Part 1
Pat MacMahan was born in a small village in Ireland in 1833. Pat’s father was a thirty-five year old "cottier", a poor farmer who rented a small patch of soil from another man. His father had built the family’s small cottage in three or four days. Pat’s mother was twenty-four when he was born. His mother gave Pat potatoes to eat, and sometimes a small mug of milk she had bought from a neighbor who had a cow. The family had two sheep, and Pat’s mother used to make clothes. The family was poor, but they survived.
It had only been a decade since most of the hated Penal Laws had been repealed. Until the Catholic Emancipation Act, neither Pat’s father nor his ancestors couldn’t purchase or inherit land on equal terms with Protestants, run for elected office, engage in certain professions, or own property worth more than £5 , among other things. The Catholic religion was virtually outlawed with nearly all churches destroyed or confiscated and priests living in fear of imprisonment or execution. Irish Catholics had more rights now, but the damage had been done. Only a few owned their own land.
Eight years ago the British passed the Education Act. A new school was being built in a nearby town. The English said that the school would be free. Pat’s parents were upset with the new school because only English history and English literature would be taught, not those of Ireland. Gaelic was forbidden to be spoken in the new school. Pat’s parents felt the English wanted Pat and the other children to think and believe as the English do, so his parents weren’t going to send him there. There was talk in the village of the Catholic school establishing itself again after being "underground" for a century, but money was needed and a teacher had to be found, and all they could pay the teacher was potatoes, so the prospects of Pat obtaining an education in the near future were poor.
An article of the Catholic Emancipation Act dictated that the amount of property Irishmen have to own in order to be allowed to vote in parliamentary elections be raised from 40 shillings to £10. Pat overheard his father saying only twenty-four men of two thousand men in the parish could vote. Pat’s landlord wanted to keep his tenants poor enough so that they would not have money to purchase property and with it the right to vote. Besides, with the price of wool increasing the way it was, the landlord could make more money using the land for raising his sheep instead of letting tenants farm crops. Therefore, in the year 1839, the landowner raised the rent. Pat’s father sold one of his sheep, then the other, but the money didn’t last. In the summer of 1840, the MacMahan’s were evicted from the land. Pat’s father had decided to take the family to America. Pat helped pack the family’s few belongings onto a cart. Pat was seven years old.
The MacMahan’s walked all the way to Dublin, even though Pat’s mother was pregnant. They then crossed by ferry to the English port of Liverpool. There wasn’t enough money for the passage to America, so Pat’s father worked a while in a factory. On September 3, 1840, the three of them boarded a ship bound for Boston, Massachusetts. Pat hadn’t eaten since noon the day before.
The six weeks passage across the Atlantic was difficult. They were put into steerage on the ship and crowded together so much that there was barely a time during the voyage when people were not rubbing against each other. The ceiling was so low that only Pat and the other children had room to stand. The quarters were hosed down only once in a feeble attempt to clean them and, as a result, the stench became horrible. Some people were ill when they boarded and many people became sick and some died. Most people tried to remain on deck to avoid the odor and the lice, but bad weather frequently forced them back down into steerage.
On the twelfth day of the voyage, Pat’s mother gave birth to a baby boy. He was named Timothy, after Pat’s grandfather. Pat was worried about leaving his home and about being below deck on that ship. He was scared when his mother had the baby and that she wasn’t feeling good. Pat had heard other people on board talk about America and about some of the things they had heard about it. Pat’s father had said that the entire village may eventually move to Boston. Pat didn’t understand everything they said, but was beginning to be caught up in the excitement of reaching this "Promised Land"