 |
|
Mass in a Connemara Cabin c.1883, Aloysius C. O'Kelly (1853-1936). Source: https://www.whytes.ie/art/mass-in-a-connemara-cabin-c1883/183638/ |
Note: I've not used this blog much since the completion of my PhD but in order to keep up my practice in writing in a academic-casual format, I'll use this on a roughly fortnightly basis to bring you some of the stuff I uncover in the archives! - Cormac
It's a difficult thing to delve into the history of Ireland's deaf communities without eventually bumping up against a topic which is simultaneously fascinating, uniquely explanatory, yet divisive and at times, taboo: religion. I think it can be true that non-Irish historians of deaf people often don't grasp just how deeply rooted and consequential religious divisions can be on this island. There is an awareness that deaf schools catered for pupils from different religious backgrounds, yes, and an acknowledgement that religious missions were highly consequential, indeed, a central part of deaf life in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But my own research has occasionally come across some episodes that are really interesting, but quite uncomfortable to deal with, and which illustrate that not just religion, but religious conflict were part in parcel of the deaf experience.
Anyone who does any work on deaf history in Ireland and indeed elsewhere in the world comes to realize that proselytism - attempted conversion of people from their own religion to another - is a central theme, and it's certainly been my contention that the Catholic Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (CIDD) was founded, first and foremost, as a defence against perceived proselytizing of deaf children from Catholic families. This was based upon a legend that a group of deaf children from the Claremont Protestant-ethos school passed St Peter's Catholic church in Phibsborough. Fr Thomas McNamara of St Peter’s spied a Claremont teacher telling the children (in sign language) that if they entered the Catholic church, they would go to hell. However, it’s gradually became clear to me that McNamara - who was not at all fluent in sign language had, at the time, no idea what he was looking at; the possibility exists that the teacher signed so clearly and visually that a negative implication was unmistakeable, it’s also very possible that McNamara completely misread what the teacher was signing.
Nevertheless the incident served as an impetus to set up an entire charity, two major schools, and a legacy of deaf education that deliberately chose to remain distinct and separate in its educational approach from other, Protestant-ethos establishments in Ireland at the time. Consequentially, I believe that religion was the number one factor as to why deaf people in Ireland today use ISL, rather than a form of BSL, and post hoc labelling of the two languages as ‘national’ sign languages can obscure some of the real truths behind how they came into being.
This incident wasn’t the first sniping between the schools, and other accusations and counter accusations of undue influence by missioners and schools of the ‘other’ religious denomination on deaf Irish people continued well into the twentieth century – and indeed before the CIDD was established. This strong religious influence can be seen also in the existence of figures in Deaf Irish history who are still revered today by Deaf communities, but who were in their time very strongly associated with one or other religion, or school or mission. In such a polarised nation where sectarian suspicion was part of the fabric of Irish life, this can lead to some rather surprising, but awkward, interactions and intersections. A perfect example of this is Francis Maginn – a pivotal figure in Irish history, but someone whose own political and religious identity and beliefs were very much embedded on one ‘side’ of the Irish religious divide. But that’s for another blog entry – I’ve been planning that one for a while and promise it will be ready soon.
In the meantime, let’s go back to the 1880s and visit a small workhouse in the west of Ireland, and meet Catherine Crosby - a young deaf female inmate of Castlerea’s workhouse in Roscommon. Her name is not listed in pupil lists for St Marys in Cabra, but instead it seems she was educated by a ‘Miss McGrath’ – a woman known locally known in Castlerea, but I haven’t found any info on who she was; possibly a teacher in the workhouse, possibly a local nun, though I'm unclear if any order of nuns were connected with the workhouse in Castlerea before 1887. And in 1885, the Board of Guardians of the workhouse received word that a lady living in Westmeath was willing to take Catherine on in domestic service. The lady, a Mrs H. McGuire of Belmont near Kilbeggan, had been informed that Catherine was in Castlerea’s workhouse by a ‘deaf and dumb gentleman who has been travelling through the country’ – possibly Maurice Hewson or Francis Maginn, both working as Church of Ireland Deaf missionaries at the time. It also transpires the lady’s “last deaf and dumb servant” had moved to America, which is an interesting comment – that she specifically wanted a ‘deaf and dumb’ woman for the job based on her last experience of having one.
I’m sure the prospect of being relieved of financial support for Catherine and her gaining employment away from the workhouse was considerably attractive a proposition. Nevertheless, there was some uneasiness at the suggestion among the guardians. The workhouse master was directed to get references for her, but it turns out later this was not done very exhaustively. That was the end of the matter for a while. Six weeks later, under the headline “SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF DENMARK”, the papers revealed that Catherine had written a letter, possibly two, about her new situation to a Miss Duignan, who appears to have been the Castlerea workhouse schoolmistress.
The letters revealed that McGuire had apparently not wanted Catherine for her own service at all, but instead, to have her sent to Donegal, to another woman - Wilhelmina Tredinnick – and there seems to have been a certain amount of religious coercion in her new situation.
Tredinnick was present in Kilbeggan when Catherine arrived and started "talking about religion" to Catherine, apparently also taking away a prayer book of hers. She also was told she could not attend Mass and was instead given the Bible to read. Tredinnick, according to Catherine's letters, told her that she "must forget all about Catholicity". Another deaf servant worked for McGuire and "frightened [her] every day, because she is a Protestant". It is likely that being in an environment where all the household were of a different religion was a very different and jarring experience for Catherine, but even given that, it does seem like a pressure was put on her to move away from being a Catholic.
