Joseph was able to attend school regularly, except during planting and harvesting time. These two events required the participation of the whole Connelly clan, and their very survival depended upon these two labour-intensive chores to be carried out no matter what.

Joseph’s father, Patrick, died tragically when an infected wound caused his blood to sour, eventually shutting down his heart. The injury occurred when Patrick had the farm horse, Trot, harnessed to pull the single-furrow wooden plough, enabling the rows to be dug and allowing the potato crop to be planted. The ancient leather strapping in the harness fractured, causing the plough to become untethered. With no weight to pull, Trot ran forward, and because Patrick had fallen into the bad habit of wrapping the reins around his right hand for better control, the leather tightened. Trot lurched forward, tearing away two fingers from Patrick’s entrapped right hand. As Patrick was pulled forward into the wooden plough, one handle broke and speared his right thigh.

A loving and able father, Patrick felt his heart break as he lay helplessly in bed for several weeks until his angels gathered round him and mercifully relieved his pain.

When Joseph’s father died, it was expected that Joseph would don the mantle of man of the house. After all, he was 13 years old, and those thirteen years of learning under his father’s gentle guidance had prepared him well for the tasks ahead. He was no longer able to attend school but had already learnt how to read and write.

Mr George Dosset was Joseph’s teacher and recognised that the lad was bright and quick to learn. So although Joseph became bound to the farm, Mr George Dosset would call at the Connellys’ croft, dropping off several books for his young charge and collecting those he had left on his previous visit. The young scholar always found time in the evenings by the light of a small candle, when everyone was in bed, to delve into Mr Dosset’s offerings. He saw each page as a gift and had no trouble allowing his mind to be transported to places he knew he would never have the opportunity to visit in reality. Reading by the flickering light late into the evenings was the single comfort Joseph had to look forward to, and he treasured the time. He was alone.

Joseph’s two sisters were courted young, as was the custom of the time, and at 15, Kate, the ‘baby’, married a young man, Mathew Morgan, who worked as a blacksmith in the nearby village of Transbridge. Almost twelve months to the day, Tess, now 17, was betrothed to a man whom Joseph disliked intensely. Nothing remains unknown in small Irish villages, and Marcus Eversall, Tess’s betrothed, had a reputation for drunken behaviour and brawling.

Joseph met his wife-to-be, Grace O’Mara, at St Brendan’s Catholic Church, where the Connelly family attended Mass and received the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist every Sunday. She was new to the district, and Joseph willingly threw himself under her spell, believing her to be the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. The first things he noticed on that brightly sunlit Sabbath were her glistening green eyes, as green as the glittering emeralds that adorned the monstrance in the Dublin cathedral that had so mesmerised him. The candles that burned either side of that beautifully ornate host carrier caused those green emeralds to flicker, as if taking part in a sacred, hypnotic dance. Joseph believed he would never see anything as beautiful as those gems again. Grace O’Mara dispelled that myth.

Joseph was awestruck by that object of reverence when he accompanied his father on church business to try to convince Bishop Mannix of Dublin to lower the amount of the tythes being paid by him and his neighbours into the ever-swelling coffers of the Catholic Church. The negotiations ended badly, and it was the first and only time Joseph Connelly ever saw his father angry. So angry in fact that he cursed the bishop, using language that Joseph had only sampled previously from the mouths of the seamen to whom he would deliver the farm’s potatoes for transportation to the port of Liverpool in England.

What would be the value of that solid-gold monstrance? Joseph asked his father as they rode home on the roof of the mail and passenger coach through driving wind and rain.

His father’s reply lived on to haunt him. Many meals on many, many tables, son.

After a quick courtship, Grace and Joseph married, with Grace moving into the Connelly croft.

Parish priest Father Riley, who performed the marriage service, was an insignificant little man who looked much older than his hard-spent forty years. The church building was suffering from lack of adequate maintenance, and all the parishioners knew the majority of the stipend allotted to Father Riley was being spent on cheap whiskey. He insisted that imbibing the alcohol in large quantities was the only way he could physically cope with the problems of the parish he had, reluctantly, been sent to. It would seem that the same amounts of strong drink were required at all seven parishes to which Father Riley had been assigned previously. Some parishioners expressed their concerns to the incumbent Bishop Mannix when he bothered to visit, to no avail.

So many parishes, so much whiskey, and rumours concerning the inordinate amount of time Father Riley spent with his preferred altar boys quickly spread. It was an old trick of the Church to often move ‘problem priests’ to other parishes to allow rumours and complaints to subside.

Despite the poor service provided by the Catholic Church to the parish that Joseph and his family were so devoted to, he depended on his faith and considered himself to be a better man because of it. He was well thought of by his community and often helped his neighbours with farm work during the heavy load days.

