A Sea of Sorrows Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Ireland to Canada East, 1847

  April 1847

  May 1847

  June 1847

  July 1847

  August 1847

  September 1847

  October 1847

  November 1847

  December 1847

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  Images and Documents

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Books in the Dear Canada Series

  Ireland to Canada East, 1847

  April 1847

  April 30, 1847

  When Grandda told me all the stories he had about fairies and pookas and banshees, and about the ancients, such as the great Cuchulain, he said that stories hold a people together. I wonder what he would think if he were still here, for Da says that this great trouble we are in is tearing our people apart. It has sent many to their deaths and now it drives us from our home. That is why I have decided to write down our story. I want to write about what is happening to us and what will happen next.

  Tomorrow we leave, and Da says we may never return. He and Ma, Michael, wee Patrick and I are to walk to Dublin, where we will take a steamer to Liverpool in England. He says it is our only hope.

  Even in spite of this, Ma is sad to leave. She says, how can we think of making a fresh start in a new land, Canada, when we have to rely on charity to get ourselves there? She says, if anything happens, what will become of us without friends and neighbours close by?

  Da reminds her that his bother Liam is in Canada and will surely help us. I barely remember him, I was so small when he left. For myself, I think of Anna going out there last year with her family. I am not afraid. Leaving is like being granted three wishes all at once. When we leave, all the sadness and misery around us will vanish. When we leave, we will go to a place where people eat meat and drink milk every day. When we leave, it will bring the day closer when I will be with Anna again and once more hear Da tease us by calling us AnnaJohanna all in one breath, as if we were one person. I close my ears when Da tells me that I must not get my hopes up. He says that Canada is a big country and that, anyway, many Irish leave Canada to go to America, which is bigger than Ireland. He says that the Irish in America are scattered like the stars across the sky and that any one of them will be hard to find. But how many Anna Riordans can there be? I know I will find her.

  May 1847

  May 1, 1847

  I heard Ma crying in the night when everyone else was asleep. She says she would rather go to England, where she is sure a fine carpenter like Da will find work. But Da says things are hard for Irish there and that Canada is a better place. He says it is full of promise. He tries to soothe Ma by reading Uncle Liam’s old letters aloud again. Uncle Liam writes that he dines like a king on wheat bread with butter made from the milk of his own cows and on eggs from the chickens he keeps. He eats beef and pork. He makes meat sausage in the autumn that he says smells glorious as it sizzles over the fire. Just thinking about sizzling sausage makes my mouth water, even though I have never eaten it. Sizzling is such a fine word. I think that anything that sizzles must taste delicious.

  Ma frets that Da has received no letter from Liam in nearly a year. She says something may have happened to him. But Da refuses to worry. He says his brother is probably busy with his animals and his crops. Perhaps he has even married and has a baby to attend to. No matter, he says. A man who has his own land is a man who is always easily found.

  May 3, 1847

  I am crouched behind a rock at the side of the road. I do not want Ma to see me. Last year when things got bad, she had to sell or trade everything we had of value — it was the only way to pay our debts and buy food. One by one her precious little store of books left her by her own da, my dear grandda, vanished — all save this little one that I am writing in. I hid it, thinking it worthless to anyone, for many of the pages are used and others are tattered. But if Ma saw me with it, she might become angry.

  My feet are sore, my legs ache and my stomach growls like a wild beast. We walked all day yesterday and the day before and have eaten most of the little store of food we brought with us. Da tries to keep our spirits up. He says we are better off than some, and this is true. We passed many wretched-looking people who have nothing at all to eat. One woman wept as she knelt over a man who had collapsed at the side of the road. Some we passed looked like wraiths risen from their shrouds, so hollow were their eyes and so sharply did their bones show through their grey skin. And such tales we have heard! Fifty folk are said to be dying each day in one county. One man swears he has seen coffins with trap doors in the bottom, which allow the coffin maker to sell and use the same coffin over and over. Another tells of two families who died from eating the diseased carcass of a horse.

  Da tells us not to listen. He says that if we keep going, we will be on the steamer for Liverpool the day after tomorrow and on our way across the ocean soon after that. I have never been on a steamer before. Steamer is another fine word. It makes me think of the little cloud of steam that rises when you break open a potato hot from the fire. I wish I had a potato now, with a little salt and a little milk. Some days I think that all I do is wish.

  May 6, 1847

  We left Ireland yesterday and have reached Liverpool at last. Steamer is not such a fine word after all. I will be happy if I never have to set foot on another steamer again.

  The weather coming across to England was foul. Da says we were lucky to be on deck where people could be sick over the side of the vessel. In the hold, they had to use buckets or the floor. But I did not feel lucky. The wind whipped us the whole way across, and the rain, when it came, drove into my skin like needles of ice. Ma held Patrick close and sang softly to him when she wasn’t fretting about how we would manage if the whole journey was as miserable. Da tried to tease her out of her mood. He told her to try for a change to imagine the best instead of the worst. But Ma is not like Da. Ma worries all the time.

