To Remember The Unprotected

For centuries, epileptics were looked on as creatures to be shut away.

They were thought to be possessed by demons at one time, their seizures a sign of the devil's torment. Such people were too dangerous to  mingle with the population at large. During the height of the witch hunts, women with seizure disorders were burned at the stake.

Eliza Davis was an epileptic who might have been abandoned by her mother at a foundling home in Dublin. Coming from such a grim background, her only hope in life was to land a job as a servant.

At the age of 17, she was hired by a farmer. Being an unprotected female with no rights, she was either seduced or raped by her employer, who refused to marry her because he didn't have to. A Catholic man was not obliged to make an honest woman of a Protestant in the Ireland of the 1840's.

Fired from her job, with an infant to care for, Eliza was turned away from the workhouse. They didn't want an epileptic mingling with the rest of the destitute.

At some point, Eliza's child drowned and she was charged with murder. Whether she killed the child in desperation or it was an accident, history does not say. What we do know is that the woman was sentenced to hang, appealed her sentence, and was transported to Tasmania, England's favorite dumping ground for the undesired and unprotected who had no means to protest the injustice.

As it turned out, Eliza Davis made a new life for herself once she was put in a place where she had a better chance than Dublin. She married twice, produced nine children, and made her mark as a midwife.

Gail Mulhern will watch a play tonight in Wicklow Gaol, where her great-great-grandmother awaited transportation. The former jail is now a museum that would like to tell the stories of the thousands of women who were shipped off to the dry arse of the earth.

Looking for a writing prompt? In need of the bones of a story of hardship and redemption and ultimate triumph? Write about Eliza Davis. All that you need to flesh out the tale can be found in historical records and a touch of imagination.