Gallowgate

By Mary Edward

Scotland, 1849. The O'Donnell girls are driven from their Wicklow home by starvation and an Anglo-Irish landlord. After losing their father, the three sail to Glasgow with thousands of others in search of a new start.

Determined not to give up, the two older sisters - Maeve and Kathleen - find back-breaking work in Templeton's carpet factory, while the youngest, 9-year-old Finola, is enrolled in a new Catholic school.

After meeting the wealthy Patrick Reilly and his wife, the three receive a promise for a better and more prosperous life. But in tumultuous and dangerous mid-19th-century Scotland, they will need to give it their all to survive and reach their goals.

A story of survival, social history and second chances, Mary Edward's 'Gallowgate' is a fictitious, yet informative look at young Irish immigrants' life in 1850s Glasgow, Scotland.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Jun 2, 2022

Book preview

Prologue

The ship gives another violent lurch and crashes down into the sea as if it might break. Pitching, rolling, crashing. In the darkness people moan, a woman screams, and a child cries. And the sound of retching echoes around steerage like some awful fanfare. The miasma of sickness and unwashed bodies, mixing with the ship’s own disagreeable odours, is enough to make all but the strongest nauseous. This voyage, the O’Donnells’ hard-won salvation from the hunger stalking their homeland, has been a nightmare from the moment the SS Tartar left the relative calm of Belfast Lough to steam into a ferocious storm. Terrified, Finola burrows into her sister, gripping Maeve’s hand until it hurts, and she wonders for the umpteenth time if they might not live long enough to see Scotland. They have borne so much until now, and they have little more than a fingertip grasp of life as it is.

Maeve’s other hand clasps that of her sister, Kate, and she tries to ignore the hell surrounding her. She closes her eyes, and instead conjures up the hell they have left behind.

His lordship’s housekeeper had loomed over the scullery maid like a gaoler, her chain of keys and importance dangling over her substantial belly. ‘You’re nothing but a common thief, O’Donnell, and for that you're down the road.’ Maeve stood, rooted in misery, then heard. ‘And your sister too.’

It was only a bit of a loaf, and stale at that. The cook had hovered behind the housekeeper, her eyes pleading with Maeve not to reveal her generosity in giving the hungry O’Donnell family a crust of bread.

Lord Longkenny’s housekeeper had marched out to the dairy to make sure that Kate O’Donnell knew she was sacked too, because of her sister’s ‘thieving.’

Then Kate had sealed their fate, shouting at Agnes Delaney that she was glad to go, sick as she was of watching good milk and butter disappear every day on Malone’s cart, to be sold God knows where.

The fat housekeeper had looked about to collapse. ‘Oh! The nerve of the dirty cailin…’ Her several chins had wobbled. ‘I’ll be telling his lordship of this.’

And Kate had lashed out, her face red with fury. ‘Yes, so, to be sure, tell him, and at the same time ask where all that good food is going while his own people starve!’

Maeve had pulled her sister away. Any chance of saving their positions had just been crushed into fragments as small as Lord Lochkenny’s gritty earth beneath their feet.

The sisters had walked the two miles back to their home, past their neighbours’ stinking plots of rotten potatoes. It was eerily quiet, and they walked in unspoken recognition that life was gradually ebbing away from their village. Starving people don't make a lot of noise - nor do those who have already left. To America, for the lucky ones, or to the graveyard.

At last Kate said, ‘Maeve, what’ll we tell Da when we get home?’

But they are spared the pain of telling him. Because when they reach their own house, they find him hanging in the byre. One worn boot has fallen off and lies on its side on the sandy floor. The rope and the bucket are amongst the very few things that they still own.

Now it is the 25th of January 1849, and the three O’Donnell sisters are bound for Glasgow and, they hope and pray, survival.

Chapter 1

Finola hung on the rail, watching until it was the turn of the steerage passengers to disembark on Scottish soil. The horde of grey, skeletal figures drifted ashore like a procession of ghosts. A few weak cheers came from the dockside as people spotted their relatives, but for the most part the atmosphere was sombre.