  May 7, 1847

  From a distance, the stone piers and docks of Liverpool looked quite majestic, but close up they are crowded with people and ships, and the air is filled with shouts and cries, clatters and bangs. You cannot walk more than two paces without being crashed into or having some beggar’s hand thrust out before you and a plea made, often by some poor soul from home. The ships in the water jostle each other as roughly as the people on land do. They are not steamers. They are sailing ships. Michael says a steamer would likely run out of coal before it got very far and that we are going very far indeed. Da says that there are steamships that cross the ocean, but they are for rich folk, not for the likes of us.

  We are to board our ship tomorrow. Da says this makes us among the fortunate. Some folk arrived in Liverpool a week or more ago and had to spend every penny they had on lodging and food until the ship was ready to sail.

  I feel sorry for Da. He tries to keep our spirits up, but Ma smothers his efforts and calls him a dreamer. I remember when she used to say this fondly. There is no fondness in her words now.

  May 8, 1847

  As we waited to board, I heard someone say that there will be more than three hundred passengers. The ship is large, but still I cannot see how it will fit so many people.

  We had to wait for such a long time before boarding that my legs got weary from standing. I sat on the ground and nearly had the life crushed out of me by a great horse of a girl. She was as heavy as a cartload of potatoes when she fell on me, and I know I will be bruised all over. She picked herself up as if she had tripped over a rock and started off again without so much as asking if
I was hurt. “Excuse me, I’m sure,” I said in a loud voice, but she did not take the hint. Instead, she looked down at me in annoyance and said, “You could have done me an injury sitting in the road like that.” She meant it, too! She is the rudest and least handsome girl I ever saw.

  I was hot and tired and hungry by the time we filed on board. But instead of being allowed to settle ourselves, we were held at one end of the ship in a great crush. Sailors went down below with long poles that had great spikes at the end. “They are searching for stowaways,” Michael whispered. But they must not have found any for they returned empty-handed, and roll call began. When the name Leary was called, Da stepped forward with our tickets, and we were permitted to go below.

  Later

  I am glad that our names were called early, for the hold where we are to sleep is as gloomy as a November evening. But because we were among the first to go below, we were able to choose a place close to one of the hatches. Ma keeps looking up at the grey patch of sky above. She doesn’t say anything, but I think she is nervous.

  The hold seemed large enough when we came down, but it filled quickly. There is hardly any space to walk on the floor (is a floor called a floor in a ship?), and the ceiling is so low that the taller men can barely stand upright.

  Our new home, as Da calls it, consists of one berth, which is only a grand name for a bit of plank, like a shelf, set into the side of the ship. The berths are three high and are so close together that you can’t even sit up once you’ve slithered in. I wonder how Anna’s family managed. They are seven and have no babies like Patrick, who takes up little space. Perhaps they were allowed two berths. Perhaps Anna got to share with her two sisters and they giggled their way across the ocean.

  Ma insisted on a topmost berth. She says that if it collapses — and she seems certain it will — at least we will not be crushed.

  Michael counted fifty-two berths altogether, in two rows. Each has five or six people in it. Between the rows there is a narrow aisle for bundles, boxes and chests. Ma says we are stacked and stored like peat. Da says we are as snug as a family of wee swallows in their nest.

  The berths to one side of us are taken by the family of the rude girl who nearly trampled me ashore. She is in the top berth, like me. My feet will point at her head the whole way to Canada. I will pretend to dance on it until it aches.

  May 9, 1847

  Before we sailed, the captain ordered all the married men above deck. Da said they were told to form a committee and that he was elected head of it. The committee’s job is to keep watch during the night to make sure there are no irregularities, to alert the captain if anyone falls ill, and to secure the hatches if there is a storm.

  Ma looked frightened when he mentioned the word storm. I asked what irregularities the committee is to watch for. Da said, with a wink, that it must make sure all the young men and young women are where they are supposed to be and not where they should not be. Ma told him to hush.

  Da also said that we must air our bedding and dry-scrub our berths twice a week. No one is allowed to smoke or light a fire below deck.

  Finally, he said that we would receive one week’s rations at a time and that each family must take turns sending someone above to cook meals. The rations are mostly oatmeal. On some days we will get ship’s biscuit. Da does not know what the biscuit tastes like.

  There are two fireplaces on the deck for cooking. I climbed the ladder to peek at them. They are big wooden boxes lined with bricks, and they have metal grates set on them. Da says they will be lit at seven every morning, if the weather is fine enough, and put out at sunset. I do not know what we are supposed to do when the weather is not fine. Some of the older boys were asked to keep the deck clean and the cistern filled with water. Michael raised his hand to volunteer. The great ugly girl from the next berth started to raise her hand as well. Her da grabbed hold of it and jerked it down. He told her to get her head out of the clouds.

  Patrick was fussing, so Ma sent me to cook the oatmeal. I was afraid to go. What if I fell overboard? What if I ruined the meal? Mrs. Keenan, the rude girl’s mother, offered to help me. She is very nice. I don’t know how she could have raised such an unpleasant daughter.

