Priests and Poets, Part 1

Often, while walking the Fastnet Trails, I stop to wander around the old graveyard at Stouke, near Ballydehob. I am struck each time by the lonely beauty of the site, on an elevated hillside with vistas of the countryside and distant hills. I have also come to realise that this one small place resounds with echoes of the past – a past that in Ireland seems always so intricately woven into our present that it can never be ignored or forgotten.

The Barry tomb dominates the graveyard

There is much to say about Stouke Graveyard and my theme of Priests and Poets but I will start with one grave in particular and leave the rest to a second post. This is the grave of Father James Barry, his brother, Father John Barry, their sister, Margaret, and their housekeeper, Julia Roberts. I have mentioned this grave before briefly, but I have now had an opportunity to look at it more closely.

Coins and tokens have been left on the tomb

Why does this large chest tomb occupy the most elevated and central place in the graveyard? Why are coins and tokens left as offerings on it? Why, according to notes made by the Historic Graves Project, do people come to pray here on St John’s Day (June 24th) every year? Although I didn’t find all the answers, researching the questions led me to Father James Barry, Parish Priest of Schull before and during the Great Famine.

James was obviously a man of learning and compassion, and one who was called upon locally to be a spokesperson and advocate for his flock. Even before the Famine he gave evidence to boards of inquiry about the conditions in West Cork, pointing out the miserable diet, lack of proper clothing and housing, poor prospects for employment, the uncertainty of a lease being continued, the lack of compensation to tenants when lands were taken to build new roads, the desire of many to emigrate and the good account they gave of their experiences in their new homes.  He would have read their letters to them, since many of his parishioners were illiterate – his remarks focused on the many advantages of the New World, including a pointed reference to the absence of tyranny. In what seems like a very modern concern with income inequality, he commented on how the rich got richer as their tenants’ lives became ever more difficult. (Reported in British Parliamentary Papers)

The Famine Memorial at Murrisk in Mayo. The ‘coffin ships’ that carried a generation of people to North America were notorious but for those who chose to go the voyage was preferable to the nightmare of famine at home

During the Famine, he and his brother, Father John, also of Schull parish, worked to help establish soup kitchens but insisted that more than soup be served, since the soup was not nutritious enough. Called eating houses, these places fed many people who would otherwise have died, and replaced the hated and ineffective Board of Works schemes that put weak and starving people to hard labour so they could buy their own corn, thus supposedly salvaging their dignity and rescuing them from the evils of pauperism.

Famine Soup Kitchen

The efforts of the eating house committees crossed religious boundaries and appear to have been effective in slowing the rates of starvation to such an extent that in one of his depositions James states that “deaths were now so few that the slide-bottomed coffins were no longer in use.”

Many unmarked graves dot the Stouke graveyard, some no doubt dating to the Famine years

James advocated tirelessly for his parishioners, through giving information and evidence and through submissions to authorities. His anger is unconcealed when he describes his visit to the village of Kilbronogue near Ballydehob: Fever consequent upon starvation was spreading among the clusters of cabins…the townland  [will] soon be at the immediate disposal of the head landlord, Lord Bandon. There will be no need of extermination or of migration to thin the dense swarm of poor people…; this will take place without his lordship’s intervention or agency, I hope, to a better world. Indeed his words were prophetic – there is no longer a village in Kilbronogue.

Trench’s book, Realities of Irish Life, is available online. The illustration is of an incident in which tenants are down on their knees begging for a reduction in rent.

Fr Barry acted as a guide for William Steuart Trench, a controversial land agent who later described his visit to the famine-stricken area of Schull in the book Realities of Irish Life (available to read online). In cottage after cottage he found families sick, dying or dead. The account is heart-rending. It led me to wonder if James Barry could have been the model for Peter Gilligan in WB Yeats’ poem The Ballad of Father Gilligan.

The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.

Once, while he nodded on a chair,
At the moth-hour of eve,
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.

‘I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,
For people die and die’;
And after cried he, ‘God forgive!
My body spake, not I!’

He knelt, and leaning on the chair
He prayed and fell asleep;
And the moth-hour went from the fields,
And stars began to peep.

They slowly into millions grew,
And leaves shook in the wind;
And God covered the world with shade,
And whispered to mankind.

Upon the time of sparrow-chirp
When the moths came once more.
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Stood upright on the floor.

‘Mavrone, mavrone! the man has died
While I slept on the chair’;
He roused his horse out of its sleep,
And rode with little care.

He rode now as he never rode,
By rocky lane and fen;
The sick man’s wife opened the door:
‘Father! you come again!’

‘And is the poor man dead?’ he cried.
‘He died an hour ago.’
The old priest Peter Gilligan
In grief swayed to and fro.

‘When you were gone, he turned and died
As merry as a bird.’
The old priest Peter Gilligan
He knelt him at that word.

‘He Who hath made the night of stars
For souls who tire and bleed,
Sent one of His great angels down
To help me in my need.’

‘He Who is wrapped in purple robes,
With planets in His care,
Had pity on the least of things
Asleep upon a chair.’

Although this is an unusual poem for Yeats (he was not a Catholic and he did not often publish simple quatrain-based ballads) it reflects his interest in the Irish stories he collected and loved. It was a favourite, as you can imagine, of the nuns who taught us English, combining as it did ease of memorisation,  the religious fervour they hoped to inculcate in their convent classrooms and the unassailable respectability of having been composed by Ireland’s Nobel Laureate.

But back to the grave…the priests’ housekeeper, Julia Roberts, who died in 1838 was the first to be buried here. James and John’s sister, Margaret, died at the height of the Famine in 1848 (although we do not know if her death was in any way associated with this event). The Historic Graves record contains this intriguing note: When his sister died and was also buried here Sarah’s (should be ‘Julia’s’) coffin was in perfect condition. She was reburied with the parish priest even though she was not a Catholic.

James went on to serve as Parish Priest of Bantry and died in 1853. James’ brother, John was apparently similarly active but not much has survived recording his life. He took over from James as Parish Priest in Schull, where he served until his own death in 1863.

Next week I will continue my tour of this wonderful spot – and we’ll have a little more poetry – although from a different source.