Part II

At no point in my prior life would I have ever guessed that I would end up in New York City on the arm of a wealthy debonaire widow like you. Not at twenty, not at forty, and certainly not at sixty. Before I met you, I was a different person in a different life in a different world; simple as that.

 

I never told you about Mary -- my first love, my first wife, and the mother of my three children. I never told you about them either. Thinking about them causes such pain. Many times over the last years I have wished that they never existed, rather than to have lived for such a short time before being ripped away from me.

 

They, the three of them and Mary, died while we were still in Ireland. I know I told you about the famine that struck my people, and you read some about it in the papers, but I always let on that I came from some wealth in Ireland, and thus was spared the sharpest of the famine’s scourge.

 

I lied. I felt that brutal whip as hard as any man, and no man lost things more dear to him than I did.

 

We all knew something bad was coming, all us poor boy Catholic farmers. We could feel it in the air, in the land...but it was even more than that. You see, the way it went in Ireland was that farms were split evenly amongst all the sons. So what started out as big plots years ago were now these tiny little things. And the landlords give em out so tiny, that a man could only grow one thing in such a space to feed his own family and get the sharecropper off his back. So we all jumped on this wonderful little miracle crop called the potato.

 

Which was all well and good, but I remember looking around in, oh, 1840 or so and thinking to myself, well if all I got supporting me are potatoes, and all Conor’s got supporting him are potatoes, and all Maxie’s got supporting him are potatoes, well then we better hope nothing goes wrong with the potatoes, huh!

 

But nobody did anything, of course. There was nothing we really could do, even if we wanted to, because the blokes in Dublin Castle and Whitehall gave us quotas that we had to fill. We didn’t have a choice in the matter. We had to feed our families, and the only thing we could grow enough of on our tiny little plots was the starchy, tasteless potato. But at least it filled our bellies.  

 

You see, Ireland isn’t like your America. We don’t have the freedom of religion. I was raised Catholic, my dad was a Catholic, and his dad was a Catholic. So I’m Catholic, and I raised the rest of clan Catholic. The O’Malleys are Catholics all the way back. So it is.

 

But England, they don’t really like that, right? They like the Protestants. And so the Protestants got all the best housing, the Protestants got all the best schooling, the Protestants got all the best jobs, and us Catholics got jack-all nothing. We got some tiny sharecropping plots that we could grow a couple of potatoes on to feed our families. The Dublin Castle rolled out some poor laws that were supposed to help and grant Catholics equal emancipation, but they didn’t help at all, in reality. The government was still wholly Protestant.

 

And so it was, that when I was becoming a young man looking to start a family of his own, all us Catholics only had these pitiful little farms, growing little potatoes to try and feed our families with. And there was no where else I could hope to go. 

 

But, for a little while, while it wasn’t pretty, it was fine. I saw Mary of clan Connelly in church one Sunday in 1828 and asked her to walk with me down by the river. We became sweet on each other after that and I saved every guinea I could from apprenticing on O’Shea’s for her dowry. I worked all day and all night for her.

 

When we were finally married in 1830, it was the happiest day of my life. I don’t mind telling you, Irene, that I am crying as I write this letter to you and reflecting on my old love. She is long gone, but I can still remember her face on our wedding day, like a smiling pale moon.

 

You are just as beautiful as Mary ever was, Irene, but my heart will always be with her. I hope some small part of you can understand that.

 

Our children came quickly after, and we thought each was a blessing from Christ. Our first child, James, was born healthy and strong in 1832 and I think, to me, was the biggest tragedy because...because he is the hardest for me to talk about.

 

It was the winter of 1845 where everything went wrong. In the years between James being born and that terrible winter, things had been going just fine for the O’Malley’s. Our little clan was growing in size -- Damian came in 1838 and Joseph in 1841 -- and although I didn’t make much (or any) money from working the O’Shea plot, I did manage to grow enough potatoes for Mary to make food enough to feed our bellies. And sometimes O’Shea would toss us some carrots or even a chicken and Mary would make them sing. Work was hard, life wasn’t pretty, but god, was it all so beautiful in it’s own way. I miss those light-filled years most of all.

 

By 1844, James was old enough to start helping me in the fields, and I had nothing but hope for the horizon, although nothing had been done to address the problem I had noticed of all the poor farmers relying on the same crop to feed their families. But in 1844, I remember thinking -- what was the problem with that? God had given us the miracle of the potato, and who were we to question it?

 

But the reckoning came in 1845. I remember waking up one morning and going out to harvest with James. The look on the boy’s face when he realized what he saw...if only I would have acted then.

 

In 1845, only about a third of our crop was affected by the blight that descended on the potatoes of our island. I thought we would be just fine by the next harvest. So we tightened our already tight belts, and hunkered down with smiles on our faces. Just another small test from God, we thought.

 

All across Ireland, Catholic small farm families like us did the same thing, praying to Christ that the next harvest would be better.

 

But it was not. It was much worse. Nearly three-fourths of our potato crop died from the blight at harvest in 1846. We had almost nothing to eat between the five of us, and we lucky -- the McDonnell’s had eight children and lost even more of their potato crop that year.

 

The new Union government did nothing to help us. It seemed as if they were ignoring our struggle. I remember in November 1846, Donnie Brae told me that he had gone to Dublin Castle, asked for a parlay with Parliament, told them that his little girl had starved and that he had no other way of feeding the rest of his family because of the landlords and the quotas. He told them that they were killing Irish-Catholics; starving them to death with their laws and tariffs. Repeal the Corn Laws, he begged. Save my family!

 

They didn’t even give him an audience. A Protestant barrister told Brae that the Free Market would take care of it -- that he had nothing to worry about. The Free Market!

