NEWS TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2017 ROSCOMMON HERALD16

Tulsk townland gets due recognition

Famine Eviction Project that is un-covering these local histories, storiesthat have been buried for far toolong.

Note: Thomas Johnston Bartonwas one of a line of a staunchly Prot-estant, unionist family. While his sonCharles followed in the tradition,Charles’s son — Thomas Johnston’sgrandson — Robert Barton brokefrom the shadow of the Protestant as-cendancy and joined the republicanmovement after leaving the Britisharmy in 1916. Robert Barton was thedelegate in London who held out tothe end and delayed the signing ofthe Anglo-Irish Treaty, caving inafter pressure from Michael Collins,and the threat of war from the Eng-lish government.

Numerical stats from NUI May-nooth Population Change AtlasImages by Zsolt Basti

(Any new information on Drimn-agh is sought. Please contact: jody-moylan@gmail.com)

his escape through the fields.Witness to it all was Father Mi-

chael Lennon, known locally at thetime as ‘the famine priest’. Havingstood on the platform with DanielO’Connell at ‘the Liberator’s’ Ros-common monster meeting only a fewyears before, railing against theunion with Great Britain, it was Len-non who highlighted much of theplight in his locality, with letters tonational and local newspapers. Onhis own death those newspaperswrote of him:

‘His blessed life was spent adminis-tering the consolations of religion tothose who had no joy on earth be-sides, the oppressed and faminestricken poor: sitting by their deso-late deathbeds, smoothing theirbleeding feet on the rough passage tothe grave.’ For his parishioners atDrimnagh their passage to the gravewas sealed in the mid-1840s. Whathappened to these hundreds can onlybe guessed at, but it’s work like the

manage the more profitable grazing/livestock land, after the ditches andwalls that had once divided up the230 acres of rundale were cleared.

The story of the shipwreck, wheremany of Drimnagh’s evicted weresaid to have drowned, had a livinglegacy when a survivor, known asGarvey, returned home to tell thetale.

Drimnagh lies within the electoraldivision of Ogulla, and the parishrepresents one of the worst excessesof Famine disruption within countyRoscommon; itself the hardest hitcounty in terms of population de-crease between 1841 and 1851. For in-stance, of Roscommon’s 110 electoraldivisions, Ogulla was hit hardest interms of population loss, along withKilglass, Bumlin and Castleteehan.Ogulla’s population dropped from1,471 persons in 1841 to 618 ten yearslater. This 58% drop, however stag-gering, is still not representativewhen it’s taken into account thatpopulation was actually rising be-tween 1841 and 1845. If one is to go bynational figures the stark populationfall in Ogulla therefore occurredwith a higher initial figure within amuch smaller timeframe (of five tosix years). What is clear from con-temporary newspaper reports is thatOgulla/Tulsk and its surrounds wasat the centre of the famine storm,with much illegal activity from se-cret societies like the Molly Ma-guires, for example. Not unlike the1847 shooting of Strokestown’s MajorDenis Mahon , another landlord,Denis Egan, was attacked in Tulsk inOctober 1845. With his horses lyingdead from shotgun wounds, and hiscarriage appearing ‘as if paintedwith blood’, that landlord was luck-ier than Mahon; being able to make

population loss, the settlement atDrimnagh was what was known as a‘clachan’; a cluster of farmhouseswithout the service functions of atypical village, like a school, shop,church or tavern. Indeed, Drimnaghbefore its mid-1840s clearance was aclassic example of a clachan settle-ment within a rundale system (aform of collective farming under oneholding).

At the time of the evictions in 1846and ‘47 some 58 cabins were knockedby the agents of the then absenteelandlord Thomas Johnston Barton*.A report in the national newspaperThe Freeman’s Journal for 24 August1850 states that of the 209 personsonce living at the site, only a handfulremained. Subsequently, in Novem-ber 1882, a native of the area, JamesScott, reported on a Shepherds’ As-sociation meeting held on top of oneof Rathcroghan’s royal raths, the‘Mound of Rathcroghan’. Scott wasspeaking to his own farming class intheir own historic moment of theLand War, as they stood on a site ofancient kings and queens, recallingthe Great Hunger not 40 years past.

