The humble petition of Frank Nealon (1846)
In the National Archives of Ireland last month, I found the following remarkable letter in the Famine Relief Commission Records for Mayo.
‘Honoured Sir[,] George R. Crampton Esq.
‘The humble pet[it]ion of Frank Nealon[?sp]
‘I have not one stone of potatoes nor oatts nor male [meal] white nor yellow this day
‘Thanks be to the merciful God of heaven and I expect Your Honor will do the re[a]diest you can’
George Crampton was agent to William Henry Carter of Kildare, the landlord who owned much of Erris and had developed Belmullet. He turned away from a fellowship at Trinity College to settle in Erris, pursuing his interests in antiquarianism and the study of local social life, most notably by supporting the research of Caesar Otway, who published Sketches in Erris and Tyrawley in 1841.
Crampton was also secretary to the Belmullet Relief Committee, and forwarded this note to the Famine Relief Commission at Dublin Castle.
So who was Frank Nealon? His surname is hard to decipher in the short note, obscured by a stamp of the Relief Commission.
A search on ‘Francis’ and ‘Frank’ in the Kilmore and Kilcommon parishes of Mayo in the Tithe Applotment books, c.1834, yields no likely candidates. However, in the Griffiths Valuation (1853) we see an entry for a ‘Francis Nailon’ in Aghadoon, in the north of the Mullet, renting from Thomas Lavelle.
Surname spellings vary a good deal across Irish official and church records, a common experience for people researching family history.
As indicated by the note, Nealon’s handwriting was well-formed cursive script, with some spelling pronunciation (‘male’ for ‘meal’), suggesting good but basic literacy.
In 1846, he was living in deep deprivation. However, the entry for someone of the same name in 1853 in the same district suggests he may have survived the Famine — unless he had a son or relative of the same name.
Neither Nealon nor Nailon were common names in Erris at the time. There was a handful of entries for Nolan in Kilmore and Kilcommon in the Tithe Applotment books, but nobody of that surname named as tenants in Erris in 1853. By 1901, there was a handful of Nolans in the barony as indicated by the Census records, but no Nailons. Perhaps the family had left the district — or by then had simply come to an end.
We are left however with Frank’s heartfelt request for help, in pen and ink. It is remarkable because so much of the testimony of the time makes the starving sound different to the writer, even when they were benefactors and philanthropists and presenting them as tragic victims. Others wrote of them in animal terms, as pestilent or a ‘swarm’. The sources we have were overwhelmingly written by educated observers who had at least some security — though they were not themselves entirely protected from the economic, public health and security crisis.
In this case, Frank Nealon was a member of the North Mayo peasantry, which has left few written records from that time. Having written this petition, his voice has lasted long after his death — and humanises both him and the community around him, hit by forces far beyond their control.
It was an exercise of personal voice which reached the centre, if not the heart, of Irish government in the 1840s.
Image above reproduced by kind permission of the Director of the National Archives.