Grace, nee O’Mara, now Connelly, was true to her given name. She had true grace and was living with her widower father and three brothers in a village near to the Connelly croft. It was on a day that she decided to attend Mass with her cousin Colleen at St Brendan’s Catholic Church that she was initially introduced to Joseph Connelly. He was not new to love. He was surrounded by love. His mother, his father, and his two sisters truly loved him, and he knew it. Joseph knew how to receive love and to return it. This grounding afforded Joseph the wherewithal to begin a family of his own.

Joseph’s mother, Irene, no longer enjoyed good health and spent much of her time confined to bed. Unusual for the time: she smoked a pipe and was seldom without it. Her room stank of cheap tobacco, lanolin, and illness. Joseph’s father had always grown tobacco as a trading crop with the sailors who were able to pay cash or barter for seafood. Tobacco grew well in the otherwise useless, boggy areas of the farm and required little maintenance.

Irene purchased the cheap clay pipe from a tinker who travelled the countryside carrying a sailor’s tote bag overloaded with all manner of kitchen wares and small trinkets. Many of the gift items were of a religious significance, and on previous visits to the Connelly croft, Irene had separately purchased three sets of rosary beads. One set she kept for herself, one she gave to Patrick as a Christmas gift, while the third set she hid in the family straw mattress to await Joseph’s next birthday. He received those rosary beads on the day his father died.

The clay pipe was given to Patrick by his family in honour of his 40th birthday. Patrick tried to smoke the ‘bloody pipe’, but every time he sucked the smoke into his lungs, he exhaled, coughing uncontrollably. Try, cough, try, cough, over and over. Patrick was not a man to give up easily, but he gave up on that pipe. It was an occasion for great laughter when the family came into the cottage at the end of an exhausting day picking potatoes to find Irene Connelly barely visible, standing by the wood stove, shrouded by the pall of smoke emanating from that bloody pipe.

Irene Connelly became excited every time she saw the tinker headed towards the farm. She would feign interest to purchase some small item, knowing full well, as did the tinker, that she did not have the money to complete the sale. The tinker called himself Garret.

Garrett was not old but was bent over and well-worn, as were his clothes. A small, shiny hook sat in the place that once held his left hand. He told stories of wild adventures, and the Connelly children would sit on the ground with their mother as Garrett held court.

Joseph particularly liked the story that Garret told of how he lost his hand. He told of a fight he found himself in while trying to defend the honour of a young lady who had been set upon by a band of brigands in Manchester dockside. The number of offenders often varied with each retelling of the tale. Joseph pondered how he would one day take charge and fare well in a similar situation.

Irene loved the idea of touching the small gift pieces. Touching something new. How fresh they were. With each visit, the pleasure she felt was the same. In reality, most of the trinkets were the same ones that Irene had tenderly stroked and that Garrett had been carrying on to the Connelly farm for the past eight years.

Garrett declared that he was a ‘proud Gypsy’; some scholars referred to them as the Egyptian tribe.

Yes, he said, our history comes from the land of the pyramids and pharaohs. I am proudly from the true line of Abraham and his second wife, Keturah. Gajos—that is, people like yourselves who are not proud Gypsies—sometimes don’t take the time to understand our story. But not for one sacred second do I include you, Missus Irene Connelly, or any of your beautiful children in that number.

As Garrett spoke, Joseph could not help but notice that he started to gouge at the skin on the back of his right hand with the engraved silver hook that served as his left hand. He was cutting into the skin but seemed numbed to the pain.

I pray that the red heart of my sacred Black Madonna, St Sara-la-Cali, blesses you all, Garrett uttered.

Joseph’s inquisitive mind was piqued further as he heard Garrett say Black Madonna and red heart, so the question followed: Who is the Black Madonna?

Garrett’s answer further confused the issue. The Madonna is a religious statue, young Joey. Her skin is black. She is our own patron saint, and of course the mother of our Lord. But sadly, I heard some thieves plucked out her red heart. But Joseph, heart or no heart, my people will always pray to her.

Garrett continued. Missus Connelly, you do listen, and I know young Joseph here respects myself and people such as myself as his faith tells him to. I tell you now I share the same faith and return that respect to all mankind. But hear me now and believe it please that amongst my own people, I am in truth a king.

There was something about the guilt in the tone of Garrett’s voice when he spoke of the Black Madonna that unnerved Joseph. He reckoned there was more to the tale than Garrett had disclosed.

Chapter Four

Joseph was not so keen on reading poetry, and when his mentor, Mr George Dossett, dropped in and gave him the odd, tattered book of poetry to read as part of his at-home education, he struggled. There was something not right to Joseph’s ear as he listened to Garrett ramble out his awkward story of the heartless Black Madonna.

