The South Isles of Aran (County Galway)Burke, Oliver J. (Oliver Joseph)
History
The South Isles of Aran (County Galway)
Burke, Oliver J. (Oliver Joseph)
Aran Islands (Ireland); Galway (Ireland : County) -- History
_Answer._ "Not a single case--not one; and not only have I never known
of such a case, but I never heard any person attribute immorality to the
fishwomen. I was on duty in the three islands of Aran, inhabited almost
exclusively by fishermen, who also farm potatoes, and I never heard of
any one of their women (who are remarkable for their beauty) having had
an illegitimate child, nor did I ever hear it attributed to them. Indeed
I have been informed by a magistrate who lived in Galway for eight
years, and has been on temporary duty in the isles of Aran, that he has
never heard there of a case of that nature. These people, however, when
required to pay poor-rates, having no native poor of their own in the
workhouse, resisted the payment of what they considered a very unjust
tax. In fact they closed their doors when the rate was only partially
collected."
Three and twenty years after Sir Francis Head wrote the above we read in
the writings of Frank Thorpe Porter, Esq., a member of the Irish Bar,
long a divisional magistrate for the city of Dublin, and some time
acting chief justice for Gibraltar, a further testimony of the worth of
the islanders. On his return from Spain, he visited his son, Mr. Frank
Porter, M.D., medical officer of the islands,[17] and whilst he was
there several cases of typhus fever of a malignant type occurred.
[Sidenote: THEIR KINDNESS.]
The cottages are, with three or four exceptions, thatched and without
any upper storey. The invariable course adopted during the prevalence of
the epidemic was to nail up the door of the patient's apartment, to
take out the sashes of the window, and render it the sole means of
external communication. The medical attendant, priests, and nurse
tenders had no other means of ingress and egress, and no objection
appears to have ever been made to the system. Doctor Porter was stricken
down by the disease, and although ten days had elapsed before a medical
gentleman arrived from Galway, the doctor surmounted the fearful malady.
"I spent," writes Mr. Porter, "each night in my son's apartment, and
during the day he was attended by a nurse. Almost every night I heard
some gentle taps outside the vacant window, and on going over to it, I
would be told 'My wife is afther making a pitcher of whey for the poor
docthor, you'll find it on the windy-stool;' or 'I brought you two jugs
of milk to make whey for your son.' When the crisis had passed, and
nutriment and stimulants were required, I would be told, 'We biled down
two chickens into broth for the docthor, I hope it will sarve him.'
Rabbits, chickens, and joints of kid were tendered for his use, and a
bottle of 'rale Connemara Puttyeen,' was deposited on the window-stool.
The people were all kind and anxious, and when he became able to walk
out he was constantly saluted and congratulated; but no person would
approach him if they could avoid it. They were all dreadfully
apprehensive that he might impart the dreadful contagion. I brought him
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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