DEATH RATE WAS 50 EVERY DAY WHEN CHOLERA HIT SLIGO

CHOLERA struck Sligo on Saturday, August 11, 1832 and wreaked utter devastation. It was a market day which began with a fierce thunderstorm like a harbinger of doom, and with hours, the first victim had fallen.

Terror and panic began to grip the population as the dreaded news spread. Outbreaks of cholera had been reported from other parts of the country from as early as April, and it had looked that Sligo would escape. It was not to be - the town and surrounding area paid a terrible price for the earlier reprieve.

It killed those infected within hours, usually less than three. Victims skin often showed a bluish tinge, and diarrhoea led to rapid severe dehydration and death. The first official fatality figures for Sligo came on August 18, recording 63 new cases, 22 deaths and no recoveries. From then to the end of the month, the death rate averaged 50 a day, with as many as 100 on some days.

The disease seemed to strike with terrible swiftness. A farmer was infected as he mounted his horse in Knox’s St. (O’Connell St.) and was dead by the time he reached Market St.

Another victim who attended the funeral of an employee in the morning became ill during the burial and was dead by evening. A family who had been visited at 9 p.m. by a friend had six members buried twelve hours later. The death rate was so bad that carpenters soon ran out of wood for making simple coffins and the dead had to be wrapped in pitched sheets and rolled into mass graves. It’s believed that some people were buried alive, so great was the haste to dispose of the corpses.

The scenes at night around the town were like something from the worst kind of horror story. Tar barrels were lit in the streets in a misguided effort to purify the air. Farmers refused to come into Sligo Town and food became scarce. Townspeople who kept cows in their back yards shared milk with their neighbours, but so great was the fear of physical contact that empty jugs were left outside at night to be filled and were collected in the morning. Plates of salt with vitriolic acid were put outside windows and doors in yet another fruitless attempt at fumigation.

The unsung heroes of this tragic episode in Sligo’s history were the local doctors who laboured mightily to save lives and control the epidemic. Among their biggest problems was trying to overcome widespread ignorance of the disease and general suspicion, ironically caused by the doctors’ own earlier desperate attempts to prevent the disease from spreading to the town.

Typical of these efforts was the flying of kites sent up high in the sky to try to find out if cholera had an atmospheric origin. Well water was analysed and people were advised on how best to cope with the disease if it arrived.

Tragically, when cholera eventually struck in Sligo, many people blamed the doctors, believing the disease had been brought down from the sky by the kites, or caused by poisoned wells and preventive drugs. These beliefs persisted even after the doctors themselves had fallen victim to cholera. Five doctors died during the outbreak.

Inevitably, as the outbreak spread, panic gripped the population. Widows and orphans were soon joined by large numbers of deserted children and everybody with the means of doing so fled the plague-stricken town.

A letter from Sligo, published ‘ The Evening Post’ on August 26 th, claimed the population of the town dropped from 15,000 to 2,000 at the height of the epidemic.

Although every level of society suffered, incredibly, no Catholic priest became infected even though there were in as much contact with the population as were the doctors. In particular, Fr. Gilleran, a volunteer curate from Sooey, performed heroic work in the Fever Hospital, both as a medical worker and priest, as well as attending to the sick in the town.

It was said of him that he had the facility of ‘ turning up whenever he was wanted as readily as if he had the faculty of being in several places at the same time and as intrepidly as if he had a revelation from heaven that the cholera could do him no hurt’.

The Bishop of Elphin, Rt. Rev. Patrick Burke, remained at his house at Finisklin and did his best to support and sustain his parishioners and priests. O’Rorke’s ‘History of Sligo’ records: ‘While panic fear confined the inhabitants of the town to their houses, he rode occasionally through the streets in order to inspire the timid with courage by his example; he visited from time to time, both in private houses and in the hospital, those who were struck down by the pestilence…..’

The total number of recorded cases in Sligo was 1,234 with 643 deaths but the actual toll was much higher. The ‘Evening Post’ of September 4 th said: ‘Sligo, out of a population of not more than 4,000 which remained in the town, has lost 600.’ The outbreak lasted for more than a month from that date. Sligo remained on ‘ The Daily Cholera Report in Dublin Castle until October 16. As a result of the cholera outbreak, the population of the town fell from 15,000 to 12,000. Cholera again ravaged Sligo in 1849, just after the famine, but this outbreak, although severe, wasn’t as bad as in 1832. The first victim, Ellen Gallagher from Ballisodare, was admitted into the Fever Hospital on May 29 th and died that evening. However, the actual epidemic didn’t start until August. The Fever Hospital was turned into a cholera centre where 166 victims were admitted, of whom 98 died.