‘Looking towards the West a closeobserver can see Croagh Patrickrearing its lofty summit into thewestern skies,’ said Scott.

‘About four or five hundred yardssouth stands the long stone of Glanwhere sleeps the remains of KingDahi the brave, and further on in thesame direction lies the once beautifuland thickly populated village ofDrimnagh, but now the grazierscattle are fattening over the ruins ofa hundred rooftrees that the crowbarmen levelled to the ground, and ban-ished hundreds of our kindred to awatery grave, as they were neverheard of since they embarked on therotten emigrant ship.’(sic) Two ofBarton’s herdsmen remained on inthe townland with their families to

By Jody Moylan

The marking of the Tulsk townlandof Drimnagh in a nationwide IrishFamine eviction project has laid barea tragic and forgotten story fromRoscommon’s nineteenth century.

The townland of Drimnagh, whichlies 2km due-west of Tulsk village, ismuch like most other depopulatedcountry townlands across Ireland;rarely appearing in print anywhereother than ordnance survey maps,deeds or advertisements for occa-sional sales of land.

Drimnagh, however, has recentlybeen added to a nationwide projectmapping areas where wholesale evic-tion and ejectment occurred duringthe Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852.

It is a significant addition to thestory of the famine in Co Roscom-mon, and its official marking by TheIrish Famine Eviction Project is per-haps the first step in giving Drimn-agh its due recognition in the story ofthe great hunger.

The Eviction Project is co-ordi-nated by Dr Ciaran Reilly, a leadingexpert and researcher on the Famineand Ireland’s historic houses and es-tates. Since launching the project inOctober last year Dr Reilly has thusfar added 60 Roscommon evictionsites to the countrywide tally.

These include sites at Roscommontown, Boyle, and to a large extentStrokestown. Drimnagh’s addition tothe database adds a layer of modernhistory to the Tulsk and Rathcrog-han locality; already famous for itsprehistoric complex.

Today under forestry, and sur-rounded only by fields, Drimnagh’sstory is largely unknown; its historyunwritten. And yet it is significant;the famine story in microcosm.

Sitting symbolically in the middleof an area of extreme Famine-era

Drimnagh as it is today.

‘An enhancement of the 1830s Ordnance Survey map of Drimnagh’.

Drimnagh has recently been added to a nationwide project mapping areas wherewholesale eviction and ejectment occurred during the Great Famine of 1845-1852,

Famine eviction project seeks informationexperience of removingpeople from the landduring the Great Famine.

Roscommon at themoment is a county ofparticular focus, withresearch ongoing on thePakenham Mahon estate,the Ferall estate, as wellas the evictions offamilies fromBallykilcline.

As Roscommon wasone of the prime areas ofpopulation decline in thefamine decade —dropping from over267,000 to 189,000 —evictions within thecounty were numerous,and are therefore of

histories andcontemporarynewspapers.

The project is lookingfor any information fromindividuals, societies orlibraries that may helpits research to find newlocations, names of thoseinvolved and thebackground stories fromevictions during theGreat Famine. If youwould like to contributeany information nomatter how big or smallyou can send yourdetails via email to:famineeviction@gmail.com or Twitter:@FamineEviction

particular interest. Oneof the biggest findings sofar is that it was not onlythe Anglo-Irish whoevicted in large numbersbut also native Irish,merchants, shopkeepersand professionals. Dr Re-illy believes local knowl-edge is key to a fullerunderstanding of famine-era Roscommon.

As well as mappingeviction sites across thecountry the EvictionProject website (irishfamineeviction.com) alsodocuments newly-foundinformation from readerswho have sourced theirstories from local

The Irish FamineEviction Project,coordinated by Dr CiaranReilly and sponsored bythe Irish NewspaperArchives, aims todocument evidence ofeviction during the yearsof the Great IrishFamine, using detailssuch as physical location,landlord and tenantsnames and other relevantinformation in relation tofamine evictions.

Building thisinformation will providea greater understandingof the famine at locallevel, and anunderstanding of the