Post by Matt McNamara on Sept 29, 2008 11:56:02 GMT
Part III.
A COMMUNITY like that which I am attempting to describe naturally falls into some regular system, and provides for itself certain rules and regulations. Fifty or sixty people separated from the rest of the world and existing in and by rebellion against society, naturally form some links of association ; and when the means of life are the same, and shameful and precarious ; when those who so live by them are poor as well as outcast ; and when, also, they are all women, we may assure ourselves that a sort of socialistic or family bond will soon be formed. It is so amongst the wrens of the Curragh. The ruling principle there evidently is to share each other’s fortunes and misfortunes, and in happy-go-lucky style. Thus the colony is open to any poor wretch who imagines that she can find comfort in it, or another desperate chance of existence. Come she whence she may, she has only to present herself to be admitted into one nest or another, nor is it necessary that she bring a penny to recommend her. Girls who have followed soldiers to the camp from distant towns and villages-some from actual love and hope, some from necessity or desperation-form a considerable number of those who go into the bush ; and I also learn that the colony sometimes receives some harvester tired of roaming for field work, to whom the free loose life there has, one must suppose, attractions superior to those of the virtuous hovel at home. She walks in and is welcome : welcome are far less eligible immigrants too. Suppose a woman with child who has followed her lover to the camp and loses him there, or is admonished with blows to leave him alone ; or suppose a young wife in the same condition is bidden by her martial lord to go away and “do as other women do” (which seems to be the formula in such cases) ; they are made as welcome amongst the wrens as if they did not bring with them certain trouble and an inevitable increase to the common poverty. I am not speaking what I believe they would do, but what they have done. It is not long since that a child was born in one of these nests ; and wrens had made for baby what little provision it was blessed with ; wrens smiled upon its birth (it was a girl) ; and wrens alone tended mother and child for days before it was born, and for a month afterwards :- then the unfortunate pair went into the workhouse. The mother of the babe which had so strange and portentous a beginning of life had followed its gallant father to the camp from Arklow-a fishing village many a mile away ; but he unfortunately diverted his benevolence into other channels, and she sought refuge amongst the bushwomen when her trouble was near. They did what they could for her, and brought her safely through without recourse to the doctor.
Although the birth of an infant is a novel event in the annals of the Curragh, the appearance of a mother with her baby in arms is by no means rare ; and though a child is certainly as much an “incumbrance” there as it can be anywhere, no objection is ever made to it. In fact, a baby is obviously regarded as conferring a certain respectability upon the nest it belongs to, and is treated, like other possessions, as common property. At the present time there are four children in the bush. The mother of one of them is the young woman whose amazing abuse routed my carman, as previously related. Her outrageous blasphemies were uttered over the face of the unhappy little one as it lay at her breast. But even she seems to have the tenderest love for the babe : she never could bear to think of parting with the “poor darlint,” she says, and she stays at home with it as much as possible, doing duty as watcher at night, while the others are away. The children all seemed to be well cared for. We shall see that an egg is always bought for Mary Maloney’s baby when the day’s provisions are procured, and I found one bright curly-headed little fellow in possession of a doll. Another, a certain little Billy Carson, was produced to me on a Sunday morning, in a rig of which the whole nest seemed proud. He was arrayed in a pretty light coloured stuff frock, for which, I was assured, as much as seven and sixpence had been paid. Should the children fall sick they would be taken at one to the workhouse ; for the doctor is never seen in the bush. In sickness the wrens administer to themselves or each other such remedies as they happen to believe in, or are able to procure ; and when these fail, and the case seems hopeless, application is made at the police barracks at the camp, and the half-dying wretch is carried to Naas Hospital, nine miles off. The medical officers in the camp are, of course, kept too busy amongst the men who are the wrens’ friends to have any time to spare for the wrens themselves. Something more must be said upon that subject by-and-by.
The communistic principle governs each nest, and in hard times one family readily helps another, or several help one ; the deeps are not deaf to the voice of the lower deeps. None of the women have any money of their own. What each company get is thrown into a common purse, and the nest is provisioned out of it. What they get is little indeed ; a few halfpence turned out of one pocket and another when the clean starched frocks are thrown off at night make up a daily income just enough to keep body and soul together. How that feat is accomplished at all in winter-in such winters as the last one-which was talked of only three weeks ago as a dreadful thing of yesterday and its recurrence dreaded as a horrible thing of to-morrow-is past my comprehension. It is an understanding that they take it in turns to do the marketing, and to keep house when the rest go wandering at night ; though the girl whose dress is freshest generally performs the one duty, and the woman whose youth is not the freshest, whose good looks are quite gone, the other. And there are several wrens who have been eight or nine years on the Curragh-one or two who have been there as long as the camp itself. At that time, and long after, they had not even the shelter of a regular built nest. I asked one of these older birds how they contrived their sleeping accommodation then. Said she, “We’d pick the biggest little bush we could find, and lay undher it-turnin’ wid the wind.” “Shifting round the bush as the wind shifted ?” “Thrue for ye. And sometimes we’d wake wid the snow coverin’ us, or maybe soaked wid rain.” “And then how did you dry your clothes ?” “We jist waited for a fine day.” Only four or five years ago the wrens were not allowed upon the common at all-at any rate, nowhere near the camp. They were hunted off on account of the extravagant behaviour of one of the women in the presence of a lady (related to a general officer) who was riding on the Curragh. The wretched creature’s audacity cost her companions dear ; they were driven from the common and their hovels were destroyed. A ditch in “Furl-lane,” leading to Athy, was for some time afterwards their only home-those who would not seek shelter in the workhouse or the gaol ; as to which places they have no preference whatever. But by degrees they re-established themselves on the common, and there they remain, a credit to the country. I may mention here what I had nearly forgotten-which would be a pity-that there is beside the colony I have described another small hive of wrens on the other side of the camp. Their nest is pitched in a field belonging to an intelligent Scotchman. It contains a family of seven. In consideration of the shelter afforded to these wretched creatures by the humane proprietor of the field, who holds a good deal of land round about, they keep a sharp look out for trespassers on the Scotchman’s grounds. In this way they probably save the cost of a couple of men and their dogs. Indeed the proprietor himself is said to rate their services much higher, and to boast that “the wrens do his work better than twenty policemen.”
