​On May 19, 1841, only four months before Coyne and his illustrator traveling companion W.H. Bartlett began their Irish travels, the Limerick Reporter gave an intake account of the Limerick City Workhouse: "Each pauper is inspected by the doctor and, when approved of,  is removed to the preparatory ward where they are stript of their clothes, their hair cut off, and washed from head to foot, after which they are cloathed-the men, in a coarse linen shirt, cord trousers, frieze jacket, which only reaches below the hip, a red cap, and shoes and stockings-the women are similarly washed, their hair cut off, and dressed with shifts of the same description of linen as that worn by the men, striped coarse, short frocks and grey wrappers of coarse linsey-woolsey, resembling in shape a coal porters frock and a head cap resembling a child's "dowd," tied under the chin, which only covers half the head. The women get grey stockings and shoes, the same as the men."

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The poverty gap in Limerick existed long before the first crop of potatoes withered and died in September 1845. Just under 19 miles away from the city, on February 18, 1841, the eighteen-year-old Charles Barrett remembered the food riots ten years earlier and witnessed the opening of the third poor law union in Ireland. Rathkeale Workhouse admitted its first paupers in July. This young man would know scarcity and want in Ireland.

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Built to house 660 inmates, Rathkeale Workhouse, at the height of the Famine, added more buildings, such as a fever hospital and "sleeping galleries," to accommodate a further 247 inmates. Fever was the first sign of illness due to consumption of bad potatoes. Dispensary doctors all over the county, in Kilpeacon, Murroe, Kilfinane, Kilmallock, Clarina, Patrickswell, and Newcastle West, in the autumn of 1845 and spring 1846, reported a significant increase in patients with fever and stomach issues. "Fever and smallpox have lately appeared which seem to have been generated by the use of diseased potatoes," Doctor O'Connell stated from the Kilmallock Dispensary. Doctor Herbert in Kilfinane also saw an increase in fever patients and added, "stomach complaints are very prevalent, which are attributed to badness and insufficient food." Doctor Heffernan in Murroe stated the facts bluntly, "Potato not fit food for man or beast." All the doctors agreed that there was a need to increase public works and apprehension for "the breaking out of disease." It was in this climate of scarcity, want, disease, and death that Barrett was raised. 

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"The poor people living in their little thatched cabins, tried to be brave and hid their hunger as long as they could. Then the awful pang of hunger brought them out to eat the weeds, grass, and other unhealthy things which in the end brought on fever which accompanied the Famine. These poor creatures were found on the roadside, in the fields, and in their little cabins with the half-eaten weeds in their mouth. All this went on through 1847, and people were dying so rapidly that they did not give them proper burial," a Knocknabooly West, County Limerick resident informed School's Collection transcriber Kathleen Taylor. 

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In Bauranague, on November 11, 1936, ninety-five-year-old Máighréad Ní Chonghalaig recalled the bad times. "I was only a young little girl growing up that time when the right bad times were in Bauranague, but tis well I remember a woman, that lived in Leahy's place now, and she used go to Kilcolman for the meal that was given out to people who were badly off. Her name was Biddy McGrath, and sometimes, faith, they wouldn't have the meal to give them, and they used to give them biscuits, kind of little cakes. When Biddy used come home with some of the biscuits usen't we go back to her and she used give us some of them. But, thank God we weren't badly off, but tis to get these little cakes we'd go to her. We were little girls growing up at that time and tis how we used steal over to Biddy's for the biscuits."

Richard Anglim, 45, informed his daughter Eily in 1936 that the Famine severely affected Ballykenny, in Kileedy County Limerick. "One of the saddest stories of famine days is connected with a family that lived near Kileedy. They had no potatoes and consequently suffered from starvation and want. A terrible malady resembled fever was raging at the time. It is not known exactly what the disease was but three or four people who lived in the house got it and they all died of the disease. A few neighbours from the locality undertook the burial of them. They put hay around the corpses as it was a very contagious disease and they buried the creatures coffinless in the graves. It was impossible to get coffins at the time because there was such a demand for them." 

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We also know that tenants in the Limerick area who could not secure funding for assisted immigration responded by buying tickets with rent money owed to the landlord. The Limerick Chronicle recounted in November 1848 "this knavery and fraud of run-away tenants," of whom thirty or more "comfortable" farmers had disguised stacks of straw as wheat and "decamped to America." One way or another, the people would escape this living nightmare that surrounded them.

