Soupers
The Achill Mission
Nangle in Achill viewed the Famine as divine vengeance for Catholic Emancipation and the endowment of Maynooth College (Comerford, 2013). He was accused of souperism by the local Catholic clergy and by Archbishop Mac Hale. The Halls (1842) also criticised Nangle. However, when the Halls returned for a second visit in 1849, they praised Nangle's mission, saying many more would have died only for his work. Asenath Nicholson (1850) was very critical of Nangle. She thought he underpaid his labourers and that apart from being cleaner; they were no better off than other cottiers. At the height of the Famine Nangle fed 600 children per day and employed over 2,000 labourers. He also donated food to the people in Bullsmouth and Ballycroy from the produce of his model farm on Innishbiggle. The Quakers refused to be associated with souperism and refused aid to soupers (Swords, 1999), yet they provided aid to Nangle's mission. Archbishop MacHale had ignored Achill until Nangle started the mission. Without Nangle, many more people in Achill would have starved (Comerford, 2013). Brannigan John Brannigan was a convert from Catholicism to Presbyterianism. He set up twenty-eight mission schools in Sligo and Mayo. Children who attended school got basic food. He was anxious that children be sent to bible schools rather than to the Workhouse where they were deprived of religious instruction and would continue to be influenced by their priests. Asenath Nicholson (1950) criticised his school in Malranny because of the quality of the bread given to the children. She thought that donated flour had been swopped for flour held in storage for years and that the resultant bread stank and was totally inedible. Brannigan thought people who criticised his schools were uncharitable and that children attended the schools because of their love for the bible not because they needed food. However, when he ran ran out of funds for food in 1848, the numbers attending his schools dropped. Click HERE for Information on Church Relief |
Employment Schemes
In Women in Mayo During the Famine Years, Langan-Egan, (1987), states that women who worked on employment schemes set up by charitable organisations fared better than others did. Brannigan was associated with the Belfast Ladies Industrial Association for Connaught, who provided training skills and employment. They sent fifty-four qualified teachers to Connaught and paid out up to £7,500 in wages per year. Their aim was to allow women to become independent through their own industry. They taught knitting and sewing and helped fund wages in the flax industry set up by Rev Gildea in Newport. This Association started as a multi denominational society, but became associated with the evangelical missionaries (Kinealy, 2008). The women who were taught through this association developed skills that helped them to survive. The missions claimed to have made 5,000 converts but at the end of the Famine, there was no overall increase in Protestant numbers. Funding dried up and missions were abandoned but many individual missionaries continued in their roles as teachers (Moffitt, 2008). |