The Forgotten Holocaust

Chapter Fifteen

Ben’s first glimpse of the derelict mansion was the craggy remnants of its east wing that appeared over the brow of the hill as he approached along the lonely country road. The mid-afternoon sun was bright and hot now that the rain had passed over, and he drove fast with the windows open, catching the scent of heather and the distant salt tang of the sea. As the car sped over the top of the hill and began the winding descent towards Glenfell House, the full extent of the place’s ruined state came into view.

He had driven by this lonely spot once or twice before, during the time he’d lived in Ireland. And he’d heard the age-old legends from the leathery, salty grey-bearded old men who hunched over whiskies and pints of the black stuff in the back rooms of pubs, fixing their glittering eye like Coleridge’s ancient mariner on anyone who’d listen, and not leaving much choice to those who wouldn’t.

From one generation to the next, nobody had ever known for sure who’d really started the fire of September 1851 that had gutted the west wing and brought down part of the roof: the most enduring tale was that it had been Lord Edgar Stamford himself, gone mad and intent on burning the place to the ground and himself with it.

If that was true, then the suicidal part of his plan had succeeded, even if Stamford hadn’t been much of an arsonist and the fire had burnt itself out before it could claim the whole house. According to the more colourful legends, all that had remained of the burly six-foot-six hulk of the much-disliked lord was a half-roasted corpse identifiable only by the gold family ring on one blackened, claw-like hand and the engraved pocket watch they’d found in a charred waistcoat pocket. So the story went, the reason that nothing had ever been done to save the gutted mansion from falling into total ruin was the legacy of its association with Stamford’s harsh and despotic rule over the peasant tenants who’d worked his land, and died on it like flies during the Great Famine of ’47. Memories like that would take another five hundred years to die.

Glenfell House itself was dying much faster, as Ben was reminded when he rolled the BMW up outside and got out to wander about the grounds. Over a hundred and sixty years of decay had reduced the place to a melancholy shell. It was common knowledge locally that much of its crumbling stonework and more than a few roofing slates had found their way into the construction of a good many of the county’s farmhouses, cottages and outbuildings during the twentieth century. The endlessly cycling seasons had done the rest. Autumn and spring rains had rotted the timbers to black stumps, winter frosts had driven deep cracks into the stone floors, from which the summer sun had coaxed thick growths of nettles and brambles that encircled the ruins like barbed wire. They hadn’t kept everyone out, though, judging by the empty spirits bottles and beer cans rolling in the dirt and the remnants of a fire. What the roofless mansion lacked in shelter for the vagrants who loitered here, it made up for in privacy. Nobody else ever came near the place any more.

Ben wandered about the desolate site for a few more minutes, kicking a can around in the dust and thinking about Kristen’s notebook in his pocket. Then he walked back to the car, fired up the engine and spun it around in the opposite direction, heading for the small market town of Glenfell, two miles west.

Back in the heyday of Lord Stamford’s little empire, the town had been surrounded by a plethora of even tinier hamlets and primitive rack-rent smallholdings, now mostly swallowed up by its expanding outskirts. To say it had been a poor area back then was no understatement. Among its older greystone buildings was the former workhouse, where during the famine years forty or more orphaned children a week died from malnutrition or disease, the living and the dead often hard to tell apart and lying together in the same beds for days at a time. Ben had heard all the stories, unforgotten scars on the history of this and so many other towns and villages across Ireland.

As if to symbolise happier times, the grim old stone workhouse had long ago been turned into a thriving country store where farmers’ pickup trucks came and went, and its yard was now a car park where Ben left the BMW as he went off in search of St Malachy’s church. On his way there, he passed the town’s famine memorial, a marble slab that had been erected nearly a hundred and twenty years after the tragedy it commemorated. Ben paused to gaze at it, then walked on.

It was just after five as he entered the coolness of the church. It wasn’t big, and it wasn’t especially pretty either, but there was a still, echoey serenity to the place that Ben found familiar and comforting. He tried to remember the last time he’d been inside a church, and realised how long it had been: a painful little reminder of how lapsed a Christian he was. But he could at least console himself, from a glance at the empty pews, that he wasn’t the only one around here who’d been neglecting God.

The sound of his footsteps drifted up to the high ceiling as he paced slowly around, pausing for a moment to look at the plaque on one wall dedicated to the 8,348 men, women and children whose skeletons had been unearthed from the mass famine grave discovered outside Glenfell in 1922.

Walking away from the plaque, he went over to sit in a pew facing the altar, bowed his head and tried to summon up devout thoughts. None in particular came to him, so he just said the words that were in his heart.

‘Here we go again, Lord. It’s been a while, I realise that. I don’t try and talk to you as often as I should. Maybe that’s why you keep putting trouble in my path, when all I ever wanted was a life of peace. I don’t know why else you would. I only know I didn’t ask for this. So please don’t judge me for the things I have to do, and please give me the strength I need to do them well. That’s all I can ask of you now.’

He broke off as he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, and glanced round to see the priest walking in. He was old and stooped, with a kindly smile appearing as he saw Ben sitting there. As if not wanting to disturb one of the faithful at their prayer, he began to turn away.

‘Father Flanagan?’ Ben said, getting up.

