Irish Famine Map The Online Home of Author Connie Lynne Smith

"At this moment, the funeral cart with its attendant came towards us; it stopped opposite the cottage; a deal coffin of a large size, in order to suit the dimensions of all persons, lay jolting at the top. . . We learnt that the coffin was for a woman who lay dead in that house, and that four others of the same family lay sick of the fever, unable even to assist in removing the body of their relation. The man with the cart called to another [and] both disappeared within the shadow of the door way. Presently they returned, bearing between them the dead body, over which a scanty tattered yellow rag had just been thrown, not sufficient however to cover the whole length of the figure, or to prevent one's seeing the livid lifeless arms as they hung down swinging and knocking against the ground. They hastily flung it into the shell, the cart drove off, and the remains were hurriedly consigned to the earth without a coffin, and without the offices of religion! "

Narrative Of A Journey From Oxford To Skibbereen, 1847 London Illustrated Times

The Eviction

Starving Irish Families

Homeless Families

London Illustrated Times

Philadelphia Famine Memorial

www.irishmemorial.org

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Chapter 5

The Irish Famine

When the officials from the morgue came to take Irene’s now-lifeless body away, Joseph would not let her go. He had cried so many tears that he had none left but he held her to his body and buried his head next to her face so they had to gently pry his arms from her cold, lifeless body. They remembered him from Bridgett’s burial and took pity. And so, Irene O’Malley Dougan joined her beautiful baby daughter, Bridgett, in the cold, unrelenting waters.

Joseph slept little for the rest of the voyage. He wanted to stay awake and watch over his last two children. He didn’t want to take his eyes off of them. He held them and kept them warm and forced the soup and bread into them. They would live: he would have it no other way. He could have it no other way. And so they lived.

The ship was headed for Canada, but was refused permission to dock because the Canadian facilities were already overwhelmed with sick Irish immigrants, and their quarantine stations and makeshift, dockside hospital could handle no more. Their “fever sheds” were overflowing with Irish who were sick with cholera, typhoid, dysentery and tuberculosis. The ship slowly meandered down the coast of America, looking for a safe haven for the refugees.

What Joseph didn’t realize was that there were now literally hundreds, if not thousands, of his Dougan line living happily and prospering in America. But, this fact would offer him no solace, because he didn’t know it and never would. He was entering America just as they had.

He had traveled across the sea, just as his great-grandfather had in 1737. He was landing at the same port. He was being given refuge in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. Irene’s lost dream of America lay before him.

Connie Lynne Smith