Musings During St. Patrick's Month

     Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have lived during my Irish ancestor's lifetimes; I don't think it would have worked out well.  As a young girl I was plagued with throat infections, especially when the weather turned damp.  Obviously, Ireland's climate and lack of penicillin could have proven problematic for me, quite possibly fatally so.

     My Gunn ancestors lived in County Kerry at a time when out of a population of 230,000 souls, 170,000 were destitute; they didn't have to wonder what living in poverty in the damp, cool, west of Ireland could do to a person's health, they knew.  My third-great-grandparents John Gunn and his wife Margaret Browne, born in the mid 1820's, were parents to seven children all born at Ballygologue near Listowel.  Three of them, (including my second-great-grandmother), emigrated to America, two died in childhood and two grew to adulthood in County Kerry-- Johanna, and her brother John who died at thirty eight of consumption.  Imagine having seven children and being left with only one.  The children's father John's death certificate puts his age at fifty six and his cause of death as chronic bronchitis, a disease known to be aggravated by damp weather.

     The younger John's case is especially sad.  His wife Deborah O'Neill's death occurred three years before his own from the same disease that stole his life. Their son who was orphaned at fourteen, passed away in 1908 at age twenty eight, also from the effects of consumption.

    Like her mother, Johanna Gunn Connor gave birth to seven children. Her first was born out of wedlock and I've been unable to trace him after his baptism.  I don't believe he reached adulthood.  Of her remaining six children, three of them, all named John after Johanna's father, died in early childhood. Two from scarlatina, which is a throat infection!  The other two children emigrated to America and prospered there.  Johanna's youngest son, Thomas, remained in Listowel where he died at age twenty four of consumption.

     Chronic bronchitis, multiple cases of consumption... that's a lot of lung disease. I wonder if there was a genetic component involved here?  Scientists have in fact discovered a genetic variant that predisposes people who have it to tuberculosis.  The mother of this clan, Margaret Browne lived long enough that her cause of death was given as "old age" while her daughter Johanna reached age seventy.  Somehow those two escaped the disease that took so many of their family members. The individuals who decamped to the USA seemed healthy enough, living reasonably long lives.  Unless you count Uncle George who got tipsy one night, fell in the canal, and drowned.  But he was in good health before that lamentable event.

     Ireland of course was far from alone in it's widespread cases of consumption, it was a highly contagious killer worldwide in the 19th century.  However, lack of warm shelter and clothing, an inadequate diet along with all the other lacks that resulted from poverty could not have helped the situation in Kerry.  One website had this to say--"It is easier to get TB if you have little or no heating and live in damp, dark or dusty conditions".

     Johanna nursed her son Thomas throughout his illness until his death yet she remained well.  Her death when it came must have been a lonely one with her children all gone before her except the two far away in America and her siblings all dead or also in America. Perhaps instead of wondering what it would have been like for me to live in Ireland during their time, I should be wondering what their lives could have been like had their country not been occupied by a foreign power.