From Ballyboyle to Corglass... a Boyle family's story
Part 1 - Ballyboyle - our ancient ancestors
The 19th century - Emancipation, famine and revival
A traveller to Ireland in the early 19th century would have noticed a rapidly rising population, the decline of Dublin due to the loss of its parliament to London, the growth of Belfast as a major industrial city, an increasingly spendthrift and indolent landowning class, seemingly unable and unwilling to do anything to improve their estates and an increasingly politicised peasantry demanding change.
Taking advantage of the repeal of many of the Penal Laws, the Catholic Church could now operate openly and became the organising force and source of identity for the vast bulk of the population. By the time Daniel O’Connell succeeded in winning Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and taking his seat as the first Catholic in the Westminster parliament, the church was well on its way to becoming the source and centre of both political and religious power. Its hierarchy was the new nobility for a people long bereft of leadership, and in the second half of the century, a cadre of ambitious and effective bishops, such as Paul Cullen, forged a distinctive and dominant brand of Catholicism that was to last until recent times.
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But before that, there was the Famine. The early decades of the 19th century witnessed a population explosion; from about 2 million in 1750, the population doubled to 4 million by 1800 and (by recent estimates) had reached 9 million in the mid-1840s. Early marriage, an abundance of fairly nutritious food in the potato and generally improving economic conditions facilitated the growth, most of which was in the poorest section of the population, landless labourers living in primitive conditions.
The French traveller De Latocnaye wrote:
‘Their huts are not like the houses of men and yet out of them troop flocks of children, healthy and fresh as roses. Their state can be observed all the easier, since they are often as naked as the hand, and play in front of the cabins with no clothing but what Nature has given them . . . They live on potatoes, and they have for that edible (which is all in all to them) a singular respect, attributing to it all that happens to them. I asked a peasant who had a dozen pretty children, “How is it that your countrymen have so many and so healthy children?” “It’s the praties, sir”, he replied . . . One finds numerous schools in the hedges—always for the reason I have indicated already. It is a mistake to think the peasant of this country so ignorant or stupid. Misery, it is true, does stupefy him and make him indifferent.’
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A small plot could produce enough of a crop of potatoes to feed a family, but the arrival of a previously unknown disease Phytophthora infestans in 1845 spelled disaster, as it proceeded to destroy the crop on which half of the population entirely depended. When the blight returned in 1846 with much more severe effects on the potato crop, this created an unparalleled food crisis that lasted four years and drove Ireland into a nightmare of hunger and disease.
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Despite heroic efforts by some individuals and charitable organisations, the catastrophe was compounded by government indecision and incompetence, and the belief in some quarters that it was not the responsibility of government to intervene in such disasters, and that the famine was God's way of dealing with the excess population.
There was no escaping the consequences for the poorest class. The next reliable census in 1871 showed a population of under 5½ million. It seems that deaths from hunger and disease, and emigration to Britain and the United States reduced the population by well over 3 million people.
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​​​​The famine brought about far-reaching changes in social and political attitudes and aspirations, and it is also around this time that our ancestors emerge from the shadows of history and we can put names to specific individuals.
Late 19th century Ireland became more conservative and security conscious, with an obsession on consolidating landholdings, advantageous marriage alliances, religious conformity and a growing desire for a degree of cultural and political independence. Despite a high birth rate, the population continued to decline as emigration to the USA and Britain became embedded into the fabric of Irish life. By the end of the century, at 4½ million, it was barely half of what it had been at the outbreak of the famine.
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The famine also exacerbated the strains and highlighted the inadequacies of the landholding system, giving impetus for agitation to break up the great estates and create a class of peasant proprietors.
Though the restrictions on Catholic ownership of land began to relax during the 19th century, by 1870 over half of the land was still owned by just 750 families. 97% of Irish farmers were tenants, with most being yearly tenants or tenants-at-will. Tenants-at-will had no legal guarantee of continuing occupation, and landlords could eject them at any time.
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Led by Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell (the “uncrowned King of Ireland”), the ‘Land War’ successfully combined civil disobedience and parliamentary campaigning. Within a few years of the end of the century nearly all the small tenant farmers were to become owners of their holdings, albeit, instead of rent, they had to pay annuities to the British government to compensate the former landlords. Parnell then turned his attention to restoring a devolved parliament for Ireland in the Home Rule movement.
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Meanwhile, the founding of the Gaelic League and the Celtic literary revival demonstrated a growing confidence in Irish identity, at least for the emerging middle classes.