  The fireplace wasn’t as hard to cook on as I feared. I didn’t burn the oatmeal. The rude girl gobbled her food like a pig. Mrs. Keenan did not scold her.

  May 10, 1847

  I am not afraid to go up on the deck anymore. In fact, I was glad to go up today so that I could breathe some fresh air. Now that the ship is underway, many people are sick. There is so much groaning and vomiting below. I heard the captain tell Da that those new to the sea often take ill. He said it always reminds him of the psalm about going down to the sea in ships. He quoted the verse: “They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wit’s end.”

  Michael is sick. So is Ma. Da looks pale but says he is fine. I do not think I believe him. I am not bothered at all.

  May 11, 1847

  Too queasy to write much. Michael says it serves me right for being prideful about not getting ill in the first place.

  May 12, 1847

  Stomach turning every which way. Still too queasy to write.

  May 13, 1847

  I hate ships as much as I hate steamers.

  May 14, 1847

  I woke up this morning feeling better. When I took out my book to write, Ma caught me at it. I thought she would be angry, but she was not. She asked me what I was doing with it. When I told her, all she said was that she hoped it would not turn out to be a book of sorrows. She left Patrick with me and went above to cook. It took her an eternity, but she returned with an extra-large portion of oatmeal. She said we can afford it as we have barely touched the week’s rations.

  I was surprised how ravenous I was. I ate until I was stuffed. I wonder if Uncle Liam does the same every day — only with sausage instead of oatmeal.

  May 15, 1847

  Michael has been grinning like a fool all day but won’t tell me why. He says it’s a secret. He can be so annoying.

  I went above with Ma to cook oatmeal cakes. There are always women crowded near the fireplaces. Some of them cook. Some of them wait impatiently to cook. All of them chatter and gossip. We saw three sailors sitting in a row with their legs straight out in front of them, mending sails. Mrs. Keenan said that she wished Mr. Keenan would learn to mend for it would make her work lighter.

  There is nothing around us but water. It is frightening to think what would become of us if the ship were to strike something and sink. Who would save us?

  I haven’t seen the rude girl in days, and just as well.

  May 16, 1847

  After services on the deck this morning, I discovered Michael’s secret. He is furious with me. I saw him creep to the farthest end of the hold and tuck himself behind a pile of trunks and boxes secured with rope. I crept close and listened. The secret is this: The rude Keenan girl is a boy! His name is Connor and he is wanted by the authorities. Although he is scarcely older than Michael, he and a band he is with threatened and robbed some of the landlords. His temper flared when I said that stealing is a sin.

  “If that is so, then why are the landlords and the merchants not charged for stealing the bounty of Ireland and selling it abroad while the people of Ireland starve to death?” he demanded. And he went on and on about that coroner in County Waterford saying that so many deaths there were caused by “the negligence of the government” in not providing food to the people.

  Michael agreed with him immediately, saying that while the potatoes rot and common folk starve, the landlords have been selling oats, wheat, barley, beef and pork abroad. I did not have to ask where he had heard this, for Connor nodded with every word. Nor could I dispute what he said, though the heartlessness of the landlords does not excuse the sin of robbery. But I was not in a mood to argue about what was right and what was wrong, especially when the two of them would have countered every word. Instead, I looked at Connor.


  “I have heard that a person’s opinions may break his nose or even cut his throat,” I said. “But never have I heard of a person’s mouth turning him into a girl, although in your case it clearly has. And a clumsy one at that.”

  “Pay no attention to my baby sister,” Michael said.

  I hate when he calls me that, as if I’m a mere child.

  “I’m no baby,” I said. “I’m thirteen. And you’re only a year older than I, Michael Leary.”

  “A year and a half,” Michael sniffed, as if that made all the difference.

  Connor laughed and said he had never met a baby with such a sharp tongue, but he didn’t seem at all put out. He said that his ma was so afraid he would be arrested and hanged that she dressed him as a girl and claimed he was her daughter, but that no matter how hard he tried, he could never master a girl’s ways.

  May 19, 1847

  It has been days since I have written, for no sooner had I left Michael and Connor above deck than Da and Mr. Sullivan came down to announce that a storm was coming. That set Mrs. Tattersall to wailing. Mr. Tattersall said that she is deathly afraid of the sea. She dreamt while they waited at Liverpool that she and her babies fell into the ocean and were swallowed up by waves, and that she had clawed her way through the cold water to try to catch them as they dropped like stones into the bottomless sea. She woke up screaming.

  Da said we mustn’t panic, although I noticed that he fingered his little tin St. Joseph medal, which he always does when he’s whispering a prayer. (It is a poor thing, dented in one side. St. Joseph himself is worn almost smooth from Da’s rubbing him with his thumb, but it has hung around Da’s neck for as long as I can remember.) He said the captain would shut the hatches to keep the water from coming in. That set another woman to wailing, and her terror made some of the wee ’uns cry. Da went to her and told her calmly but firmly she mustn’t carry on so, as it set a poor example for the children. The woman clamped her mouth shut as if God had reached down and pinched it closed. She looked up at Da, her face as white as lace, her eyes as black as coal, and nodded.