02/08/2024
'A BYWORD FOR WRETCHEDNESS AND MISERY' - RENVYLE 1889-91
Life remained difficult for the people of Renvyle into the 1890s and many were unhappy with the circumstances in which they lived.
The townland of Cashleen was particularly poverty-stricken. Situated on the western
end of the Renvyle peninsula in the shadow of Curragh Farm, Cashleen was described by one letter-writer to the Freeman’s Journal as ‘a byword for wretchedness and misery.’
By 1890, the townland could still not be reached by a wheeled vehicle and many items had to be carried up to a mile to a cart by foot or currach.
The numerous houses were tightly packed on tiny parcels of land, with the backs of the homes sloping directly onto the Blake-owned commonage of Letter Hill while the front doors were just yards from the wall of the Blakes’ large grazing farm.
British Liberal politician William Byles took an interest in the Irish Question and visited the townland in 1889. Afterwards, he wrote a letter to newspapers, insisting that all forty or fifty cabins in Cashleen were unfit for human habitation.
He then raged that it would be ‘hard to match in any of the dark places in Britain the miserable depth of poverty and hopelessness into which these people are sunk.'
He continued by detailing the demands made by Caroline Blake on the income of her tenants.
First, they paid rent for their land. Second, they were charged for turf, even if it came from the land for which they already paid. Third, they paid for turning any animals onto the commonage at Letter Hill.
Fourth, they were charged for any black seaw**d they gathered for manure. Fifth, they paid for collecting red w**d from the sea for kelp. Finally, they were obliged to give twenty-five per cent on any profits made on kelp sold at market to the landlord.
Byles further asserted that when tenants were employed as labourers for the Blakes they were paid no wages, the money instead being taken off their rent.
In the case of both the neighbouring estates of Colin Thomson and Mitchell Henry, mountain grazing was given free of charge. The Blake tenants paid 12 shillings a year for cattle and 2 shillings for sheep for the same privilege.
Byles met with the people and encouraged them at a meeting to band together and demand rent decreases, something which allegedly caused a furious Valentine Blake, Caroline’s son, to go into Tully Police Station and admonish the officers for allowing such a meeting to take place.
The Blakes’ solicitor answered some of the criticisms made of them in a letter to national newspapers. He wrote that Mrs Blake had introduced no charge which had not been paid before she had succeeded to her position as landlord and that the land in Cashleen was of a reasonable quality which justified its rent.
He added that the people there only paid a nominal one shilling for turf and one shilling for red w**d and were happy and prosperous.
Sarah Byles, the MP's wife who had also visited Casheen, responded that readers should not to take the word of Mrs Blake and that the management of the Renvyle estate was ‘one of the most striking instances of landlordism in the world,’ and that the people of Renvyle, ‘pious, peaceful and industrious,’ viewed their landlord as ‘a tyrant’ and lived ‘hunted, weary lives like frightened animals.’
In 1890, the journalist and soon-to-be local MP William O’Malley visited Renvyle, which was now garnering national attention due to its poverty.
He called to several tenants. In the house of one, Pat Coyne of Derryinver O’Malley discovered a cottage on ten acres of bog for which the tenant paid £4 7 shillings and sixpence. The furniture consisted of two chairs and half of the kitchen was given over to a cow.
In the same year, Fr. Canton of Letterfrack asserted that thirteen families from the Renvyle Estate had come to his door seeking relief. The priest could only inform them that the planned construction of two roads in the area (The road to Letter and the New Line) might provide employment for them.
By 1891, up to 900 men were employed at relief works in the district of Clifden as the people experienced another bad harvest.
Despite this poverty, evictions still occurred. Thomas Egan of Derryinver, apparently owing around £15, was evicted with his family of seven, a local collection being made afterwards to support the family. Terrible fever also ravaged the area in the same year.
As part of his tour of the west, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Arthur Balfour, visited Renvyle in 1890 where he viewed the poverty. Afterwards, he was honoured at a huge gala dinner for 100 people in Mullarkey’s Hotel in Clifden. Robert Blake, son of Caroline, was present at the celebration.
There were few celebrations in the hovels that most of the people of Renvyle called home.
The picture shows women waiting for the priest to give them some charity. Taken from the Daily Graphic and the collection of Maggie Blanck.
