Take the High Road, an Irish Odyssey

By Lincoln Beals

In 'Take the High Road,' the first of the Irish Odyssey Series, life-threatening challenges abound: religious persecution, draconian laws imposed by the British Crown and, to top it off, a famine of such proportions that it took the lives of approximately 1,000,000 people. These are the historical facts that create the fabric of life existing in Ireland as the odyssey begins in August of 1851.
The O’Donnell's are a prospering and respected dry goods merchant family in Letterkenny, County Donegal, Ireland. Without warning, they are banished because they refuse to reject their faith. They are shunned and are forced out of their home and business and have no choice but to start a new life in America.
Brian O'Boyle, the seventeen year old son of peasant farmers, lost his family to starvation and the 'fever.' He agonized as he watched them die, one by one. Without hope, he yearned to join them in death. To make matters worse, an absentee landlord evicted him from the tiny stone cottage where his family had lived and farmed for generations. Near death and in his darkest moment, his guardian angel appeared and showed him that he had a reason to live.
Brian and the O'Donnell's eventually meet and begin their voyage to America.
Their strong faith and inborn Irish resiliency bring them safely through their trials and tribulations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lincoln Beals
• Release date: Aug 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310779657

Lincoln Beals

Lincoln has been told many times; “you should write a book.” But busy in his 40 year career as a psychotherapist, time and energy were not available. He is a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois and the UCLA School of Social Welfare. He maintains state licensure as a Clinical Social Worker and as a Marriage and Family Therapist.Lincoln taught for seven years in the California State University system and four years at two California Community Colleges where he taught courses in substance abuse prevention and Native American wellness. He was a pre-licensure candidate examiner for ten years for the California Marriage and Family Therapist Examining Board. Lincoln was in private practice for 22 years and served in state mental hospitals, prisons and a Native American community clinic. He volunteered his services on the boards of directors of several community mental health and substance abuse treatment agencies, the California Society for Clinical Social Work and the Solano Partnership Against Violence.Most recently, Lincoln provided counseling to military members and their families on military installations in Alaska, Germany and California, where he won commendations and awards for his service.Now, in retirement, time and motivation are both available and with the help of mentors, support of his soul-mate wife and the grace of God, his first book of the Irish Odyssey series is complete.Lincoln is married and lives with his wife in Fairfield, California.

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Take the High Road

Smashwords Edition

Text Copyright 2015 Lincoln Beals

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Edited by Nancy Beals, MMJC

Cover Art by Sister Julie Stephens, MMJC

This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously and may be modified at the author’s discretion for advancement of the story. All scenes, characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and the use of real places and real people is entirely coincidental.

Any errors or omissions are the sole responsibility of the author.

Note… For ease of reading, dialogue is written in modern American English.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, (except for short quotations used expressly for reviews or classroom study) without express written permission of the publisher.

Published in the United States of America

L&N Publishing

Dedication

To those Irish stalwarts of humanity, representative of every race and ethnicity that has ever suffered the pains of starvation, bigotry and attempted genocide, this Irish Odyssey Series is dedicated.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Copyright

Dedication

TAKE THE HIGH ROAD

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1 The O’Boyle Cottage, County Donegal

CHAPTER 2 Pain and Consolation

CHAPTER 3 The O’Boyle Cottage, the next morning

CHAPTER 4 Letterkenny, County Donegal, Early-August 1851

CHAPTER 5 Letterkenny, the Hibernian Bank

CHAPTER 6 Letterkenny, O’Donnell &Son, Dry Goods

CHAPTER 7 Bridgid, a Happy Daughter

CHAPTER 8 Eamon McNaughton, Belfast

CHAPTER 9 McNaughton and Hodgen

CHAPTER 10 The Hibernian Bank, the Next Morning

CHAPTER 11 The Shop, Early Afternoon

CHAPTER 12 The Hibernian Bank, The Following Morning

CHAPTER 13 The O’Boyle Cottage

CHAPTER 14 Eviction

CHAPTER 15 The O’Boyle Cottage, Brian’s Struggles

CHAPTER 16 Consolation

CHAPTER 17 A Proper Burial

CHAPTER 18 Brian Wandering

CHAPTER 19 Back at the Shop

CHAPTER 20 Preparing to Travel

CHAPTER 21 Brian, Still Wandering

CHAPTER 22 The O’Donnell’s, Thursday Morning

CHAPTER 23 Brian, in the Glen, Around Noon, Thursday

CHAPTER 24 The O’Donnell’s, Late Thursday Afternoon

CHAPTER 25 Safe Haven, Thursday, Sunset

CHAPTER 26 Brian, Sunrise, Friday Morning

CHAPTER 27 At the Graveside, Friday Morning

CHAPTER 28 Brian at the Wharf

CHAPTER 29 O’Donnell’s at the Wharf, Friday Afternoon

EPILOGUE

The Irish Odyssey Series continues

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Guardian angels play an important role in Take the High Road, as they do in each of the Irish Odyssey Series books. They appear in dreams, as apparitions, and, as always, they are watching from the background.