 

The population in Rathkeale, just over 4,000 in 1841, had dropped by 13% in 1851. Over 1,500 people had either died or emigrated in a decade from the area. Rathkeale is 12 miles from Knocknabooly, 8 miles from Kileedy, and 37 miles from Bauranague. Charles Barrett was one of those who emigrated. Surrounded by suffering and living on the outskirts of a city divided in wealth and impoverishment, Charles, now 36, headed for Liverpool, a cheaper passage, sometime in the spring of 1851 with his 26-year-old wife Ellen (King). From there, they boarded the Argo. The ship's manifest also lists Michael Barrett, 32 years old, possibly Charles' brother. During the trans-Atlantic crossing, out of the 380 passengers onboard, two expired. Patrick and Rose Moran lost their 2-and-a-half-year-old child, and Thomas and Margaret Sturgent's six-month-old died.

 

On Thursday, May 1, 1851, Charles and Ellen Barrett arrived in New York. James Nunan (Noonan) from Rathkeale arrived that same year. By October 7, 1853, Eliza, his sister, was looking for him. She'd last heard from over a year ago, July of 1853, when he wrote from Dayton, Illinois. Alone and possibly afraid, America would be difficult for new immigrants like Eliza Noonan or Charles and Ellen Barrett to navigate. 
 
Charles' mother, Hester (Enright), was still living in Ireland, but his father, Patrick, was deceased when Charles Barrett opened his Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank account on November 21, 1854. We do not know what became of his three siblings. Charles deposited twenty dollars, lived on Birmingham Street in Ward 7, and listed his occupation as a shoemaker. This was a skilled trade. Did Charles Barrett acquire this skill in Ireland? Did the well-heeled citizens of Limerick city employ him? On Argo's manifest, Charles is listed as a mason and thirty years old upon arrival in New York in 1851. Once again, we are left with more questions than answers. By July 28, 1857, one year after the failed Young Ireland rebellion leader William Smith O'Brien returned from Van Diemen's Land to his home, Cahermoyle House, near Ardagh in County Limerick, Charles Barrett withdrew $12.11 and closed his account.

 

In the 1860 US Census, Charles and Ellen still live in the 7th Ward, 2nd District. No children are listed. In 1870, Charles still lived in New York with Ellen, and he is listed as Chas, a Journeyman, possibly describing the ending of his apprenticeship as a shoemaker, leaving him free to be hired independently while Ellen kept house. Maybe Charles even made shoes for his fellow Limerick man, Bartley O'Donnell, who soared in "pedestrianism" and, by adding 15 years to his age, seemed to defy all walking records and science later in his life. Ellen is now 40 years old, and he is 55. They can both read and write, and Charles is a citizen of the US. Again, no children are listed. By 1880, Charles was 67, widowed, and lived with John (70) and James (40) Durrworth, widowers. By this time, Charles lists his occupation as a Husker, the term used for a factory worker, and he is listed as a boarder at his new address. John Durrworth is the head of the household and "keeps house," while his son James works as a carver in a hotel and is also listed as a boarder. 

 

Charles Barrett had known only scarcity and want in Ireland. He tried to survive, leaving with his young wife Ellen in 1851. But the harshness of life would not leave Charles and his wife Ellen alone. The Barretts had known only want in America as well. They arrived ready to work and hoped for a better life. Maybe, on that cold Tuesday in November 1854, when Charles opened his EISB account with twenty dollars, they were both briefly filled with optimism for a better future and believed brighter days lay ahead. At least, I hope they were. But somehow, the brighter days didn't happen for Charles and Ellen. Instead of climbing the ladder, they descended it. She died at a young age with no children, and he went from Shoemaker to Journeyman to Husker, living as a renter in another man's home. 

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Sources:
1.    The Schools Collection Duchas.ie
2.    Aspects of the Great Famine in Limerick by Mainchin Seoighe
3.    Paddy's Lament by Thomas Gallagher
4.    These My Friends and Forebearers by Grania R. O'Brien
5.    Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York by Tyler Anbinder
6.    The Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland by J. Sterling Coyne, Illustrations by W.H. Bartlett
7.    Fresh Kills: A History of Consuming and Discarding in New York City by Martiun V. Melosi
8.    Irish Relatives and Friends by Laura Murphy DeGrazia and Diane FitzPatrick Haberstroh
9.    The Great Irish Famine Online, University College Cork
10.    The Workhouses of Ireland: The Fate of Ireland's Poor by John O'Connor
11.    The Workhouse: The Story of An Institution by Peter Higginbottom (Online)
12.    An Atlas of Irish History by Ruth Dudley Edwards
13.    The National Archives: US Census Research Online
14.    Family Research: Family Research.org (Online) 
15.    Tyler Anbinder, Cormac Ó Gráda, and Simone Wegge, "Emigrant Savings Bank Depositor Database, 1850-1858," version 3.0, September 13, 2019, accessed via https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/work/0k225b85w