 

It wasn’t until 1847 that the first of my small clan was taken from us. Joseph was still so small and young… and well, Mary already was only eating once or twice a week so that me and Damian and James could eat enough to work. She was so weak -- there just wasn’t enough.

 

Me and James and Damien would work as hard as we could, but there was nothing we could do. The blight had taken it’s harvest, and left nothing for us. Everything we would plant would die. And our landlord wouldn’t let us grow anything else on our plot. We were trapped growing a crop that couldn’t grow.

 

In late 1847, Damien got Boulogne throat. One day he started coughing, and then he couldn’t stop. It was awful hearing his loud, hacking coughs day in and day out. He couldn’t work anymore. Mary would give Damien hot water or anything else she could find. But it didn’t help. The cough kept getting worse and worse, and then one night, it went quiet. Damien was dead. And then Mary started coughing.

 

Things somehow got worse. By 1848, we had no potatoes and nothing to eat. I was nearly starved, and Mary was holding on but her cough was getting so bad and she was getting so weak that she couldn’t leave our bedroom. She would heap all our blankets on top of her and moan and shiver and cough. But, even then, I didn’t give up hope. I was sure that salvation was just around the corner, that me and James just had to work hard enough and we could save our family and our country.

 

That’s why I think I blame myself so much for what happened to James. I shouldn’t of worked him so hard, I should have been more attentive; but there was really nothing I could have done. I gave the boy all the food I could find. We shared everything. But it wasn’t enough. I noticed by April that James was getting weaker. We all were skinny, but the boy was starting to look gaunt. I tried to find more bread for him, but there just wasn’t enough. I had to give Mary the lion’s share in the hope that maybe the calories would fight the Boulogne throat. I had to eat so I could keep working; if I stopped, we really had no choice. So I gave James everything else we could, but I guess it wasn’t enough.

 

One day, in October of 1848, James collapsed in the middle of our field. He never woke up.

 

After James, there didn’t seem to be a point to anything any more. I worked as hard as I could in the fields, but a man can only work alone in the dirt with no results for so long. I asked the people around us in Ulster for help with Mary but no one had anything they could give me. All the medicine was gone, all the food was gone, all the charity was gone; we were on our own. And inevitably, like thousands of other Irish women exactly like her when the brutal winter of 1848 took hold, Mary succumbed to Boulogne throat one freezing night in December. I was cold, starving, and now, I was totally alone. I was forty-eight, and the love of my life had just died in the night. My whole family was gone, the life I had worked so hard to create was gone, and I was left with nothing.

 

So I left. I took all the money I could find, which was just about nothing, and managed to find passage to Dublin. In Dublin, I found the famine and blight had been no less lethal and devastating here. But it was a city, and a city meant people.

 

I regret the life I chose for those two years in Dublin, but you have to understand. I couldn’t face the tragedy of my family or of my situation. So I built myself a dream, one that was so powerful and bright that it would keep me warm at night while I slept penniless on the cold streets of Dublin. That dream was to come to America, that magical country I had heard about where everyone had plenty and the land never ran out. Where people had real freedom. Where they could be whoever they wanted.

 

I was old, my family was gone, all the best years of my physical body sucked out through hard toil and starvation. But I still had quick hands and sticky fingers. So I turned to crime. It is hard for me to admit that to you right now, Irene, but that is how I got here. By pilfering, robbing, and stealing whatever I could.

 

It was how I fed myself in Dublin and it was how I managed to squirrel away enough silver to book passage to New York. I didn’t care about being caught, because in my mind, I was already dead. So was every Catholic person in Ireland at the time; it was like we were walking ghosts, already consumed by starvation but too stubborn to come to terms with it.

 

My dream of coming to America kept me sane, but also kept me from processing what happened to my family. I pushed all the pain and anguish down and only focused on my one hope. Everything I did, I did to bring me closer to America.

 

Potatoes still couldn’t take hold in Irish soil when I had finally saved up enough from pick-pocketing and pilfering to get on the HMS Atlantic, a coffin-ship heading from Dublin to New York City. I remember the salty air hitting my face, the spray of the ocean as the churning boat took off. It was one of the most bittersweet moments of my life -- I had managed to finally get on a boat to America, but looking back at the green island of my motherland reminded me of my pain and sorrow, but also of the happiest, truest memories and people I was leaving behind.

 

It is those memories and people, Irene, that I have to return to now. I must return to Ireland; I can feel Ulster pulling me by the strings of my heart.

 

I have been a stranger here in your country, although a happy stranger because of you Irene. It is time for me to go home. I am sorry, Irene. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can understand.

 

There is not much time left in my life. I have to go back to where my heart is -- that is the only place I can die in peace. I have to go back so I can truly lay my family to rest. I have to see Mary and James and Damien and Joseph one last time before I join them in Heaven.           

 

I love you, Irene, but I could never love another as much as I loved them. I have to go back to home, for better or for worse. I have to confront my past, even if it kills me. I have to eat from the bounty of Ireland, even if I starve. I hope you understand, Irene, and I hope you can forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hurt anyone. I just wanted to work hard and be free. Why does life have to be so hard, Irene? Why can’t things ever be easy?

 

I have already booked passage back to Dublin, and from there I will make the journey to my old home of Ulster. I want to see how my old community looks, how my people look. I want to see my old farm and see if the devastation has gotten better. I doubt it has, but I have to see it with my own eyes. Even if it is the last thing I ever see.

 

By the time you read this, Irene, I will already be gone. Thank you for everything. I love you.

 

Your Spark Forever,

 

Rory O’Malley