We Lost Wee Jack: The Death of a Boy in Post Famine Ulster

On 29 June 1857, John Brett Johnston, the three year old son of William and Harriet Johnston, died after an extended illness. This was not uncommon. Staggering numbers of children died in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland, particularly in the Great Famine. What makes Wee Jack's passing noteworthy are the remarkable sources we have to examine the family dynamics surrounding his death. Using William Johnston's diary entries and a contemporary novel that he wrote, as well as Harriet's published poetry, this talk features a close look at wee Jack's last few months, detailing the ways that the Johnston's evangelical Protestantism offered consolation for their loss and the real limits of that consolation. In so doing, it offers a more humane look at a figure, William, Johnston of Ballykilbeg, who is often viewed through his Orange politics.