Joseph was not one to dwell on and memorise any lines of poetry that he was given to read, but as he was trying to understand the way he felt about Garrett’s explanation, a line from Marmion: A tale of Flodden Field by Sir Walter Scott came crashing into his thoughts. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. Mr Dossett had explained to Joseph that this line was often misquoted as having been written by Shakespeare and had featured in either Hamlet or Macbeth some three hundred-odd years earlier. It never did. Joseph had always held Garrett in high regard. He had no reason not to, but on the telling of the story of the heartless Black Madonna, something had changed.

Life for the expanding Connelly family had become incredibly difficult. Rent on the croft had to be paid, and with the rigours and hardships of farming the croft, coupled with the rigid constraints and demands for tithes imposed by the representatives of their God, it had created a situation where any hope of improvement was beyond imagination.

Joseph and Grace had only been married two years when Irene Connelly passed away. No specific ailment took her, Joseph explained to the folk that had gathered for her funeral. My loving mother just wore out. I believe she was very happy to say goodbye to this earth. She had simply had enough. She could take no more.

Joseph buried his mother alongside his father. She had lived for fifty years, and nearing her end she made Joseph swear to look after his sister Tess. Irene held great fears for Tess’s safety after several visitors had related the instances of beatings meted out to Tess by her cruel husband. Joseph begged his sister to return home, but she had given birth to a son by this time, and Marcus Eversall threatened to harm them both if she moved out.

A few short weeks after the death of his mother, Joseph found himself weeping into another hole in the ground. The roughly hewn timber box being lowered slowly into the grave next to his mother held what was left of his sister Tess. Her brutish husband had beaten her so severely with a small axe she was rendered unrecognisable.

Joseph had never known such sadness, but after gently covering the tiny piece of God’s earth that was now the final resting place of the sister he so loved, he found himself lost in thought as he took in the beauty of that day. Tess loved shamrocks, and the whole of the church grounds was covered in them. They were in bloom. The flowers were pink, and their pink glaze almost completely obscured the green carpet from which they had sprung. He imagined he could see Tess plucking up a handful of the delicate pink treasures and bringing them home to place in a vase on the cottage table. Her favourite colour was pink.

The local police officer, John Rostan, was a good and diligent man. He was born in Ireland, but his parents had relocated to London in 1813 when John was just 3 years old. He decided as a young man that he would become a policeman. And now, at 30 years of age, with twelve years on the force, he found himself having to deal with situations that, as a child, he could never have imagined. He was a tall man, well over six feet, with a powerful body that served him well along the path he had chosen. John was respected by his senior officers, and when he was offered the position of senior serving constable at Transbridge back in Ireland, he accepted the challenge, but not just for the promotion. John had not married, and when he relocated to Transbridge, his long-time live-in friend, Roger Earls, moved with him.

Whenever he was able, John visited his parents in London, with whom he spoke Gaelic in a broad Irish accent. But on his return to Ireland, he transferred back to speaking with a thunderously London Cockney accent. He knew this ruse would reinforce the authority required to perform his duties. The friend with whom he shared his home secured a position as a pastry chef at the one and only bakery in Transbridge.

Despite significant effort, the police, in particular John Rostan, were unable to find Tess’s murderer. He had fled the scene and just seemed to disappear. Tess’s son, Peter, was taken in by her sister, Kate, who by this time already had two children of her own. Kate’s husband, Mathew, had expanded his blacksmith business and now employed two apprentices. They weren’t rich but were doing well. Mathew was a caring man and did not hesitate to receive Tess’s son into his home.

The first child born to Joseph and Grace was named Benedict, who was soon followed by Paul, Mary, Therese, Katherine, Josephine, and Ellen. The arrival of a new Connelly was almost an annual event.

Katherine did not see her 3rd birthday. She arrived too early into a world that saw her father and mother struggle with that unforgiving necessity of coping. Katherine was always weaker than the others, and during a particularly brutal winter, and only four days from Christmas, her mind was soothed by an ever-increasing fever. Death was gentle. She was the only other family member to inherit her mother’s emerald-jewelled eyes. Joseph took great care as he fashioned her coffin and quietly wept over it as he drove in the last nail.

Prior to Katherine’s death, Grace had already hand sewn a brightly coloured little dress knowing it would only ever be worn once. She wept loudly as she tied off the last stitch.

Without fail, the Connellys, all eight of them, tended the graves of Mr and Mrs Connelly senior, baby Katherine, and Tess. Old flowers were removed, and freshly picked blooms were laid ever so