The real heroes of public health in Ireland in the 19th century were the dispensary doctors. Vastly overworked, poorly paid they waged a campaign against ignorance and indifference. The local papers are full of their concerns about dung heaps contaminating water, poor public health.

1822, Dr William Folliott, Clonakilty, County Cork, to Chief Secretary’s Office, Dublin Castle, making case for increase of vaccination against small pox in District Edward Hunt, Kinsale, 1822, observes that many Magistrates are uneducated men ‘who in many instances are Tythe Proctors and in most instances are as Middlemen the cruelest and most unrelenting oppressors of the unfortunate tenantry under them’

https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/16526

1832. Cholera Outbreak. Response Parish Boards of Health, West Cork.

https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/37103

1832 Cholera in Bantry, 1838 Address of Subscribers to John Symms Bird, on Retiring as Treasurer of Bantry Dispensary.

https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/24183

1871 Western Tenantry Entertained by Lord Bandon on coming of age of Lord Bernard, at Durrus Court (Gearhameen). Dinner provided by James Philips of Durrus and Mrs. Fitzgerald, Cork. 1871, Meeting Courthouse, Durrus, Patrick’s Day re Alarming Spread of Smallpox

https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/36865

Doctor Barry, 1800, on ‘Shinach’ (Small Pox) and practice in Cork of inoculation with Cow Pox 50 years before Dr Jenner’s vaccination and late 18th century inoculations by Mr. Goodwin, Bantry, West Cork.

https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/6988

Pococke visit to Bantry 1758, smallpox, leprosy A Bandon doctor, John Milner Barry had noted in 1800 that exposure to cowpox gave immunity to smallpox; this was known in West Cork as ‘shinach’ from ‘sine’ the Irish word for teat.

https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/126

1st Report From His Majesty’s Commission For Inquiring Into the Condition of The Poorer Classes in Ireland, From 1835, Begging, Impotence Through Old Age, Sick Poor, Able Bodies Out of work, Vagrancy, Evidence taken at Ballydehob, West Cork, from Rev. James Barry, Parish priest, Rev. John Barry, Curate, Rev. John Triphook, Protestant Minister, John Brooks, Farmer, £1 rent, Alexander English Churchwarden, James Levis, farmer, Rent £33, Cornelius Mahony, Labourer, Patrick Mahony, Farmer, £10, James Mahony, John Murphy, Daniel Sullivan all labourers and Quarrymen, Thomas Swanton, James Swanton, Merchant, Sweetnam, Dispensary Surgeon, Richard Salter Farmer, Farmer Rent £14. Begging starts St. Patrick’s Day, Destitution of Bandon Weavers, Maimed Children, Absentee Landlords Take £6,000 a Year From Parish Subscribe £3 to Dispensary, Sick lie on Knotted Ferns.

https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/33423

Famine Diary of Doctor O’Donovan, Dispensary Doctor, Skibbereen, West Cork, Bodies Buried Coffinless in the Dead of Night in Dunmanus Weighed Down By Stones, to Prevent Starving Dogs From Getting At The Bodies, The Funeral Cry No Longer heard.

https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/27133

1935. You Would Never Take Him For An Archaeologist. Gerard Costigan, F.R.G.S., F.R.S.A.I. Bantry Born, Lecturer Cairo.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vOP6XpcRtATDw60bfSf8wvceE3xcPEW3Vvg7FwTp65s/edit

Honey

Still Going strong:

It was said that there were three things that Aristotle did not understand:

Teach agus imeacht na taoide,

Obair na mbeach 

Agus intinn na mbann

As Bearla

The coming and going of the tides

The work of the bees

And the mind of a woman

Bees and Honey.

In Stanley Vickery’s memoir of growing up with his grandparents in the 1830s in Mullogh he refers to metheglin and to the country as being ideal for honey production.  A number of people in the area kept bees, Johnny Shannon, Ahagouna, farmer and sextant to St. James from the 1920s to the 1950s.  Nelius Scully in Lower Gearhameen in the 1930s.  He and his brother occupied one of the houses on land owned by Dick Tobin of Kilcrohane.  

The Bohane family once farmed  extensively at the Cummer Farm on the border of Clashadoo and Brahalish.  They, like many before, were defeated at trying to work this difficult land.  They relocated to a small farm in Upper Brahanlish and had extensive hives.

The hives used were made of straw, an example is at Letetia and the late Tommy Camier’s museum at Gortnagrough, Ballydehob made by in 1875 by George Copithorn of Kilbarry, Dunmanway.

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