Ailish
Administrator Emerita
I was looking through some old journals the other night and found a life I haven’t done much work on. I wanted to share a few things...
Life was hard – food was scarce, and the conditions were awful. Young babies and newborns were left in a basket on the porch – there was a man there whose job it was to check and bring them in.
I will share some more later
It’s Ireland – Dublin, I feel. I am about 6 years old. I am working in some sort of room with other children. I am making lace (?) Two men are walking around – watching what we are doing. Someone is calling me Sarah, tugging at my sleeve. I look down – it’s a younger girl, perhaps 4. I know her name is Bridget. She’s not my sister, but I watch over her. I am scared and tell her to get back to work before we get in trouble.
I am sleeping in a bed with straw on it. There are two other children in the bed with me. One is coughing. I roll over; my hands are itchy and swollen. As I turn over I can feel my ribs sticking out. A woman comes into the room – she tells us to get up – get up and get to morning meal.
Life was hard – food was scarce, and the conditions were awful. Young babies and newborns were left in a basket on the porch – there was a man there whose job it was to check and bring them in.
I am walking by a man who is dozing on a chair. I see a basket with three babies in it – they are tiny and crying – and naked. I wonder why the man is not helping them. I hear someone coming and hide behind a door. I can see a large woman leading several women inside.
We are in the “dining hall," which is little more than a few old wooden tables and unsteady benches. Cast-offs. I am wearing some sort of gray woolen dress and black woolen tights with holes in them. I have black boots, but they are too tight and I can feel them pinching my feet. There is a bowl of mush (?) that looks gray and clumpy and some sort of dry bread that is hard. There is something in a cup – tea I think. But it’s watery and there’s no milk for it.
Then I am in the kitchen, helping wash the dishes in a big wooden basin. The water isn’t clean. The water is ice cold and scraps of food are floating in it. There is a young boy stacking wood by a fireplace. A big black pot hangs in it. There is a smell – like rotting meat and cabbage. I want to gag.
There is a woman – who takes in the babies and organizes the nurses. She is the one who gives us names and sometimes records things in a register. I’ve been thinking that she can tell me who my family is. I feel nervous as I go to her office. I enter with my head bowed. She asks me what I want and I tell her I want to know who my mam is. She asks me to repeat my question; I have mumbled it. I feel a blush on my cheeks. I stumble through and ask her again. She looks at me a moment before laughing. Then she looks in her book and tells me “ We’ve no idea where you came from. You were left here in 1733.” I nod at her and feel my hope slip away.
I will share some more later