Family History WA

COVID-19 and Ireland You can’t have missed the news coverage of the current COVID -19 pandemic in Australia, but you may be wondering how Ireland and other countries are doing. The website Worldometers 1 provides an up to date record of statistics in the over 200 countries affected by COVID-19. But unlike many news reports, here they analyse the raw numbers, taking account of the population size. For example, here are the numbers for 23 April 1.40pm (WAST). Day from GMT+0.

IRISH FAMILY HISTORY The Great Hunger, an Gorta Mór, comes quickly to the minds of family history researchers when thinking about events that may have influenced their Irish ancestors to migrate. At that time there was much internal migration within Ireland, and sadly, many left Ireland for another country – such as Australia - to escape the devastating effects of the Great Hunger on their family. Like the current COVID-19 pandemic,0 there were historical epidemics too which affected many countries, including Ireland. They had a huge impact on Irish families, on Irish communities and even on historical record keeping. Just as COVID-19 is affecting families and communities across the world, accounts of the various plagues in Ireland suggest some parallels with our current situation.

AUSTRALIA IRELAND

UK 1 2

TOTAL CASES NEW CASES

6,667 +18 17,607 +936 138,078 +4,583

3

TOTAL DEATHS

75 794 18,738

4

NEW DEATHS

+1 +25 +638

5 6

TOTAL RECOVERED ACTIVE CASES

5,045 1,547 9,233 7,580 N/A 118,996

7

SERIOUS, CRITICAL

45 147 1,559

8

TOTAL CASES / M

261 3,566 2,034

9 10

TOTAL DEATH / M TESTS TESTS / M

3 466,659 18,300 161 111,584 22,598 276 583,496 8,595

On this date Ireland had more than twice the number of confirmed cases (column 1) as Australia, but column 8 shows that, once you take account of the different population sizes, Ireland has a total cases per million 13 times that in Australia, and nearly twice the rate in UK. But these differences are likely to be affected by many other things, including each governments’ restrictions, how well they are observed in each country, the population age structure, and testing rates (see column 10). Ireland tests far more people per million population than UK and a little more than Australia. 1 Data is drawn from releases in each country

Ireland and the Plagues Historical plagues and epidemics have had a huge impact on our ancestors and on the availability of records about them. The state of medical knowledge at the time affected how the plagues were treated and spread, and how we interpret the medical conditions described in the records. From pre-history in Ireland there were accounts of plagues, well before the Great Hunger began in the middle of the 1800s.

PRE-HISTORY

Published in 1906, The Smaller Social History of Ireland, by Irish historian P W Joyce (1827-1914) described concepts of disease and plague in ancient Ireland. Joyce recounts the belief that was common in both pagan and Christian times that a plague could not travel over more than “nine waves”.

So, during the “yellow plague” St Colman of Cloyne fled with his followers to an island off the coast of Cork so they could be saved from this plague. This yellow plague (Blefed or Buide Connell) swept through Ireland twice - in the sixth and the seventh centuries. The yellow plague was thought to have been caused by a solar eclipse and affected people right across

the British Isles. Later analysis has put this down to a virulent type of jaundice featuring yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes, resulting from an excess bilirubin in the blood. It’s been later attributed to yellow fever, a viral infection transmitted by the bite of the female mosquito. It devastated Europe and Ireland in the 7th Century, pointing to warm climatic conditions at the time. Those who died from a plague were buried in a single large plot (tamhlacht, or plague grave) which was fenced and respected. Tallaght, in south Dublin was supposedly named after a legendary plague grave where everyone in the Partholonian-settled village there died within one week.

14TH CENTURY

The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of the bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. Its arrival in Europe was traced to 12 ships from the Black Sea which docked at the Sicilian port of Messina in October 1347. Most on board were dead. It first arrived in Ireland in July 1348 through ships landing on the east coast. The bubonic plague was caused by bacteria Yersina pestis, was spread by fleas on rats, though this was not understood at the time.. Before long, the epidemic was raging in Dublin, and in co. Louth in Drogheda and Dundalk. By autumn the plague had spread inland to co. Meath. In Kilkenny Franciscan Friar John Clyn kept a chronicle of the deaths and recorded that, by Christmas, 14,000 people had perished in Dublin alone before it eventually disappeared. This rampant disease tore through the streets of Dublin as well as cities all across Europe. Symptoms of the Black Death included fevers, vomiting, coughing and swellings on the body (mostly around the armpit, neck and legs). These painful swellings would start out an angry red colour and then turn a purplish black. Very quickly you would have been confined to your bed. It was highly contagious, and if you caught it, the chances were, everyone in your family would catch it too. It took hold of you so quickly that you would likely be dead in days. Sometimes whole families were locked into their tiny houses to try to keep the disease inside! Once someone had succumbed to the plague, a white ‘X’ was painted on the front door so that everyone who passed knew the sickness had been there. People were terrified to see the disease spread so quickly and to lose so many friends and family so suddenly. They searched and searched for the cause but could find nothing. Some believed it was a punishment from God and hid themselves indoors in the hope they would avoid it. Others were convinced it was the end of the world and everyone was doomed to fall ill eventually. They had no idea, and no way of knowing, that the disease was carried by the rats which scoured the streets of ports and cities for food and shelter. So there was no way to control or prevent the spread. Bodies piled up on the sides of the street. Coffins couldn’t be made quickly enough to bury the dead, so vast pits were dug for mass burials. It was the job of the carters to gather the dead and carry them through the city to their grave. These carters had a terrible job and were at risk of catching the disease themselves. It was a terrible disease, without a cure then, and it killed thousands of people. The Black Death destroyed lives and families across the city. All in all, a dark time in Ireland’s history.

