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Famine victims to be remembered at Tuamgraney

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EAST Clare Heritage has organised a special outdoor Mass at the East Clare Famine Memorial park at Tuamgraney as part of National Famine Commemoration Day this Sunday at 2pm.
Fr Brendan Quinlivan will celebrate the Mass. This day of commemoration is especially important to the people of East Clare, as local historian Gerard Madden explained.
“The Scariff Workhouse Union, an area of 170 miles2 with a population of 47,984, was declared in July 1839. Its workhouse was built in 1841 and the union comprised of Scariff, Ogonnelloe, Killaloe, Bodyke, Tulla, Feakle, Whitegate, Mountshannon and Woodford. During the winter of 1846/47, the rate of famine burials in Tuamgraney and Moynoe was so great, from the infamous workhouse at Scariff, that the existing graveyards were filled to capacity. In St Cronan’s graveyard, Tuamgraney, hundreds were buried outside the boundary wall, while at Moynoe, sand and gravel was brought from the shore of Scariff bay to cover the corpses,” he said.
Mr Madden relayed a contemporary account of this that was published in the Limerick Chronicle on January 6, 1847. 
“The workhouse of Scariff, County Clare is so over crowded with paupers that a disease, almost amounting to a plague has broken out amongst its inmates – the deaths averaging from four to 12 daily. It is horrifying to behold a donkey-cart laden with five and six bodies piled over each other, going to be interred and not a person attending a wretched cortege except the driver. The graves are so dug that the coffins are barely covered with earth rendering the air infected. No coroners’ inquests have been held,” it reads.
According to Mr Madden, the vice-guardians wrote to the commissioners on February 4, 1848 and stated, “We have had great complaints of the present state of the burying ground for the paupers at Tomgraney [sic]. The place being so filled that the coffins are in some places scarcely concealed by the earth. It will be absolutely necessary to procure a piece of ground immediately, and we wish to know if we should advertise for the purpose.”
Three acres at Callahy, on the Tuamgraney/Bodyke road, were purchased as a burial ground and a caretaker’s house.
“To mark the 150th anniversary of An Gorta Mór, a famine memorial park was created on this site by East Clare heritage, which we hope commemorates the terrible tragedy in a practical and dignified way. The burial ground consisting of one acre became known as the Casaoireach and there are two plausible explanations for this name. In old Irish, the word Casaoireach traditionally referred to a badly tilled or uneven garden. The uneven surface of this site resulting from burial trenches, which have subsided, may have suggested the name. The other explanation is that the number of internees greatly outnumbered the supply of coffins. This led to the idea of rigging the coffins with a hinged bottom. When the coffin was lowered into the grave, a lever was pulled which opened the bottom and released the body. The word casaoireach in this instance is a corruption of three Irish words cath-siar-iad, which means to throw them back,” he added.
According to Mr Madden, it will never be known how many famine victims were actually interred here as there are no records.
“A conservative estimate would put the number at about 7,000. Their only memorials are the trenches or pits, which have subsided and can still be seen. These trenches have been deliberately left and all work undertaken here has been done by hand. It is probably the only mass graveyard in the country that has only two memorials, though very few of the older families, which are native to East Clare, can claim to have no relative buried here. One memorial is a simple iron cross to a travelling woman named Mary Kerrigan who died at the entrance gates to Drewsborough House, (the home of Edna O’Brien) on July 3, 1958.
“The other is a memorial that East Clare Heritage has erected to the memory of Michael Mullins, who was unceremoniously interred here on July 10, 1939. This burial speaks volumes about the state of society in Ireland in the late 1930s. Michael, a young man of 18, died on the operating table in Raheen Hospital from burst appendix. He was brought here by horse and cart. Michael’s grave is now marked with a limestone memorial beneath a single whitethorn bush. A wild rose bush has grown up beside his memorial,” he added.
Mr Madden went on to describe the south-westerly portion of the graveyard where numerous small individual graves can be seen, which is known as ‘the angels’ plot.’ “Here, unbaptised children were buried on a regular basis over the years without any official notification or sanction. The last burial took place in 2002. In January 2005, Crusheen-based sculptor Áine Phillips completed a small wooden symbolic shelter here, which symbolises refuge, sanctuary and a connecting space between the living and the dead. People are invited to enter the shelter, sit down and experience a meditative, contemplative space,” Mr Madden concluded.
All are welcome to attend the commemorative ceremony.

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