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For Zoë and Josh
Patricia Byrne is captivated by Achill Island. Her book The Veiled Woman of Achill: Island Outrage and a Playboy Drama was published by The Collins Press in 2012. Her memoir essay ‘Milk Bottles in Limerick’ was named one of the Notable Essays of the Year in Best American Essays 2017. Her work has featured in New Hibernia Review, The Irish Times (Irishwoman’s Diary), RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany and The Irish Story among other outlets. A graduate of the NUI Galway writer programme, she lives in Limerick, Ireland. www.patriciabyrneauthor.com
THE ACHILL MISSION COLONY AND
THE BATTLE FOR SOULS IN FAMINE IRELAND
PATRICIA BYRNE
First published in 2018 by
Merrion Press
An Imprint of Irish Academic Press
10 George’s Street
Newbridge
Co. Kildare
Ireland
© Patricia Byrne, 2018
9781785371721 (Paper)
9781785371691 (Kindle)
9781785371707 (Epub)
9781785371714 (PDF)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Interior design by www.jminfotechindia.com
Typeset in Minion Pro 11/14 pt
Cover design by www.phoenix-graphicdesign.com
Front cover: The Achill Mission Colony (National Library of Ireland).
Back cover right: Edward Nangle, St Thomas’s Church, Dugort (P. Byrne); Back cover left: the Right Rev. Dr. M’Hale, Archbishop Of Tuam (The New York Public Library Digital Collections); Back cover background: Slievemore, Achill (National Library of Ireland).
This is a work of nonfiction.
Research sources are cited in Endnotes.
‘Achill, wind-swept and bare, heavily peat-covered, with great gaunt brown mountains rising here and there, and a wild coast hammered by the Atlantic waves on all sides but the east, has a strange charm which everyone feels, but none can fully explain.’
Robert Lloyd Praeger, The Way That I Went
CONTENTS
Map
2. The Most Destitute Spot in Ireland
6. Is it a Wafer or is it a God?
7. Murder
8. Public Scrutiny
9. Tenth Year
10. The Finger of God
11. Quicksilver Illness
12. Death is Now Loose
13. Buyer of Souls
14. Vicious and Rotten
15. Feed the Children
16. Workhouse War
17. Three Women
18. Battle of Stones
19. Root and Branch Change
20. Clearances
21. Achill Transformed
22. Implosion
23. Weapons of His Own Forging
Epilogue
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
Researching