TAKE THE HIGH ROAD

Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!

Robert Burns, 1784

A Dublin newspaper, the Gardeners’ Chronicle, reported in 1845: We stop the press with great regret to announce that the potato murrain [fast spreading disease] has unequivocally declared itself in Ireland. The crops about Dublin are suddenly perishing. Where will Ireland be in the event of a universal potato rot?

PREFACE

In 1534, several acts of King Henry VIII and the English parliament served to cut ties with Roman Catholicism. The Church of England was established with the creation of the English Crown as its supreme head. All connections and accountability to Rome ended and the practice of Roman Catholicism in England, as well as in Ireland, was considered to be treason against the state. The English Crown considered itself to be the final authority in all matters spiritual and temporal.

The Penal Laws of the 17th century were a series of laws imposed by England in an attempt to force Irish Catholics and Protestant dissenters (such as Presbyterians) to conform to the English, state established, Anglican Church and the Irish, state established, Church of Ireland.

As the result of two treaties with England in 1801, Ireland was joined to England creating the United Kingdom. The Irish people became second-class citizens of the British Crown, which saw the people and the wealth of Ireland as a resource to be exploited.

Farms were usurped by absentee landlords, and Irish peasant farmers, already poor, were forced to pay high taxes, often as much as 70% of their crops, in order to stay on the small plots of land that had been in their families for many generations. Beholden to these absentee landlords, Irish farmers were required to ship most of their crops to England, while their families (and most of the Irish population) starved. Peasant farmers could be arrested and jailed if they reserved any of their harvest for their own use. Catholic merchants were avoided and not able to maintain enough commerce to remain in business. If that was not bad enough, the mid-1840’s saw two brutal factors that dealt a final blow to the people of Ireland which defined a lasting and permanent change in their history and a deep longing to be independent of England.

The mid-1840’s experienced several years of exceptionally cold weather. All over Ireland, people remarked that August seemed more like February. But that was not the final or the greatest disaster. Rural Ireland’s population (about 1/3 of the country) depended on the potato as a staple food and in the mid-1840’s a fungus, known as potato blight infected more than 50% of their crops for several years running. The growing season, shortened by cold weather and the ruined crops, led to an unrelenting famine.

Although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing and exporting more than enough grain crops to feed the population. Records show that in this time, Ireland exported approximately thirty to fifty shiploads per day of food products. These exports, land acquisitions, absentee landlords, the effects of the Penal Laws of 1690, and the restriction of Irish Catholic rights, are all considered factors that contributed to the Great Famine which is now considered by a number of historians to be a form of either direct or indirect genocide. During the famine years and after, approximately one million people died and between 1845 and 1852, a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the population to fall by between 20% and 25%.

The pages that follow are the stories of the effects of these real events in Irish history on the two Irish families caught up in and triumphing over circumstances that were beyond their control. Although these families are fictional, their struggle is not. Come with them now as they stand true to their faith and deal with daunting challenges.

The O’Donnell’s were a Catholic merchant family in Letterkenny. Their dry goods shop had been the source of fabrics and sewing supplies in Letterkenny for two generations. Without warning, they were suddenly shunned by townspeople and sales dropped to almost nil. They would have to deny their Catholic faith and convert to the State Church if they wanted to regain standing in the community and do business in Letterkenny.

Brian O’Boyle’s family were nominally Catholic peasant potato farmers affected by the Penal Laws of 1690, which made land ownership extremely difficult. As a result, their small subsistence farm was relinquished to the ownership and control of an absentee landlord in Belfast, who demanded 70% of each year’s crop. With the yearly harvest decimated, there were barely enough seed potatoes for the next year’s planting.

Thus occurred the slow, but unrelenting starvation of Brian’s family. Lack of nourishing food eliminated each one of their body’s ability to resist the fever when it struck.

County Mayo, in the south of Ireland, had suffered most from the potato famine between the years of 1845 and 1850. County Donegal, home to the O’Boyle’s and the O’Donnell’s, was not hit as hard, but, nevertheless, it lost 14% of its population between 1841 and 1851. The blight, as it was known, was due to an airborne fungus that caused the developing potato tubers to rot in the ground, turning the tubers black and mushy and raising a terrible stench in the surrounding air. Production dwindled from nearly 15 million tons in 1844 to barely more than four million tons by 1850. Starvation and disease were rampant. Whole families and indeed, whole villages disappeared. Many of those who survived left Ireland altogether. Ships of the McCorkell Line carried masses of Irish emigrants from Derry, Ireland to the Americas. Brian O’Boyle is one of them who is miraculously offered a new start in a new land. The Almighty had plans for him. But, would he accept those plans and the offer of a new start?

CHAPTER 1

The O’Boyle Cottage, County Donegal

The grayness of the day perfectly reflected the mood of Brian O’Boyle. What was left of the waning late afternoon sun barely lit the interior of the cottage. Candles and lamp oil had been used up many weeks ago. There were no windows. A doorway, facing east, was the only opening to the outside. The darkness inside the cottage was painfully heavy with the sweet, metallic smell of death and with Brian’s despair. The only remnant left from better times was a slight scent of smoke from the preparation of meals, long since cooked and consumed.