The old priest paused in his step and looked at Ben, still smiling. ‘I’m Father Flanagan. I didn’t wish to interrupt you. That sounded like a very heartfelt prayer.’

‘I’ve been saying it a long time,’ Ben said. ‘I sometimes don’t think he listens.’

‘He always listens,’ the priest said, putting his hand on Ben’s arm.

‘In any case, it’s you I came to talk to,’ Ben said. ‘If you have a moment.’

‘Of course. How may I help you?’

Ben couldn’t bring himself to give a false name this time, but his piety didn’t extend to telling the whole truth, or much of it at all. He told the priest that he worked for a research foundation that was doing a project on the history of the Great Famine, and was taking over from his colleague who’d suddenly been taken ill.

‘She was here a few days ago and I’m trying to pick up the pieces. I think you saw her, spoke to her?’

The priest took in Ben’s description of Kristen, and nodded. ‘Yes, she was asking to see the old parish registers. Struck me as a very meticulous young lady. Asked me if the records were accurate. I replied, as far as I know they are. Why shouldn’t they be? But, oh dear, did you say she’d fallen ill? Nothing too serious, I hope.’

‘Pretty serious, I’m afraid,’ Ben said.

‘What a pity. What a terrible pity. Such a sweet child. So what is it I can do for you, Mr … Hope, was it?’

‘If it’s not imposing, father, perhaps if I could view the same records she did, it might help me make sense of her notes. I’d ask her myself, but …’

‘I understand, of course. Dear me, what a shame. Imposition? Not at all, not at all. Come with me, my son.’

Leading him around a crunchy gravel path to the back of the church, Father Flanagan took a large iron key from his pocket, unlocked a peeling old door and showed Ben into an office that was like taking a step back into history. The place looked as if it had been gathering dust since about 1750, and it probably had. A powerful odour of damp hung in the air.

‘This is where all the old records are still kept,’ the priest said with a regretful look, waving an arm at stacks of ancient, yellowed registers on sagging shelves. ‘Births, deaths, marriages, even emigration records dating back to the century before last. Nowadays a lot of parish records are going online, but I’m afraid that’ll be my successor’s job. I’m not one for all this new technology. Don’t even have a television, can you believe that?’ He gave a sad, wizened smile, then seemed to catch his mind wandering and snapped himself back to the present. ‘Now then, the records. I can barely remember the last time anybody wanted to look at them. Now I get two come along in a week. Such are the mysteries of life. What was it you were after?’

‘The information my colleague left me was pretty incomplete,’ Ben said. ‘She was interested in the life history of a particular member of the parish here.’

‘I do remember her saying so,’ Father Flanagan said, scratching his white head. ‘But sure, for the life of me, I can’t recall the details. What was this person’s year of birth?’

‘1809,’ Ben said.

‘Hmm. That is a long way back. If it’s here, you may have to dig for it. What was the name?’

‘Padraig someone,’ Ben said.

Father Flanagan looked at him. ‘That’s all you have, Padraig someone who was born in 1809? My son, have you any idea how many Padraigs have lived in this parish over the centuries? You’re talking to one of them.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyhow. All yours, and good luck. Take as long as you need, and bring me back the key when you’re done.’

‘Thanks, father.’

‘Oh, just to make life even more interesting for you, you’ll find some of the records were written in Latin. One day someone will organise it all, but it’ll be a nightmare, God help them.’

Left alone in the cramped office, Ben began searching through the old records. If Kristen had been here just two days ago, he shouldn’t have to dig too deep to find what he was looking for. He ran his eye along the disorganised stacks until he spotted it sitting right at the top of one of the piles: parish birth records from January 1805 to December 1809. Lifting it down, he saw the fingermarks that Kristen had made in the dust, and had to fight back another vision of her lying dead, covered in blood.

Laying the register down on the tiny table in the corner of the office, he flipped pages and more dust clouded the air. The entries were all done in the beautifully calligraphed handwriting of a bygone era. The ink was faded with age and scarcely legible in places, and mouse nibbles and mildew had taken their toll on some of the pages. Towards the back of the register, Ben found the birth records starting January 1809. All he knew about that month in history was that the British had defeated the French at the Battle of Corunna during the Peninsular War. Now he could see that while that had been going on, an awful lot of baby boys named Padraig were being born here in Glenfell and the surrounding villages. As he tracked on through the following months, flipping more pages and peering through the dust clouds at the ancient writing, he quickly lost count and realised Father Flanagan had been right. There were hundreds of Padraigs. Without a surname, he might as well give up.

Soon afterwards, he did.

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ the priest asked when Ben found him in the church and gave him back the old key.

‘I might have, if I knew what it was.’

‘If it’s the famine period you’re interested in, you should visit the museum.’

‘Museum?’

‘Oh, it’s not exactly on a grand scale. But the impact of the Great Hunger upon this and every other rural community of Ireland cannot be overstated.’

‘I’ll do that. Thanks again for your help.’ Ben shook his hand. He felt real warmth towards the old man.

‘I hope your friend gets better,’ Father Flanagan called after him as he walked away.

‘That’ll take more than a prayer, father,’ Ben replied, but not loudly enough for the priest to hear him.