The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

A page from the 1901 Census of Ireland shows then-3-year-old Michael living with his newborn sister Delia, Parents
Patrick and Mary Gallagher, and Grandparents Peter and Bridget Gallagher in their Cornaroya home.
Uncle Tom was a deep thinker and well-read.
With better opportunities, he could have made a great
philosopher or fine doctor. So you cannot entirely dismiss
his wondering years later if the settle bed may have played
a part in Michael contracting TB. A visitor contagious with
the disease could have coughed on the bench where
Michael might have slept that evening. The poor ventilation
in the nook where the bed was kept wouldn’t have helped.
In general, ventilation issues contributed to
unhealthy environments in many rural Irish homes, if not
specifically the Gallagher cottage. The origins can be traced
to the late 18th century and taxes imposed based on the
number of windows in a home. The system came to be
referred to as the “typhus tax” for how it contributed to
epidemics of that and other diseases. It is also the origin of
the term “daylight robbery,” related to the number of
windows bricked or boarded up to avoid higher taxes. The
window tax was abolished in Ireland in 1851, but the 1911
Irish Census was still classifying homes based on, among
other factors, the number of windows.
In any case, how or when Uncle Michael
contracted TB is unknown. We also don’t know if Michael
was treated only at home, but there is no evidence to the
contrary.
Uncle Tom, who would have been only 7 years
old at the time, was so affected by his brother’s death that
he never stopped thinking about the incident. Some 60 years
after the fact, he shared how his parents sacrificed and
saved just to afford a bit of lamb for their son. He wondered
if there was anything more nutritious his parents could have
bought with their limited money.
Consumption was the countryman’s descriptive
term for tuberculosis, which would “consume” its victims
by weight loss and breathlessness. It consumed the lives of
many thousands in Ireland. It is believed 12,000 young Irish
adults died of TB in 1904 alone. The number may have
been even higher. Tuberculosis was considered a poor
person’s disease, and some in Ireland would be reluctant to
list it as the cause of a death, fearing it would reflect poorly
on the family. Mortality rates remained high in the 1920s
and 1930s. Barely a family in the country remained
untouched. It was a disease that could kill in a few months
or ravage a victim for a number of years, slowly eating
away at the lungs from the inside. For many decades,
tuberculosis was often a death sentence. It was not until
1949 that the first human patient was cured with a treatment
involving the antibiotic streptomycin. Advancements have
continued since. We think Michael’s illness was not
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