The death of poets – Tony Delaney on James Clarence Mangan, John Keegan and the cholera epidemic of 1849

One hundred and seventy five years ago this month, Ireland lost two of its prominent poets to the raging cholera epidemic – James Clarence Mangan of Fishamble Street, Dublin, and John Keegan of Shanahoe in Co Laois. At that time, with Ireland still on its knees suffering the effects of the Great Famine, an outbreak of cholera heightened the country’s misery and dramatically increased the mortality rate. Diseases such as typhus and relapsing fever were already prevalent during the entire Famine period, with crowded and filthy conditions generally prevailing in cabins, workhouses and hospitals. People, whose resistance was already undermined by hunger, were fatally exposed to the cholera infection.

Initially, in 1849, cholera was noticed in the sea ports of Ireland, having been brought here from Britain. The trail of this epidemic can be traced back to 1845 when it broke out in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon).

By October 1848, it had reached Britain, breaking out in Edinburgh at first. It is estimated that 53,000 people perished from cholera in Britain between 1848 and 1849.

By December 1848 cholera had reached Belfast, and in the early months of 1849, it spread rapidly throughout Ireland, reaching its peak in April. In many cases, victims were admitted to the poor law unions, which were already stretched to capacity in handling the victims of the Great Famine. The poor law unions worst affected by the cholera outbreak were Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Kilkenny, Carlow, Waterford and Clare.

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Making a show of us – Frank McNally on a 1927 film that outraged Irish America

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The death of poets – Tony Delaney on James Clarence Mangan, John Keegan and the cholera epidemic of 1849

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Great but unwashed – Frank McNally on the joys of a dry spell in Dublin

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The South Dublin Poor Law Union built its sheds near the site of the present St James’s Hospital. It was to these sheds that both Mangan and Keegan were admitted in 1849.

Mangan, who is best remembered for poems such as Dark Rosaleen, Siberia, and Nameless One, was subsequently transferred to the Meath Hospital in Dublin, where he died on June 20th at the age of 46 and was interred in Glasnevin cemetery. Ten days later, Keegan – who penned such works as Caoch The Piper, Song of the Irish Railway Labourer and The Holly and Ivy Girl – died in the cholera sheds at the age of 33. He too was buried in Glasnevin cemetery and, as with most cholera victims, his burial took place in a cholera plot on the day of his death.

A strict ritual involving masked grave-diggers and a deep lime-lined grave was afforded to the cholera corpses, with the only attendees being the grave-diggers.

A few months earlier, Keegan’s poem To the Cholera was published in the Cork Magazine, in which he directly pleaded with the disease:

“But if you’re strong, be merciful, and spare the trembling poet to his country’s cause.”

The causative agent of cholera is the bacterium Vibrio cholera. It is an acute diarrhoeal infection that can kill within hours if left untreated. It is mainly transmitted in contaminated food or water and its prevention is primarily a matter of sanitation.

It is generally regarded as a disease of poverty that affects people with inadequate access to safe water and basic sanitation.

With Ireland already in a state of extreme destitution it was no surprise that the cholera epidemic took hold quickly in 1849 with devastating effect. The number of deaths in Ireland from cholera in 1849 was never accurately quantified as the records of the poor law unions were imperfectly kept. Even if the union records were complete, it would still be necessary to take into account the unknown victims who perished in their homes or by the roadside.

What we do know from the Glasnevin cemetery burial records is that there were 11,357 burials in that cemetery in 1849, which represented the greatest number of burials there in any one year – and that the high number of burials was attributed to the cholera deaths. That among them were two of the leading circle of Irish poets of that era who perished within days of each other at the height of their literary careers, and both at relatively young ages, left a huge void in 19th-century Irish literature. The editor of The Irishman newspaper, Joseph Brenan, lamented Keegan’s death in July 1849:

“Another son of genius is gone. Death is becoming an epicure, and selects the choicest victims. It is not many weeks since we closed the grave over James Clarence Mangan. His friend and fellow-poet, John Keegan, did not tarry long behind him.”

Even today, control of cholera in poorer parts of the globe remains a major medical problem. Even though it is an easily treatable disease nowadays for most sufferers through prompt administration of an oral rehydration solution, researchers have estimated that each year there are 1.3 million to 4.0 million cases of cholera and up to 143,000 cholera deaths worldwide.