Walk a mile in their shoes.

“Through here is the refractory. Note the heavy iron door and locking mechanism.” I was confused. Did she say refectory? I know what a refectory is, and what I was being shown didn’t fit with my experience of a boarding school dining hall with its rules governing the disciplined distribution and consumption of food. In any case, this small building was the administrative block of the former Enniskillen Workhouse - surely what we were being shown couldn’t seat hundreds of people for meals? But then she said it again, and its meaning became clearer. “The refractory was where people were locked up for infringements of rules, and bad behaviour. Go inside if you wish.” I didn’t, preferring instead to stand at the threshold and look in. When I got home, I consulted the dictionary. Refractory: unruly, ungovernable, intractable, recalcitrant, willful, headstrong, and not submissive to government or control. Sounds like me. Had I been an inmate of the workhouse I would likely have been a candidate for the refractory. But perhaps not. As workhouses were designed to be places of last resort for the starving and destitute, I may not have had the energy or will to buck such a harsh and cruel system.

Arriving at the front door of the building today, visitors come face to face with the workhouse bell, now unambiguously presented as the former institution’s symbol of power and authority. Suspended at head height in the centre of the entry hall on a wooden double post and cross frame, it was originally hung outside to summon inmates to their daily work routines. Someone rang the bell which jangled tinny and flat. It did not boast a foundry name and motif on its side, perhaps indicating that it was mass produced for all 163 workhouses, cheaply made, and not worthy of its maker’s mark.

For many, a visit to this museum is an emotional experience. Stories about starving people linger in memory across generations and can still be found in communities. Indeed, the last person to leave Enniskillen workhouse was as recent as 1948. In the 1950s Sandy McConnell from Bellanaleck recorded Hugh Macken describing the effect of the famine in his locality. "I often heard my mother say that the Tyrone people were worse off at that time than we were. They used to come in batches to this country, begging for food. The people around here at that time called them the “Tyrone Beggars.” One day a batch of them, men, women and children came down Rossdoney Road and fought like dogs over potato skins which were thrown out on James Keenan’s manure pit.”

One consequence of the famine was the eradication of the folk memory that existed before it, through death, dislocation, and emigration. Much of who we were, culturally and spiritually, was lost. Some of this loss was demonstrated by curator and guide Catherine Scott who displayed several worn leather shoes of different sizes which had, many years before, been found hidden around the old building, mostly in the attic and under floorboards. All were in poor condition. Moreover, during the recent restoration workmen found another single shoe, which was poignantly and ceremoniously returned to its original hiding place along with a matching contemporary one. Whilst it is known that shoes were often hidden in buildings, the origin of the custom is unknown, undoubtedly lost to the famine.

The elegantly and sympathetically restored administration building may be small, but it packs a punch. Much has been written about the famine, and the museum’s interpretative panels distills a great deal of this information simply and effectively. It’s the personal items that hit home as powerful and readily recognisable reminders of our recent past. In time other artefacts may be added, and through archival research more knowledge about those who passed through its doors will contribute much to Fermanagh County Museum, and our knowledge and understanding of this hugely traumatising event.

Most importantly, the museum pushes us to acknowledge our cognitive dissonance about the famine, and our uncomfortable struggle to suppress awareness about it on the one hand, and our need to examine it on the other. But less is more. The simplicity of exhibits moves us toward a greater understanding, in truly human terms, of the impact that this terrible event had on ordinary people of the time. Rather than a place once used to break the human spirit, it will instead be used to lift it up. And should you visit, you may even learn a new word or two, despite recoiling at their meaning.

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