The guardians were in an uproar. This was not too long after a major scandal had rocked the London press linked to sexual exploitation and trafficking of young girls and women, and there was some grumbling about McGuire possibly being one of “those Pall Mall Gazette people” even before Catherine had gone to Kilbeggan. This lent an edge to the discussions, and indeed some of the guardians suggested that Tredinnick was involved in ‘trafficking’ and even declared she should be prosecuted. However, the end result seems to have been that the guardians had a whip-round, collected enough to pay for Catherine’s train fare back to Castlerea, and that was given to the local parish priest to send up to her.
That seems to have been the end of the affair, and it appears that Catherine returned to Castlerea’s workhouse; it wasn’t an issue that arose again in newspaper coverage of the Castlerea guardians’ meetings. After that bright chink of light fell on the historical details of Catherine Crosby’s life, it was pretty much extinguished; she reappears as ‘the dummy Crosbie’ in a 1902 account of a fracas between female inmates in the workhouse, but she is only mentioned in passing as the victim of inmate violence, though she seemed to give in this regard as good as she got:
I haven’t been able to find out any more information on Catherine other than in the Census. In both 1901 and 1911 she appears as ‘K.C’, a ‘deaf and dumb’ inmate of the workhouse, working as a seamstress: 
She died in 1932 in the County Home, aged 80. We cannot say with any certainty whether she was a regular visitor to the workhouse, or a constant inmate for these years. It’s always tempting to assume deaf inmates never left the workhouses or county homes – often, they did not, but other deaf inmates could also come and go, and were readmitted several times; we can’t say for Catherine without seeing indoor relief registers for the Castlerea workhouse (which are no longer in existence). What we do know is that for a span of years between at least 1885 and 1932 – 47 years – Kate was, at least, intermittently a resident in these institutions.
It seems a pity that religious suspicion and potential coercion served to colour Catherine’s opinion on a possible way out of the grimness of a Connacht workhouse. It certainly seems hard to believe that she would choose the grimness over a position of employment, but this is the position of Catherine in her own letters, and I feel this is a really important point: we might be getting a potentially edited or truncated version of Catherine filtered through the newspaper reporter – and before then, through the schoolmistress – but still, these do seem to be her letters and her plea for assistance. Perhaps her determination to preserve her religion and her independence as shown in her letters – illustrates her agency.
 |
Wilhelmina Tredennick |
As for the awkward historical intersections: it is difficult to gauge the extent to which Wilhelmina Tredinnick deliberately wished to proselytize Catherine from these limited sources. Tredinnick is a very familiar figure in Irish deaf history. She was a native of Donegal, and a vital figure in the establishment of the Belfast Mission Hall for the Deaf and Dumb. She was instrumental in getting Francis Maginn into his position of superintendent within that Mission, and was a highly respected figure for the Church of Ireland Deaf community. Even today deaf people still invoke her name with respect and gratitude. Which makes it quite jarring to see her painted, in these letters from a deaf Catholic woman, as a “proselytiser”. Yet even by 1885 this was by no means extinct as a charge thrown between rival religious institutions for deaf people.
There is certainly an angle to this where we can say that Catherine, at this stage, was an adult, and had the chance to freely choose to become a Protestant; perhaps Tredinnick was merely trying to do what Christian missionaries Catholic as well as Protestant - all over the world continue to do today; discuss, persuade, show a different way to worship. But her letters seem to indicate that this was the last thing Catherine wanted; plus, the removal of both freedom of movement and her reading materials also suggest Catherine’s powerlessness and subordinate status as a domestic servant (as well as being outnumbered in the household) was being used against her.
Catherine’s letters refer twice to Tredinnick urging her that she “must turn Protestant” because that is what Catherine’s brother wished. It’s possible she may have been originally from a Protestant family but educated Catholic, and this was her family’s attempt to reclaim her from the workhouse, and maybe the influence of Catholic teachers, chaplains and other inmates. Tredinnick may have been just following directions from her brother. However, the Census of Ireland (particularly the recent redesign, which is pretty awful, to be frank) hasn’t been able to turn up any non-Catholic Crosby / Crosbies in and around Castlerea. There is also no reference in the source we have to suggest if such instructions from her brother were actually given to Tredinnick. A more sinister possibility is that what Catherine was told was untrue, and her brother’s wishes had no influence in what had happened.
We just cannot know without more sources. It is indeed a blessed rarity to find deaf people’s own account of events and life experiences in history; in this case, however, it is the only account we have, and so we should probably avoid the temptation to rush to conclusions and judge harshly. At the very least we can say that the incident exemplifies the poisonous rancour that could easily become unleashed in late nineteenth century Ireland … and how it very specifically could arise within the lives of deaf people.
Sources:
- Roscommon Messenger, 19 September 1885, p. 5
- Roscommon Messenger, 31 October 1885, p. 3
- Roscommon Journal and Western Impartial Reporter, 4 January 1902, p. 3
- Census of Ireland 1901 online: https://nationalarchives.ie/collections/search-the-census/
- Census of Ireland 1911 online: https://nationalarchives.ie/collections/search-the-census/
- Census of the Irish Free State 1926 online: https://nationalarchives.ie/collections/search-the-1926-census/
- 'Lost tribute to Wilhelmina Tredennick found in charity shop'. https://bda.org.uk/lost-tribute-to-wilhelmina-tredennick/
No comments:
Post a Comment