Abundance of good quality food prior to the famines in Clare

Hely Dutton, in his Statistical Survey of the County of Clare of 1808, describes the range, quality and availability of food (and drink) in the county in a way that is surprising. These observations of course were made before a series of famines devastated the county. He makes no mention of the potato, on which we are told the poorer populace later depended:

“Hospitality, for which this county, as I am informed, was always remarkable, still hails the coming guest, but on a more rational and improved principle than formerly, as deep and excessive drinking is exploded from all genteel tables; on the other hand they have not learned from their neighbours to put the cork in the bottle, when they think their guests have had enough.

The materials for exercising this social virtue are to be found no where in greater abundance or perfection, or on cheaper terms. The western ocean, that flows within fourteen miles of Ennis, the county town, supplies every sort of sea-fish, that is known or desired either as a necessary or a luxury in Great Britain; every kind of shell-fish is also to be had in great plenty and perfection, including the Pouldoody oysters, that for flavour are universally allowed to be superior to any in the world. Salmon, pike, trout, and eels are obtained in great perfection and profusion from the Shannon and several other rivers in this county, and from the numerous lakes, that present themselves in different directions.

Beef, mutton, pork, and poultry are also very cheap, and, except the last, very good. The vegetable market of Ennis is one of the best I haven seen in a country town.

The wild fowl of this county, particularly in the barony of Inchiquin, are remarkable for being well fed, and for a high and at the same time a sweet flavour.

Formerly this county contained a number of deer-parks, and the venison was esteemed exquisitely fine, as the heathy grass, the hazel copse, and all that wild herbage, that deer love to feed on (and without which they are not as good as mutton,) abounded in many parts; but there are few inclosures kept up for deer now, as the rise on lands has so greatly encreased their value, that what few years ago was allotted for a deer-park, as rough mountainous ground worth little or nothing, if set at this day, fetches a very great rent; consequently venison has become proportionably scarce, few wishing to pay at least half a crown a pound for it, the rate at which I am convinced every person, that feeds on five years old buck, eats it.”

This report was compiled at the mid-point between 2 major famines in 1740 and then again in the 1840’s. Food was cheap, of good quality and widely available. Elsewhere Dutton comments on how tall many of the men were in and around Quin (a possible indicator of good nourishment). It is a far cry from the reports available to us in John Singletons diary of the ravished nature of the people of Quin forty years later. See https://ebw.pms.mybluehost.me/john-singletons-diary/

Although in 1817, Bernard Trotter, while conducting a walking tour of Ireland and passing between Quin and Spancelhill commented:

‘the village near the Abbey is wretched, the cabins very poor . . . There is a great poverty in Clare and the miserable attempt to sell unlicensed spirits in their mud-cottages scarcely excited displeasure’.

In 1813, John Curwen, the Manx M.P., compiled a report on the state of agriculture in Clare. He commented on how farming had developed over the previous 30 years. He particularly noted the huge increase in rents and farming incomes, brought about mainly through the demand created by the Napoleonic wars. Curwen was one of the few visitors to note the prosperity then being enjoyed by the people, a situation, which unfortunately proved to be short lived.

In 1842 the humble potato at last gets a mention by a German travel writer. Johann Georg Kohl came to Ireland in September of that year ‘without’, as he said himself, ‘any object in view other than to become acquainted with the country, and to see everything that was interesting and remarkable in it’. His comment on the diet of the peasantry while travelling through Clare reflects a change in their circumstances:

“Many Irishmen have but one day on which they eat flesh, namely, – on Christmas day. Every other day they feed on potatoes and nothing but potatoes. Now this is inhuman; for the appetite and stomach of man claim variety in food, and nowhere else do we find human beings gnawing, from year’s end to year’s end, at the same root, berry, or weed. There are animals who do so, but human beings, nowhere except in Ireland.”

Reaching much further back, we can read a short account from Hugh Brigdall, Ennis attorney. He is the son of Hugh, the Burgess of Ennis, and lived in Roslevan but the family was to be found in Ennis from 1613. He gives this account of the county’s agricultural output in an unpublished travel diary:

“The more particular products of this county are coleseed in the marshes, a commodity first brought hither by Dutchmen; fir trees in an island of the Shannon; yew and juniper in the barony of Burren and an abundance of swans in the loughs of Insiquin; in brief it is a county better for pasture than for tillage wherein is no want of fish, fowl or venison, red or fallow deer”.

Hugh Brigdall, 1682 Description of the County of Clare. The Other Clare Vol.22, p56

We must remember that the recorded observations of the above visitors were gathered by and on behalf of an audience that was not local. They usually represented the landed rather than the landless class. While abundance of provision may have existed for some, a parallel meagre existence is likely to have been experienced by many others. What these observations do seem to tell us is that the county was well capable of providing for its people, but the political system wasn’t.