Behind Finola, her sisters scanned the Broomielaw for a glimpse of their brother. Brendan, 22 years of age and now unexpected head of this family. He had made the trip to Ireland to see his father laid in the ground beyond the sacred precincts of the chapel. A last punishment for taking his own life in what, in any case, was become a God-forsaken land. Eviction from the church was no more than the final step of the eviction that Lord Longkenny had begun on the day their father hanged himself. A poisoned harvest was as good a reason as any to condemn the tenant for non-payment of rent and turn the land into grazing for his livestock. Then the O’Donnell’s daughters had presented the noble lord with the perfect opportunity to rid himself of these Catholic peasants once and for all.

Ten shillings from Brendan added to the few coppers their possessions had fetched were just enough for their passage to Glasgow, and to an unknown future.

At last, they saw him, and Finola waved. ‘Brendan, Brendan, we’re here!’

His tall figure and reddish hair stood out in the crowd: hair that was not as burnished as Kate’s, but fairer. Joseph O’Donnell had been crowned with the same hair, which spoke of the Viking presence in old Ireland. Maeve and Finola had inherited the very dark colouring of their mother. Gypsy hair, some said.

Now, Maeve saw, this crowd looked no better fed than the ragged beings straggling ashore from the ship. And, when at last the O’Donnell girls rattled down the gangway to set foot on the greasy cobbles of Broomielaw, she inhaled the soiled air of Glasgow, together with the depressing realisation that here lay their uncertain future.

Their brief glimpse of busy, noisy Belfast before they sailed had been shock enough to one used to the soft air and the blue haze of the mountains of Wicklow, but now Maeve thought they had disembarked into an inferno. Carts, horses clattering on the cobbles, men shouting, begging children scurrying amongst the landed passengers - and smoke. Heavy black clouds lay overhead, seeming to blend with the smoke from huge chimneys which were surely belching fumes from hell. And beyond the river, no misty hills, but buildings upon buildings, barely seen through the polluted air.

Brendan smiled as one by one his sisters coughed and spluttered. ‘Ye’ll soon be used to it, my darlins. He waved at the city. ‘It’s what is making Glasgow the place - the place to earn money - even to become rich, if you're lucky.’

As he talked, he steered them alongside the river. ‘This is the Clyde. Soon you'll see how all the treasures of the Orient land up here.’

The icy January wind cut into Maeve, and she drew her shawl closer around her shoulders. ‘The Orient, Brendan?’

She found herself smiling at last. Her brother had been like a ray of sunshine in their miserable cottage, blithe no matter how grim it all was, filled with optimism even in the worst of times. He had been only 13 when their mother Rose had died, giving birth to Finola, and he’d coped when their da had crumbled away like the turf they threw on the fire. She’d only been 11 years old herself and Kate, seven. The neighbour women had done what they could for them and the baby Finola, but they had families of their own and little time or energy to spare. It had brought an end to Maeve’s chance of a little education at the hedge school in Aughrim.

She could just make out the names on the many ships moored in the swirling brown water of the river and knew that was almost the extent of her learning. She was to have two years at school, then Kate, because Rose had wanted her children to be literate. But they had the baby to look after, and Kate never got any of her schooling. Maeve turned away from her attempts to exercise her reading skills and felt a warmth as she watched her brother give Finola all his attention. She had missed him.

Finola caught him by the hand. ‘Are you married yet, Brendan? Brian Doherty is. And he’s younger than you.’

‘Ah, but Brian has only his oul’ mother to look after. Look at me - with this bunch of women, to be sure. How could I add a wife to this?’ He lifted Finola and swung her around as they walked. She was far from heavy.

Kate, who was a little behind them, stopped to stare at a building on the other side of the road.

Finola said, ‘Come on. Kate, don't be lagging - I’m hungry and Brendan has promised us porridge. Isn't that so?’

‘Sure, and it is, my love.’

‘Would you look at this, Maeve?’ Kate pointed. ‘Is it a church, Brendan?’

‘Aye, that it is. That is the Roman Catholic Church of St Andrew.’

They halted and stared, awed by the grandeur of building; its clean stone, soaring spires and windows which would be glowing stained glass seen from the inside. To any Irish Catholic, more used to the small grey chapels of their homeland, it was a stunning sight.

At last Kate spoke. ‘Sure, there must be a lot of Catholics in Glasgow.’

‘Aye, too many for the liking of some.’