Sean O’Boyle, Brian’s father, once a powerful man, now reduced to mere skin and bones was starving, burning up with fever and near death. He lay on a straw-filled pallet in a tiny stone cottage near the crest of a hill in the northern county of Donegal. As best he could, Brian (pronounced Bree-en) tended to his father’s needs. He was the only one in the family who had not succumbed to the terrible fever. He kept watch for many dreary days and never-ending nights next to the fever-racked body of his slowly dying father.

Despite his resolve, from time to time, exhaustion destroyed his best intentions and sleep caught up with him. Awakening suddenly, with a start, aloud, he asked himself, ‘Was it a few minutes or even hours that I slept?’ He put his ear to his father’s emaciated chest and listened. Are you still here, my Dad? Sean O’Boyle heard Brian’s question and he struggled to reply. His mouth moved, as if to speak, but the little breath that he had was not enough to form audible words. No sound except a weak, fluttering heartbeat reached Brian’s ears who detected the faint, irregular beat. Ah, he still lives.

Sean and Caitlin O’Boyle had five children, all born, right there, in the little stone cottage. As starvation and fever overtook the family, death claimed them, one by one. The two youngest died first and were buried behind the cottage. Months ago their itinerant priest had already succumbed to starvation and fever. The task of praying over their little bodies was left to Sean O’Boyle. Next, Caitlin and the two younger children, a boy and a girl, fell ill at the same time. After a few days of delirium and fever, they too passed into eternity. Neither Brian nor his father had the strength to bury them, so their bodies lay still and cold on their straw-filled mat on the floor of the cottage. Finally, Sean O’Boyle was stricken. His strength and will to live had kept him alive longer than the others.

Sean O’Boyle refused to give in. Brian was attentive to him throughout the night, fighting fatigue with what was left of his waning strength. The next morning Sean O’Boyle was still breathing. Brian cradled his father’s head with his right arm and put a cup of water to his father’s chapped lips. He tried to get him to swallow a few drops through his clenched teeth. But the water dribbled down from the corners of his mouth, through his beard and onto Brian’s sleeve. He gave up and put the cup aside. He massaged his father’s gaunt body with cooling, dampened rags. He tried to keep busy with these loving ministrations to postpone thinking about the inevitable.

Brian’s body craved sleep even more than hunger and his overtaxed mind drifted. He wondered what forces could have conspired to create the suffering and starvation that had destroyed his family after they had pulled through the severest years of the famine. It was early August, 1851, and the harshest years of the potato crop failures, known as the ‘Great Hunger,’ were finally coming to an end. His mother’s and father’s resourcefulness had brought them safely through the worst times. They all survived until the dreaded famine fever struck. He looked up and shouted at the thatched roof of the cottage. Why…? Why…?

A sudden blast of icy cold wind entered through the open doorway, halting Brian’s ruminations and thrusting him back into the present moment. It swirled around the walls of the tiny cottage, penetrated Brian to the bone and then, was gone. From his father’s throat, a rasping sound escaped. Then his jaw went slack and from his gaping mouth there came a harsh expulsion of air that signaled his father’s final breath. Brian spoke aloud, Oh, my Dad, you’ve left me!… Why me?… Why do I have to be the only one alive?

Clinging to a last futile bit of hope that his father might still harbor a spark of life, Brian lay down next to his father’s unresponsive body and held him in loving embrace: like he was held when he was a little child. But, scant remains of his father’s body warmth were fast ebbing away. He drew the greatcoat that had covered his father’s body over both of them, hoping to keep them both warm with what little heat his own body could provide. Frantic and fearful, but holding back the tears, he begged, Wake up! Pleeeassse wake up! His mind raced as his body shook with anguish. He had no energy left to block the truth. He was truly the only one left alive. His whole being rebelled against facing the truth.

Despite his well-intentioned and loving efforts to save their lives and make them comfortable and his prayers that the Almighty would spare them, one by one, his whole family had died. He had failed to keep them alive. His brain reeled with guilt and the death angel pressed in closer, inflaming his guilt by planting thoughts of hopeless despair in his mind. Augie, his guardian angel, was busy planting thoughts and ideas, too. ‘Brian you have the determination and willpower to go on with your life. Don’t give up. Keep fighting for what you know is right and true.’ The tug-of-war between good and evil was tearing Brian apart, exhausting him even more. All he knew was that he was the last one alive, and barely alive, at that. He had no will to live. Numb from exhaustion, he had no will to do anything. Whatever personal strength he may have had, be it his youthfulness or his faith, it was sleeping somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of his brain. He had no hope, no comfort. He had surrendered to death’s great ally: fear. He couldn’t even begin to summon up enough hope to be able to imagine a future apart from his family. He sighed deeply and a dry, lonely sound, it was. He was completely lost and alone. In his agony, he cried out,