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151 pages

English

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SURVIVORS OF THE DUMPING GROUNDS

After abject suffering, the loss of their family, and the misery of the workhouse, during the Great Hunger, Irish orphans Maeve and Emer Dannaher are sentenced to indentured service to a strange continent on the other side of the world. They live in servitude, as do the continent’s original inhabitants, and survive, despite hardships that would have crushed others. Follow the lives of the brave Dannaher sisters, who find adventure in the colonies of 1850’s Australia; encounters with “The Wild Colonial Boys”: the First Nation Clans of Aboriginal people; the hardy diggers of the gold fields; the unique flora and fauna of the rugged outback, and even love.

Sujets

Cultural Heritage

World Literature

Women

Woman

The Women

Australia

Fiction

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Publié par	Outskirts Press
Date de parution	31 mars 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781977263490
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Dreams of Mad Dogs All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2023 J.T. Dossett v2.0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
Cover Photo © 2023 J.T. DOSSETT. All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To those I love.
Other Books by J.T. Dossett
Finding Bobby Ray Starvin’ Dog and the Guardians Glory on Stinking Creek Armandus’ Absolution Dannaher’s Kin The Indigo Gullah Brothers Secrets of the Black Tupelo
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
THE IRISH PROBLEM
DECEIT REVEALED
INTO THE MYSTIC
WATERY PATH TO DOWN UNDER
OWAIN JONES, ENTREPRENEUR
YOUNG DOCTOR HANDSCHUH
MEETING THE MASTERS
HANDSOME DANNY O’MEARA AND FRIENDS
DANNY’S DREAM
MAEVE VISITS THE NEIGHBORS
JOHANNA’S CHRISTMAS GIFT
JOHANNA’S DEPARTURE
RENDEZVOUS IN SILESIA
THE MISSIVE FROM MELBOURNE
INCIDENT ON SAINT KILDA ROAD
BATTLE OF THE EUREKA STOCKADE
BERRIES AND MAD DOGS
THE SIX COLONIES CLASH
ON THE RUN
MOURNING EMER
THE BENDIGO SHOPPING SPREE
THE PROBLEM IN AUSTRALIA
THE DAY AT THE SEA RACES
THE ASSASSIN’S HOLIDAY
THE SEARCH FOR THE FACELESS MAN
LEAVING THE DEN
REUNION
L. DANKWORTH SAVES THE DAY
DANNY AND EMER’S ESCAPE
ON THE WINGS OF AN ANGEL
THE WAGNER PROPOSAL
A PLACE BY THE YARROWEE
LAZARUS REDUX
TYING UP LOOSE ENDS
MEETING HARRIET
NEWS FROM DR. SPENCER & GETTYSBURG
GRIEF AND EXPECTATIONS
COFFEE WITH DEREK
THE BIRTHDAY VISITOR
THE LETTER FROM HEAVEN
SHIPS PASSING IN THE NIGHT
THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT
DESPOTS AND HEROES
MEETING OWEN LOVEJOY
EPILOGUE
FOREWORD
There is so much to learn about the fascinating history of Australia, and I am sure historians and today’s fabulous Aussies will disagree with some or many of my historical references, which I have misunderstood, or adjusted to fit this story. My apologies to you, but since I am a fictional writer, I take license with these things in order to tell my own story; something that well could have happened, somewhere or sometime based upon real facts, and imagined thoughts. My interests in Australia were heightened, not from the impact of Crocodile Dundee’s escapades, or the remarkable Down Under icon, the late Steve Irwin. But when I learned via 23 and Me, that I am mostly Irish and Scottish with a smidgeon of Western Europe flowing in my veins, I became enamored with all things Irish, including the horrendous Irish Potato Famine, where Anglo-Irish landlords confiscated all of the crops grown by their tenants, and when the Potato Blight occurred several years in a row, Irish folks died by the millions of starvation and disease while their overseers remained fat and happy. Workhouses and jails were overflowing with orphans and the poor, and thieves who were incarcerated for crimes of stealing bread to feed their dying families. The Brits, forever scheming how to improve conditions on their small piece of real estate, came up with the brilliant idea of cleaning house by dumping their unwanted human refuse on their recently acquired continent; Australia, a humongous landmass; on the other side of the world, out of sight, out of mind. And so, the settling of Australia came to be, with many people who felt underserved by humanity maliciously destroying a priceless native culture, with a genocidal agenda to exterminate those they considered lower than themselves; human beings they viewed as animals. This story touches on some of these things, but it is focused on the survivors of a beautifully savage land, and the monstrous wickedness, and sanctimony of immoral people; an ancient scenario, similar in some ways to what we still suffer today. My hat is off to all survivors.
J.T. Dossett
January 2023
Chapter 1
THE IRISH PROBLEM
Curtains of rain fell over Dublin, as gales from the Irish Sea bullied emaciated pedestrians, uprooted trees, and loosened flapping shutters. It was hours before sunup, but the deluge was sure to veil that event. Flashes of lightning periodically revealed the colossal building on St. James Street, The Dublin County Union Workhouse. This edifice and others across Ireland were recognized as sanctuaries for paupers and there was an entire nation of paupers during the Irish Potato Famine, the core source of starvation, misery and despair, and the cruel deaths of over a million people.
This heinous incident could have been avoided had the Protestant Anglo/Irish landowners (English who had settled Ireland many years before) not sold off all of their tenant’s crops; oats, barley, wheat, and livestock and shipped them to England. The tenants were dependent on potatoes as their main source of sustenance, but the potato crops continually failed, and starvation was so ubiquitous that victims resorted to eating grass to soothe their empty bellies.
History proves that the English failed to assist the Irish because they were too busy tight fisting their grip on resources and money. As part of the English Poor Law System, workhouses, like the 163 buildings in Dublin were established to soften the wretched assault of raging poverty in the country. These attempts failed miserably as the "prisoners" worked 16 hours a day at difficult, monotonous jobs.
A few of the inmates were able to gaze briefly from the tiny windows to view Dublin, laughingly referred to by some as "One of the Crown Jewels of the British Empire" and they turned their heads quickly in disgust at the sight. They were further reminded of the misery when the odious stench filtered through the walls; the bouquet of the streets of Dublin filled with decay from putrescible matter, the rancid aroma that blended with the stink of dead bodies on carts and in the alleyways.