Kate muttered under her breath, ‘Well, they won’t see this one in there.’

Maeve heard her. ‘We’ll see about that.’

She had expected little, but Maeve almost drowned in despair when they reached what was to be their new home in Glasgow. Brendan told them they were in backlands, a description that meant nothing until they found themselves picking their way round the end of a row of filthy buildings to come upon another even filthier building a few feet behind. A short wooden stairway led to a landing with two doors, one of which Brendan had to unlock.

‘A key, Brendan?’ Kate laughed, ‘Sure, I’ve never seen such a thing. Have you got precious riches here?’

He waggled the key. ‘Listen. Never leave this door unlocked if you're out. No, I don't have anything precious, Kate, but the little I have would be gone in a flash if the door was open. There are a lot of poor people in Glasgow.’

A locked door was a strange concept to those brought up in rural Ireland, and Maeve suspected it would be the first of many disturbing features of their new lives.

The open door revealed the next. A single room, so dark that Brendan had to light a paraffin lamp in the corner to display two straw mattresses on the floor of a recess, a single chair, and a table which might have been fished out of the Clyde, the wood looked so rotten. A black pot sat in the midst of a smouldering fire in an iron grate. The three O’Donnell girls stood, silent, in the small space. The room smelled stale, with an overlay of paraffin fumes, and there was a faint odour of singeing.

Maeve’s heart, low as it was, sank even further.

Brendan said, ‘Ta da! I know it’s not much, ladies, but…’

He was interrupted by Kate grabbing a handful of her skirt to pull the pot off the fire. ‘This is burning!’

‘It’s the porridge! I thought it would be slow enough.’

Maeve put down the small bundle of everything she owned in the world and said, ‘Brendan, let us deal with it. D’ye have plates.’

Even in the dim light she could see him flush.

‘Eh, there's two…I haven't had time…I’ve been working you see.’ He opened a press in the corner of the room.

Taking the pot from Kate, Maeve scraped out the least burnt portions of porridge into the two bowls. ‘Is there milk, Brendan?’

‘Aye, on the windowsill.’ He pushed up a window so grimy that it was almost invisible and brought in an enamel jug covered with a scrap of muslin and half full of doubtful-looking milk.

Maeve took it from him, sniffed it, then poured some into each of the bowls. 'Here, Finola, Kate, sit and eat your porridge.’ The two bowls had at least two thin metal spoons to accompany them.

Finola lifted a spoonful of the brownish mess, then dropped it back in the bowl. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I can’t…’

Maeve said, ‘You will, for there’s nothing else, is there Brendan?’

He shook his head. ‘I only got proper work last week, so I haven't been able…’ He fished in his trouser pocket. ‘Have this, it’ll buy something for the morrow.’

She took the money but didn't count it. ‘We’ll manage, will we not, girls, and tomorrow we’ll explore and find all kinds of things.’

Kate said, gulping down her spoonful of porridge. ‘Will I be able to get work?’

‘Oh, to be sure, there’s lots of work for women - mills, factories galore - even Finola will be able to earn’

Maeve said, ‘She won’t. She’s not going out to work at nine years old, Brendan.’

‘No, there’s work in the mills for wee ones…and the tobacco factory…’

‘I said, she’s too young.’ Maeve scraped more of the porridge into Kate’s empty bowl and handed the pot to Brendan. ‘You can manage with that.’

Holding down an overwhelming desire to retch, Maeve forced herself to eat the brown sludge salvaged from the bottom of the pot into Finola’s unwashed bowl.

Chapter 2

The morning light did little to improve their surroundings. A black iron sink with a dull brass tap and a coal bunker shared the floor space with the beds, and a pulley contraption dangled overhead. A single grimy towel hung on its wooden slats. Brendan had elected to sleep downstairs in company with a numberless group of his fellow workers from Dixon’s coal mine, where he had found work as a surface labourer. When he announced cheerfully that he got his share of the beds in the night when some of the others were working, and they had it in the day, Maeve shuddered at the grim reality of their new lives. He’d stuck his head round the door at some ungodly hour of the morning and called that he was off to work.

