Category : Stories

Sub Category : Historical Fiction

Many years ago our ancestors only safety net from starvation was the workhouses, who took in those who fell by the wayside. Every workhouse had an oversee'r and a church warden. The oversee'r looked after the worker's, and the church warden, or guardian, looked after the meager account's given to the workhouse from parish church funds.
The church warden of the local workhouse lived in the village of Tyrrellspass in 1865, a pale and pallid man they say, from year's in his office with his nose in everyone else's buisness, and they called him ould godsend because of his frequent invocations of the Almighty, and his importance came from having control of parish funds.
In those days it was a tightfisted operation with meager funds for the care of the poor, that one more beggar, or child born out of wedlock could leave the parish funds in debt.
It was more often than not when a new birth was placed in the register, the father who should be responsible for it's upkeep was missing. Either he had departed from the scene, or he only had the vaguest identity in the mother's memory, or often both of these. Godsend vowed he would have no more of it and the nextime a weeping woman turned up with a bastard child for the parish to maintain he would search the whole of Ireland to discover the father making him pay his dues.
As it happened later that day a mother and her baby were admitted to the workhouse by the oversee'r who was a man who only saw to help the person in front of him regardless of the cost or circumstances, however ould godsend took over the interview and proceeded to get the whole story.
The father had often been seen around the taverns in the local village of Tyrrellspass, identified as a fisherman from Galway, who had since taken flight back to Galway.
Ould godsend got his overseer and two special constables to make the journey to Galway by horse and carriage, the two special constables knew the fisherman by sight.
It was a long tedious journey but they didn't have long to look as they found and confronted the fisherman when they spotted him in the fifth tavern they visited. Cornered by the two special constables, two big men the fisherman gave up and was placed under arrest. 
So pleased was ould godsend that he ordered a room at the tavern where both constables could gaurd the prisoner, while the oversee'r and himself could celebrate by going to see a play. While they were at the play the fisherman's friends encouraged the two constables to bring out the fisherman along with themselves to drink and have the craic with them at the bar. Both being men partial to a sup of porter readily agreed releasing the prisoner to join them at the bar. No sooner would the constables have a pint of porter placed in their hand, till another was placed in front of them and before long both constables were mouldy drunk. The fishermen carried both up to the room and placed them side by side upon the bed.
On their return from the play the deleriously happy godsend was to turn to Fury on finding only his two drunk special constables, laying side by side upon the bed, the prisoner now far out to sea on a fishing boat. Poor awl godsend had to go back to his parish to admit defeat and a complete waste of parish funds, they said he was never quiet the same man after.