In summer 1997, to mark the 150th anniversary of Black 47, the Co. Sligo Famine Memorial Committee unveiled two monuments to commemorate victims of the Great Famine. The Committee also restored the famine graveyard beside St. John’s hospital (former workhouse) and honoured the many thousands who lay there unknown and unremembered.

Now, to remember the victims of an earlier disaster – the Cholera of 1832 – and the many who died in the fever hospital in those years, a plaque is being unveiled in Sligo General Hospital which stands on the site of the former Fever Hospital. This hospital was erected between 1817-1822 at the suggestion of and partly financed by Mr. Edward Synge Cooper, who was MP for the town at the time. It was built to accommodate 50 patients, 25 women and 25 men.

The Cholera Epidemic

A cholera epidemic known as Cholera Asiatica or Cholera Morbus first broke out in India in 1826. It spread gradually to Europe and by May 1832 it had arrived in Ireland. Strenuous efforts were made by the Provost of Sligo, Mr. William Fausett, and the Board of Health to prevent the cholera from reaching the town. This was not possible. Saturday 11th August 1832 was fair day and market day in Sligo and the town was crowded with people from outlying areas. On that fateful day the first symptoms of cholera were identified.

It quickly raged throughout the town with an average of 50 a day succumbing to the disease. People were dying in the street and along the banks of the Garavogue. The bodies were wrapped in sheets smeared with pitch to prevent the spread of the disease. Some of the dead were buried at the Abbey, others in St. John’s churchyard, but the majority were interred in ground at the rear of the Fever Hospital – an area subsequently known as The Cholera Field. The orthopaedic wing of the present General Hospital and part of the car park are now on that site.

The fever raged throughout the month of August and during that time at least 1500 people and possibly more perished, among them a number of prominent citizens. These included Alexander Bolton, proprieter of The Sligo Journal and his son; Patrick O’Connor, merchant and brother of Peter O’Connor of Cairnsfoot; William Middleton, grain merchant and shipowner; Baptist Minister the Reverend Wilson; Drs. Coyne, Beattie, Anderson and Surgeon William Bell. By the second week in September the epidemic had run its course and life gradually began to return to normality.

During the Great Famine (1845-47) the Fever Hospital was filled to over-flowing and a building for 50 patients accommodated three or four times that number. Those who couldn’t be sheltered in the hospital were left lying on wads of straw at the entrance where many of them died.

The Cholera returned briefly in 1849 and claimed about 200 victims. This was the last time the dreaded disease appeared in Sligo. There was a serious outbreak of Typhus in 1903 but this was successfully controlled by the doctors in charge, Drs. Murray and Quinn. The last doctor in charge of the Fever Hospital was Dr. Tom Murphy. The hospital was closed in 1958 and was finally demolished in 1978 to make way for the new orthopaedic unit that opened in 1982.

Cholera is ravaging Sligo to a frightful extent… The disease is more virulent there than elsewhere in the Kingdom… A pit was dug at the rear of the Fever Hospital, where sixteen corpses were dropped in together, without coffins or shrouds. The Town is quite deserted… Its thought there may be up to forty deaths a day… The cry of the widows and orphans in the streets is truly awful…

‘Ballyshannon Herald’ 18 Aug 1832

Last Modified Thursday, 20-Dec-2007 21:56:34 GMT.