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| Photograph (c) Dublinia |
In my last blog post I looked at
the history of plague and pestilence across the world. The plague, also known
as the Pestilence, Great Bubonic Plague, the Great Plague or,
less commonly, the Great Mortality or the Black Plague, appeared
in Europe in October 1347. It killed an estimated 75 to 200
million people in Eurasia, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.
The Black Death, and its
subsequent outbreaks, had a significant and lasting effect in Ireland. The
website https://www.historyireland.com
provides an account of the arrival of this plague in Ireland and its impact. It
reports that Friar John Clyn, the Kilkenny-based Franciscan monk, records that
the plague first appeared in Howth or Dalkey and spread to Dublin and Drogheda
by late July or early August 1348.
The disease quickly spread to the
rest of the country along overland routes between the ports and market towns
and along the rivers connecting market towns and seaports, especially in the
east and south. Sea traffic between ports on the east and south coasts aided
transmission.
It is likely that the disease was
introduced into the south directly from England or the continent through busy
ports such as Waterford, Youghal and Cork. The plague raged in Dublin between
August and December. Friar Clyn writes:
‘from very fear and horror,
men were seldom brave enough to perform the works of piety and mercy, such as
visiting the sick and burying the dead.’
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| The Black Death |
The casualties suffered by port
towns such as Drogheda, Dublin, New Ross, Waterford, Youghal and Cork, show that
coastal areas bore the brunt of the deadly disease. Less populated areas of the
north and west did not escape the ravages of the plague which was recorded in
Ulster and Connacht in 1349. The disease was active in Mayo as late as 1350.
The Gaelic-Irish population was
not affected to the same extent as was the Anglo-Irish. Geoffrey Le Baker, a
contemporary English chronicler, wrote that the plague in Ireland:
‘killed the English inhabitants there in great
numbers, but the native Irish, living in the mountains and uplands, were
scarcely touched.’
The settlers were mostly
concentrated in land below 600 feet, leaving the mountainous, hilly and less
accessible areas to the Gaelic-Irish. Anglo-Irish
settlements were more vulnerable to the encroaching rats and fleas. It has been
suggested that the mortality from the plague in the more densely populated
areas was between 40 and 50 per cent. In the words of Friar Clyn, the
pestilence was so contagious that: ‘both the penitent and the confessor were
together borne to the grave’. The Franciscans are said to have lost almost 50
per cent of their houses in Dublin and Drogheda.
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| Photograph (c) Dublinia |
Aftermath of the Plague
The effects of such loss of life
were both immediate and long-lasting. In rural areas, landlords were faced with
a continuing shortage of tenants, falling rents and profits. Tenants, on the
other hand, were able to profit from the labour shortage and seek higher wages
and better conditions. The continuation of warfare made recovery even more
difficult.
In cities and towns, the effects
of the plague were even more devastating due to their larger populations and living
arrangements favourable to the transmission of disease. Friar Clyn writes
that 14,000 people died in Dublin between 8 August and 25 December, indicating
an average daily mortality of around one hundred. The effects of the plague on
the towns were dreadful. Labour shortages and the consequent disruption of the
rural economy threatened the food supply to towns and food shortages became
frequent.
The recurrent nature of the plague meant that lasting
recovery was not possible. There were outbreaks in 1370, 1383, 1390-3, 1398 and
periodically thereafter. Subsequent outbreaks were less infectious,
though research in other countries has shown that areas which escaped the
plague in 1347-9 were severely affected in later outbreaks. Although
antibiotics are available to treat the Black Death, according to The World
Health Organization, there are still 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague every year.
Conclusion
The recurrence of the plague was
in effect the single, most significant effect of the Black Death. In addition
to the mortality associated with each wave of the plague, it also had the
effect of slowing population recovery. The population of Ireland had been
decreasing for decades before the Black Death due to famine and warfare. For
the people who survived the onslaught of this deadly disease in 1348, the Black
Death was an incomprehensible and unavoidable disease and its reverberations
were felt long after the terror it first inspired had been forgotten.
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