THE year 1847 has gone down in Irish history as Black ’47, after it became the worst year of the Great Famine. Despite the desperation in the surrounding countryside, many Limerick businesses still flourished. One of these was Messrs Egan and McCormack brush factory on Thomas Street, which employed 250 people, writes historian Sharon Slater.
John Egan founded the brush-making business in Robert Street in Limerick City earlier in the decade and hired John McCormack as a manager. The pair opened the business on Thomas Street under their joint names about a year earlier.
In 1846, some of their fancy brushes were on display at the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland Show. These were described as Victoria, Albert, and O’Connell cloth brushes, Victoria hair brushes, newly invented comb and glossing brushes. The names and uses of some of the other bushes included curl, comb-handled, cloth, mud back, crumb, lock middle horse, carriage, spoke and craves, water, shoe and hat, hearth, toy, double and crowned banister brushes.
Everything was going well for Egan and McCormack until the night of April 2, 1847. The streets of the city were quiet, with most of the citizens tucked up in bed, when suddenly between 11 and 12 o’clock shouts of fire came from the St Michael’s parish watch.
Soon the bells of the Augustinian Chapel were tolling and a large crowd of bleary-eyed locals, many in their night dresses and gowns, gathered on Thomas Street. Here, they were accosted by the heat and light of the brush factory in flames.
The factory provided enough kindling that the inferno could not be taken under control quickly, and flames burst out of every window. The St Michael’s parish watch, a security service for Newtown Pery, soon had their fire engine on the scene and they were assisted by the City Police, Royal Horse Artillery, a troop of the 8th Hussars, fatigue and armed parties of the 55th and 59th Regiments.
Water was taken from the street mains and the fire was prevented from taking out the entire block, from Thomas Street to Roches Street, and Catherine Street to George’s Street (now O’Connell Street).
Messrs Egan and McCormack, Mr J Dwyer, Mr J Clune (master tailor), Mr P Ledger, Mr M King (a clerk in the factory), Mr Bennet, and Acting Constable Hardy all entered the building in an attempt to retrieve valuable property and papers. They became trapped as flames cut off the stairwell but escaped by leaping from high windows.
Despite preventative measures, the fire reached the grain store of Robert Wheeler, Augustinian Place, and partially burnt the top window of Mrs Hogan’s bath house on Thomas Street. The houses of Thomas Miller, Arthur Carmody, and a stable next to the factory were also ignited but kept under control by being dowsed with water by the fire engine. Francis Coghlan, a reporter with the Limerick Chronicle, rescued the two horses from the stable.
Interestingly, some of the buildings under threat from the fire were a row of thatched cottages that sat on the corner of Catherine Street and Roches Street, across the street from the fire. It was feared that a spark could be carried in the wind and set the thatch alight. Some who rendered aid that night tasked themselves with climbing on to the thatch and flinging burning particles off as they fell.
Today, these thatched cottages have been long removed from memory and seems quite odd that there was once a row of thatch in the heart of Georgian Limerick.
Finally, at five in the morning, the fire was taken under control. Only two individuals suffered injuries that required hospitalisation. Sadly, the factory was completely destroyed with all materials and machinery consumed by the flames.
Luckily, Egan and McCormack had insurance on their factory for £3,000, but this would not give immediate employment to those 250 people who now found themselves without work. Some of these probably had to resort to the already oversubscribed workhouse for aid.
As the fire broke out in the middle of the night, not everyone roused themselves to be of assistance. Two sub constables were fined £2 each for not getting out of bed to help, they claimed they had been up the previous three nights on duty.
A fine feast during the Famine
As for the factory owners, John Egan had taken advantage of St Munchin’s curse and arrived in the city 10 years earlier where he made his fortune, first by manufacturing cheap clothing and then brushes. With the disaster of the fire, Egan decided to cut his losses and take his share of the insurance claim to California.
In June 1847, a large dinner was held before his departure by the elite of Limerick business society at Cruise’s Hotel. This was still amidst the worst year of the famine but the tables were covered with “every delicacy of the season, and wines of the best vintage.” These included, but were not restricted to, mutton, lamb, soup, salmon, turbot, beef, chicken, ham, duck, new potatoes, with desserts of tarts, custards, gooseberry pie, jelly, orange marmalade, figs, raisins, and almonds. All of which could be washed it down with port, sherry, claret, and iced champagne.
Though the lack of food never reached his own personal table, John Egan was not immune to the plight of the poor during the famine. In January 1847, he allowed one of his premises on Old Clare Street to be used as a soup kitchen.
The chairman of the dinner made three toasts on the night. First to Queen Victoria, which was received with enthusiasm, while the next, to Daniel O’Connell, was “drunk in solemn silence”, and the final toast was to “the people, the true source of legitimate power”, which was warmly received.
Egan boarded the California ship and travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to Philadelphia, where he sent a letter back to Limerick in September stating that he regretted not emigrating sooner. Not satisfied in Philadelphia though, he continued his journey and headed out west.
In California, he quickly found friendship with former convict Terence Bellew MacManus. McManus had taken part in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 and was sentenced to death for treason but had his sentence reduced to transportation. He escaped from a penal colony in Australia for America in 1852. The pair met in San Francisco, a city they both came to call home. Egan remained there until his death in 1857, only 10 years after his departure from Limerick.
His business partner, John McCormack, continued in the brush manufacturing business on his own out of Catherine Place. A year after the fire he was awarded a silver medal for his exhibition of brushes at the Irish manufactures show at the Royal Dublin Society.
His endeavour to keep brush manufacturing alive in Limerick, however, was not to be. Early in the morning of August 3, 1848, his factory again succumbed to fire.