Despite the plink, plink, plink, of water dripping from the moldy ceiling into buckets and bowls, the coughing of the sickly, the moaning of the mentally ill, exhausted residents of the ward slept, albeit fitfully.
Maeve Dannaher hugged the edge of the bed she shared with her sister, Emer and two fat girls from Limerick. Emer spooned close to Maeve’s back for comfort and to avoid a kick or well-placed elbow from the corpulent bed mate next to her. She and Maeve were perplexed at how anyone could be chubby in this dire time of famine, but they giggled up their sleeves of their ragged smocks when they witnessed the two stout girls gobble down the meager servings of thin soup, sparingly laced with onions, or something that looked like scraps of vegetables, and made their way down the long table, demanding to lick the bowls of those who’d already finished their "meals." The Limerick piggies were bullies other than at the trough too. Earlier in the evening, they threatened to kick the sisters out of bed if Emer did not cease moaning.

Emer was miserable. "Maeve, me hands are bloody and burnin’ do you think I am goin’ to die, like Ma?" One of the bedmates rolled over restlessly and issued a sinister threat as Maeve took her little sister into her arms and rocked her gently.
"There, there, sister, Ma was a lot worse off than ye," she whispered in Emer’s ear, and smoothed her stringy hair across her sweaty forehead. Emer gasped in pain as Maeve examined her hands which were raw and bleeding from picking tar embedded in the rough hemp rope used for mooring ships. Maeve tightened her grip on her sister and cringed, not entirely from the suffering of her beloved one, but also from the memory of her mother’s ignoble passing on the side of the road.
Their father and the boys were smashing rocks to bits with sledgehammers, and the woman and children were placing the stones in the roadbed jigsaw puzzle when their mother, Colleen cut her finger deeply on a sharp stone. No medication or proper treatment was available for the injury, and the weakened woman died of sepsis about two weeks subsequent to the incident. Later, their father, Fearghus, was crazy with grief, when he knocked the teeth from the heads of two Gombeen men, (stooges for the landlord) who had come this fateful day to evict him and his family from their shoddy dwelling. Members of the Irish Constabulary (flunkies for the English) delivered him to Kilmainham Gaol, where he subsequently died from disease. The boys and their sisters were sent to the workhouse, but the sons of Fearghus Dannaher did not stay long when they were evicted for fighting and insubordination. The mean streets and filthy alleys were their home, and they worked on the docks, with the shared dreams of sailing to America, and sending for their sisters later. Alternatively, they added to their meager coffers with booty from thievery and petty crimes. Finally, after two years of scrimping amid much sacrifice, they had cobbled together money for passage to America and were eager to share their good fortune with their siblings.

Maeve and Emer were awakened by what they thought was a sharp crack of lightning. The commotion was actually caused when Mrs. O’Reilly, announced her entrance by striking her shillelagh, made from a stout, knotty blackthorn stick, against the wall. She was old and bent, but not crippled, carrying the cane as a threat