Whisky forms, no doubt, a very important part of these poor wretches’ sustenance. Whisky kills in the end, or it swiftly destroys all that is comely or healthy in woman or man ; but it can scarcely be doubted that without it the wren could hardly live at all. She would tell you existence would be impossible without it ; and unfortunately it would be of little use to answer that “enough” may be good for food, but “too much” is poison. They get it easily ; they get it from the soldiers when they can get nothing else ; and hunger and cold and wet dispose them too readily to go home with their heads full of drink though their pockets are empty. Then at any rate they are warm ; the appetite for food is drowned ; they are drunk, and being drunk “don’t care;” and how not to care cannot always be an undesirable end when your lot is cast amongst the Curragh bushes. But of course even the seasoned wren cannot live by whisky alone ; and I took some pains to ascertain how she did live. Nothing in the world can be got out of the plain itself, not even water ; and the nearest town or village is three or four miles off. But there is the camp within something like half a mile ; and though the wrens are forbidden, under severe penalties, to appear within three hundred and sixty yards of certain defined limits of the camp, the severity of this regulation is relaxed on three days of the week, when a sort of market is held there. A certain number of the wrens are then allowed to approach and make purchases, “just like other people.” But the market days at the camp are only three out of the weekly seven-Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday ; and though as a rule the camp’s sweethearts do find means to get their daily bread, they have to get it from day to day. At Tuesday’s market Tuesday’s food may be bought ; but Wednesday’s food there is no money for yet. Nor can all they need be bought at the camp market ; and so they pay frequent visits to a certain little store or chandler’s shop. Learning this, I also visited the store, for opportunities of observing the particular purchases of the wren. Bread and milk and potatoes were the most conspicuous articles in the shop-in fact, the only articles to be seen in any quantity ; and so it was easy to discover what the good-natured little woman behind the counter was chiefly called upon to supply. I say good-natured little woman, for her manner to the degraded creatures who flocked to her shop was very considerate ; and they seemed to be thoroughly appreciative of its spirit. Bread, potatoes, milk, candles-these were the things most in demand. Thus, one woman carried off a stone of potatoes (12 lb.), twopenn’orth of milk, (in a tin can with a cross handle), a fourpenny loaf of bread, a penny candle, and “an egg for Mary Maloney’s baby.” Other women made purchases of tobacco, tea, and sugar ; and when these articles are added to the others a pretty complete account is given of the wren’s provender. Flesh meat is a rare luxury ; though sometimes a few meagre slices of bacon give token of its presence amidst half a stone of potatoes. Nor is tobacco a luxury merely. That weed is a well-known stifler of hunger-a fact which the wren discovers for herself before long. Water is a luxury. They would have to buy every pint of it, were they not permitted (on account of a little casualty which may be mentioned by-and-by) to get it from the military train. As it is, they do buy water sometimes of good-natured Mrs. Westley. I was in her shop one day when several wrens were marketing there. All were served but one-a civil and decent-looking girl, whom she detained while she carefully unfolded a little parcel. “There, Nelly,” said she, presenting the wren with a sprig of lavender, “put it with your clothes, my dear ; it’ll make ‘em smell nice.” Nelly had never seen a lavender sprig before evidently ; but she took it respectfully, tucked it into the bosom of her gown, and no doubt folded it in that garment when it was set aside. For, as I have said, the women-put off their decent clothes immediately they have no further use for them as ornaments ; for in that sense the print gown and “Curragh petticoat” are regarded. “Fine feathers make fine birds” is a saying as well understood in the bush as anywhere else. Thus, Bridget Flanagan, who had the honour of coming from the capital, was able to put down the pretensions of one of her companions who spoke of Dublin ladies as equals, by exclaiming, “You set yourself along wid such as thim ! Where’s your fine clothes ? Where’s your jewlree ?”
From all this a fair idea may be gained, I hope, of the intolerable life of the Curragh wren-intolerable to such of us, at any rate, as have any sense of public decency or public duty. We do not hear now of women being found dead amongst the furze, as they say used sometimes to happen, but surely things are terrible enough as they are to demand notice and remedy. It was the death of one of the wretched creatures which led to the granting of water to them from the camp supplies. In the nest where I spent one uncomfortable night, out of a desire to get my lesson thoroughly, a woman named Burns was suddenly taken ill, and in the morning was found dead amongst her companions. In this case a surgeon was brought, and there in the nest (I shuddered as the story was told to me) a surgical examination was made of the poor wretch’s body. An inquest was afterwards held in the same shameful place, and evidence taken of her companions. The medical evidence showed that the woman had perished through exposure to the weather and the drinking of foul water-collected anywhere on the common. A verdict to that effect was accordingly returned by the jury, who subscribed the handsome sum of thirteen shillings towards defraying the funeral expenses. She was buried in Kildare churchyard, to which better home she was attended by her companions. That must have been a pretty sight for the parson. No similar death has happened in the colony since Mary Burns perished. The unfortunate creatures hold out as long as they can, and then crawl to the hospital or the workhouse to die there.