18TH CENTURY: SEVERE WINTER

Severe weather hit Ireland and much of Europe in 1740. It was one of the coldest winters in Irish history. The great frost wiped out an estimated 400,000 people as temperatures plummeted and the cold intensified. The cold weather led to food shortages as crops failed. There was a famine, and riots, epidemics and death.

19TH CENTURY: TYPHUS AND FAMINE

Only 77 years later, heavy rainfall rain and cold temperatures ruined both the grain and potato crops in 1817 and left the poor hungry and cold. A lack of hygiene and little to no ventilation meant that typhus spread throughout the country. It’s estimated 65,000 people died as a result. The typhus infection is caused by bacteria transmitted to humans by body lice when the lice faeces enter the body through breaks in the skin, or even through the eyes or mouth. Typhus symptoms include high fever, prostration, mental confusion, body aches and a characteristic rash which covers the trunk and limbs of the body. Death usually occurs from heart failure about the fourteenth day. High temperature, generalised aches and pains, nausea, vomiting, nose bleeding and jaundice are features of relapsing fever. In cases with a favourable outcome, the fever ends after five or six days with a sharp crisis attended by profuse sweating and exhaustion. This drop in body temperature was colloquially known as ‘getting the cool’. The symptoms return after about a week and there may be several such relapses before the disease runs its course.

CHOLERA

The first of several cholera outbreaks began in Dublin in the spring of 1832. Cholera is a bacterial infection of the small intestine caused by strains of Vibrio cholera. Symptoms range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhoea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and muscle cramps may also occur. At the time Dublin was overcrowded with slums, and so became the perfect breeding ground for the disease. Temporary hospitals were set Continued on page 68

up across the city as the disease struck people down in a matter of hours.

20TH CENTURY: LAST BIG PLAGUE THREAT IN IRELAND

While bubonic plague evokes images of the Middle Ages, Ireland has had more than one brush with this dreaded disease. As recently as the year 1900, ports across Ireland prepared for an imminent outbreak of the Black Death which had killed over 30% of the population in the mid 14th century. The illness broke out in Glasgow in August 1900. Ireland with its constant and frequent traffic with the Scottish port was immediately at risk of infection. Because the authorities in both Scotland and Ireland acted promptly to improve public sewers, housing and ship inspections, Ireland and Scotland were was spared the anticipated catastrophes.

THE BUBONIC PLAGUE HAS NOT GONE

This Black Death (Y. pestis) is still very much with us, said Prof Mark Achtman from the Department of Microbiology, University College, Cork. “People don’t realise that. It isn’t causing a huge number of cases but it is causing panic” in places where an outbreak occurs, he noted. Flare-ups occur all around the Continued from page 67

world. “Algeria has intermittent cases of plague, and Kurdistan. In Africa it is endemic.” And even in the US between 20 and 30 cases are recorded each year. A genetic study of the microbe Y. pestis in different countries has helped understand how this plague was spread across the world in history. Prof Achtman led the international effort, which also involved scientists in Germany, France, China, the UK, Madagascar and the US. Today the plague is readily treated with modern antibiotics, but the disease has not gone away (entirely), he said.

Book a (free) place at the next Google Meet meeting at TryBooking (after 19 April) tinyurl.com/ISIG-TryBooking FamilyHistoryWA (FHWA) membership.wags.org.au T 9271 4311 (The phone is not staffed at the present time.) Go digging for resources at the Irish SIG webpage at FamilyHistoryWA tinyurl.com/irishsig Join the State Library of WA and enjoy access to licensed e-Resources www.slwa.wa.gov.au/explore-discover/

eresources/getting-started-eresources

Join FamilyHistoryWA Facebook group Researching family worldwide, open to all And join in the chat or ask a question at the FamilyHistoryWA Discussion Facebook group Irish Special Interest Group: FAMILY HISTORY AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC During this period of enforced isolation, many people have been taking advantage of their extra time to get into their family history. Some genealogy organisations are offering free access fro home to record data bases during this period. For example if you have a free reader’s card to the State Library of Western Australia or the National Library of Australia you can access Ancestry records worldwide for free from home. Look for licensed eResources after you log in. Members of Family History WA (FHWA) are enjoying free access from home to Ancestry and FindMyPast too. FHWA membership is only $95 for one person (or $135 for two people at the same address) per year. During the COVID-19 period when the FHWA resource centre in Bayswater is closed, the one-off joining fee of $15 is being waived. This makes a FHWA subscription much cheaper than the new member rate for Ancestry worldwide which us currently AUS$340 for just 6 months. So it’s a great time to join FHWA and start digging. Because the FHWA meetings cannot be held at the moment, many of the FHWA groups are going online and holding meetings via Google Meet, where you can see and hear the other participants and hear interesting live talks on a range of genealogical topics. Join FamilyHistoryWA Discussion Group at Facebook to find out what’s on offer (link below). Up until recently the Irish Special Interest Group (Irish SIG) of FamilyHistoryWA has met every three months on a Sunday at 2pm. The last meeting was on 19 January 2020. The 19 April meeting has been cancelled due to the restrictions on public gatherings but the group is hoping to hold the 19 July meeting online, via Google Meet. It is very much hoped that things may return to normal by 18 October for the final meeting of 2020. New members and visitors are always welcome. If you’d like to join us -and are not yet a member of FamilyHistoryWA (the WA Genealogical Society) do drop a line to the convenor Robyn O’Brien. Please book a free place in the next (online meeting) using the online booking site TryBooking, details below.