Maeve gazed out at the unprepossessing back view of the large tenement, and the huddle of privies and middens, and was almost overcome by sadness at what they’d come to. Then she pulled her shoulders back. An empty stomach in idyllic surroundings was no less painful there than here. She turned to her sisters, both still huddled under the rags which passed for bedclothes. She observed that even these miserable surroundings did little to dim Kate’s beauty, but her stomach twisted at the sight of Finola’s little face, pinched and white from months of hunger. Both she and Kate, in fact, had a minimum of nourishment from the plenty of Lord Longkenny’s larder - just enough to stave off the pangs, until the fateful day of the bread, which she’d been taking home for Finola.

‘Are we for out, girls, eh?’ She forced cheer into her voice. ‘And we’ll see what this Saltmarket is all about. There’s still some of Brendan’s oatmeal in the press but there’s no milk, so we’ll have to wait.’

Kate yawned, ‘Well, that’s nothing new, isn’t that so, Finola.’

Saltmarket was all about a long street of slums mixed with some new smarter buildings, and Kate and Finola gazed at them with interest. Kate wondered aloud what it would be like to live in a place like these, with proper beds and maybe even a WC. She’d seen the like in Lord Longkenny’s house, but to her disappointment their new hovel condemned them once again to a disgusting dry privy.

Maeve’s attention was devoted to looking for a grocery shop. Once found, she bought bread, milk, and potatoes. She also managed a few carrots, fat bacon for dripping, an onion, and a pennyworth of bones for stock. Her spirits lifted marginally at the prospect of soup, if she could cope with the dearth of utensils that Brendan lived with.

Her final purchase was a ribbed glass bottle of vinegar, and the shopkeeper was in the middle of telling her that once empty it could be returned for a farthing, when someone tapped her shoulder and spoke in an accent which Maeve couldn’t grasp. She turned, and said, slowly, ‘I beg your pardon?’

The woman smiled. ‘I hear you speak about pot. Paddy’s Market, good cheap pot.’ Her brown hair was just visible under a scarf wrapped around her head, and she had a sallow complexion and sharp-looking dark eyes. She touched Maeve’s arm and patted Finola on the head. ‘I am Anna Levy. I live next door in 129. I see you come with Brendan last night.’

‘Oh!’ Relief swept through Maeve at the prospect of a neighbour, even if her speech seemed almost beyond the human ear. ‘I am pleased to meet you.’

A loud cough came from the customer behind Anna Levy, and she said, ‘I must buy now.’ She pointed. ‘Paddy’s Market. It is there.’

Paddy’s Market was nothing like the markets of Wicklow before the famine. Fruit and vegetables, stalls selling meat and pies, farm equipment - even horses - in an atmosphere of celebration and an abundance of alcohol. Here, in a wet cobbled lane under a railway bridge, were stalls piled with so much stuff in untidy heaps that it defied description. Coats, boots, walking sticks, blankets, umbrellas, chairs - even a brightly coloured bird in a cage, which captivated Finola. The girls walked slowly amongst them, ignoring the entreaties of the stallholders. Maeve despaired of finding a suitable pot with the meagre sum she had left from Brendan’s money but find one she did. A black enamel pot, some forks, spoons, and even a few plates. The whole came to more than they had left of the money, but the vendor, a huge man with an Ulster accent, took one look at Kate and laughing, said, ‘Have it all, my beauties.’

On the way back to the house, Finola, who was carrying it, said, ‘Maeve, what is the vinegar for?’

Maeve stopped walking and confronted her two sisters. ‘We are going to clean. If we are forced to live in that…place, it is going to be…’ she slapped her hand on the pot. ‘…fresh…at least.’

Kate giggled. ‘That’s impossible!’

‘It will be as clean as we can make it, Kate, and you will help. If not, God knows what kind of diseases we will be cursed with here.’

A watery sunshine was struggling to get in front of the clouds when they got back, and Maeve heaved the straw beds out on to the landing railings to shake them. She averted her eyes at the thought of what might drop out of them and prayed that the stuff drifting around her face was straw.

Delighted to find a dried-up sliver of carbolic soap under the sink, Maeve, Kate, and even Finola scrubbed their small dwelling to exhaustion. By leaving the door open to the cold midday they hoped to defeat the stale air with the sharp tang of carbolic and vinegar.

Surveying the effects of their work the three of them stood in the open doorway as Anna Levy struggled up the stairs with two babies clutched inside her shawl.

‘I leave them with my friend,’ she gasped, ‘I cannot shop for food, like this.’

She gave the shawl a heave and a plaintive cry emerged from the bundle.

Finola peeked inside. ‘Oh, the lovely babbies.’

Anna laughed. ‘Lovely when they no cry. When their Papa comes home.’

Maeve said, ‘Is he at work?’

‘Yes, my friend. At work.’ She sniffed. ‘Good girls. You have been cleaning!’

Maeve smiled. ‘Today cleaning, tomorrow work, I hope.’

Anna Levy raised her eyebrows. ‘You have work, so soon?’

‘Oh, no. I mean we will start to look tomorrow.’

‘You must go to Templeton’s.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, it is not far. And not hard to find.’

Kate was chewing her thumbnail. ‘But what…what work can we do?’

Anna smiled. ‘They are tasks in the mills for women’s hands.’ She pushed her own hand out from under the shawl. ‘I was cleaner there - for a short time.’ She puffed out the words as she hauled the twins like a bundle of rags. Kissing the top of one little head, she read Kate’s expression. ‘Don't be afraid. You will have friends there - many Irish girls.’

‘What do they make? This Temple…?’

‘Templeton’s. Carpets is what they make. Beautiful, for rich men’s houses.’ Her mouth turned down as a cry came from the bundle. ‘I must go - feeding, feeding…they are like little birds.’

Maeve recalled the enormous carpets in Lord Longkenny’s many rooms, and marvelled that she had never been curious about their origin. In fact, she had never wondered about the origin of any of the riches - the furniture, the drapes, the china…but had accepted all of it as treasure beyond the scope of ordinary mortals. Now she suspected that it had been bred into them to accept that people like the O’Donnells didn’t deserve such luxury, and as she observed the poor hovel of their new home, for a fleeting moment she asked herself why. And she was overcome, once again, by the memory of her father, swinging to and fro…to and fro…and the poor boot lying there…

Next morning Maeve lay in bed, almost comfortable from sheer exhaustion, and considered her next move. Should it be work for her and Kate, or school for Finola? Work might mean shifts, and she would be loath to leave Finola alone in these dismal surroundings. If they could get differing shifts, one could be with their youngest sister, but from what she’d seen already she didn't think it would be wise to expose even Kate to the risks of this city. Her stomach clenched as she thought again of the difference between the almost cosy poverty of their Irish home amid its beautiful scenery and this…cesspit they found themselves in. Then she remembered the hunger, and that they had all gone to bed last night with nearly full stomachs, thanks to the pot of soup she had managed to produce. She shook herself awake. Work will have to come first, because even if she finds a school for Finola, her sisters’ wages will need to pay for it. It would be too much to ask of Brendan, who has little cash to spare. His work at the pit didn’t pay well, it seemed.

Chapter 3

At eight o’clock on the morning of January 31st, the sisters stood in the street outside Templeton’s Carpet Factory. It was bitterly cold and as they hesitated, Maeve’s feet began to lose all feeling. Kate clutched her hand as they hovered near a black door with a glass panel at the top. Maeve’s lips moved and she whispered, ‘Office.’ Almost dragging her sister, she pushed open the heavy door. Inside the light was poor - gas lamps making shadows so dense that it was almost impossible to see a high wooden counter. And they jumped when a voice barked out of the gloom.

‘Right, here - what d’ye want?’

A man, almost hidden from view by the height of his barrier, leaned over to peer down at the girls.

Maeve froze.

‘C’mon, what is it? Ah have nae got all day. Speak!’ A leathery, brown face appeared. ‘Is it work? Is that it?’

Maeve swallowed. ‘Yes…sir.’

The man vanished and they heard him laugh. ‘Another pair of starving colleens, eh?’

Suddenly the counter opened as if by magic, and the man arrived beside them. Painfully aware of their ragged appearance, Maeve’s face burned as he stood, arms folded, subjecting them to a detailed scrutiny. She felt like a horse at Wicklow Market. He was no taller than the girls, with stringy grey hair and wet lips. He reached out and she shrank at the thought that he was about to touch them, but he merely gestured at their