What people ate
Food
The inhabitants of the city had been laying up supplies for months before the siege began and although Lundy had declared the official storehouses almost empty, there were large quantities of food in private houses where people had even used bags of oatmeal to protect interiors against cannonballs. Thus, at the beginning of the siege, people probably enjoyed a relatively normal diet, although food was soon put in a central store and doled out in rations.
This means in practical terms that oatmeal, meat, poultry, cheese, eggs, milk and butter were available. Indeed the abundance of food in Ulster before the War was such that the price of beef, lamb, poultry and pork was lower than elsewhere. The staple diet of the defenders was oats, the cereal preferred both by native Irish and Ulster Scots farmers since it grows well even in a wet, cool climate. A bag of oatmeal was light, easily transported and quickly cooked. It could also be eaten uncooked with water or milk. There are no references to potatoes in the siege sources and potatoes were to become the staple food of the island only as the 18th century wore on.
Londonderry was an area rich in cattle and in the early stages, since the siege was not strict, the defenders were able to heard cattle into an area beneath the walls surrounded by earthworks. Fresh meat was therefore available and plentiful supplies of salt ensured that it could be conserved. This was not the case for the Jacobites outside the walls who plundered enormous quantities of beef cattle which rapidly went bad for lack of salt, thus causing both waste and food-poisoning.
At the beginning of the siege the Williamite cavalry commander Adam Murray carried out a raid on the salmon fisheries belonging to Lord Masserene, a leader of the Williamite faction who had fled the country. This took a large quantity of salted salmon out of enemy reach and into the city where it stood the garrison in good stead. A diet based on such a rich, salty component must, however have quickly tired the palate. We know from Walker that people attempted to catch fish in the River Foyle close to the walls.
Fresh vegetables and fruit must have been in short supply right from the beginning and in the later stages of the siege people scoured the city and its environs for edible herbs and seaweed. Dried peas were a common commodity in the 17th century but these must soon have run out.
As the Jacobite encirclement became tighter the besiegers drove the cattle off and cut off food supplies entering the town and hunger set in. There was so little hay inside the walls that most of the horses had to be turned loose to graze and were taken by the French and Irish troops.
The unsanitary conditions exacerbated by summer sun, began to take their toll. The Jacobites drew down the complaints of the Williamites for failing to bury their dead properly and hungry animals dug up and dined on the corpses. Camp fever broke out and quickly spread through both the Jacobite and Williamite troops. Those inside the overpopulated walls had no way of getting rid of waste - including dead bodies - other than dumping it in the cellar or back yard and bombs tore up graves in the cathedral and the corpses had to be hastily re-interred. Other bombs caused extensive damage, in one case spreading golden syrup all over the place and in another throwing up an important supply of hidden oatmeal.
By mid June conditions inside the walls began to deteriorate rapidly. Supplies were getting scarce and the arrival of a Williamite relief force in Lough Foyle must have persuaded many that relief was nigh and that eating up the remaining supplies would cause few problems. When the fleet then sailed off, failing to make any attempt at relief for almost six weeks, the physical and psychological effect must have been devastating.
Firewood was running out and people were forced to eat everything uncooked including meat and oats. In Michelburne's play Ireland Preserv'd a soldier eats his tiny ration of oats in the palm of his hand with some cold water and chews on tobacco to stave off thirst and military governor John Michelburne invites ladies to dinner and serves them up an old horses head. Even his own old dog is raw material for the pot. In the Jacobite camp the soldiers staple diet was also oatmeal which the Irish traditionally ate with buttermilk. Butter was, instead, a luxury commodity.
Prices rocketed on the simplest of commodities and obviously those who had more money could buy themselves added extras from a soldier's booty or an adventurous huntsman's or fisherman's catch. In the last weeks of the siege food rations were reduced to half and then to a quarter.
Joseph Aikin, the local doctor who lived through the siege and penned the Homeric poem "Londerias", graphically describes the plight of those within the walls and, in so doing, lists some unusual victuals.
About this time a raging fever reign'd,
Which multitudes of the town's people drain'd,
It was occasioned by the want of food,
And uncouth diet which inflam'd the blood.
For some eat starch, others on tallow live,
At length for victuals the ox-hide they give.
And some eat dogs, others on horses fed,
The sprightly geldings to the slaughter led.
A cat's a lady's feast tho' ne'er so thin,
Though you might count all the ribs in her skin.
A swallow's sold for eighteen pence and more;
Then you may judge what became of the poor.
Governor Walker, who took charge of the civil administration and food stores, in listing the cost of foodstuffs during the later stages of the beleaguer, even includes rats among the comestibles.
Ox hides were boiled down into a stew and an unusual final food solution was invented by Londonderry merchant James Roe Cunningham. He discovered that his store of starch (Dutch flour as it was then called) could be turned edible by mixing the starch with tallow (sheep fat used for making candles) and frying it. This unconventional pancake could be flavoured with cinnamon of which there was an abundant store in the town. It can hardly have been appetising but it certainly worked wonders for dysentery which was so common.
By the time relief finally arrived the garrison was reduced by hunger and disease to about 50% and it is likely that the civilian population suffered even more since they were made up of women, children and older people. In Michelburne's family nucleus for example his wife, two children and mother-in -law all died. He may have lost a brother in law and his father-in-law outlived the event only by two years, leaving an orphaned son who was still a child.
The offloading of the relief ships Jerusalem and Mountjoy gives us a fair idea of what food was considered primary necessity in 1689. Their holds included oatmeal on which men gorged although it was dry and uncooked, salt beef, salt pork, chickens, peas and biscuit. (The Government in London believed that a good supply of ships biscuit and cheese - easy to transport and conserve - brought success to the Williamite Army in Ireland.) Brandy and wine were also amongst the vital commodities included. Nevertheless the after effects of the siege were felt for years in terms of availability of food. Governor John Michelburne, now an alderman, gave priority to ensuring that farmers could bring in the harvest and throughout the winter of 1689-90, in concert with the civic authorities, struggled to obtain a consignment of Cheddar cheese to feed the hungry, some of whom were widows marooned in the town after the death of their husbands. Others, like local landowner Captain Thomas Ash, returned home to find their houses burned and their livestock stolen and their fields destroyed: the daily struggle to survive without food or shelter must have been too much for many.
Drink
In the 17th Century water was considered dangerous unless it came from a clean well, so most people, including women and children, drank small beer - a weak brew with added water. We know that brewing continued until well into the siege which indicates a plentiful supply of grain to make beer with. Michelburne records that his soldiers were given a slug of brandy before going into action and wine, mum (a strong ale traditionally brewed in Brunswick with wheat) and usquebar (locally distilled whiskey) were also on the drinks list during the siege. We know that Walker was accused of hoarding mum in his house instead of putting it into the general stores and that there was a good supply of wine in poor condition which was used as vinegar to marinate horse flesh since wood for cooking fires was scarce.
Towards the end of the siege, as grain supplies ran out, brewing must have been suspended and water became the common drink of the defenders. Londonderry's wells were insufficient to supply the massive influx of refugees and soldiers with water and so they ventured as far as St Colomb's well outside the walls, often risking heavy enemy fire to draw clean water. Polluted water must have been one of the main causes of the elevated death toll from disease.
The Franco-Irish high command was presumably well supplied with good liquors. When a delegation of the besieged went out to parly they were treated to lavish hospitality including brandy and sack (sweet wine, usually from Spain like today's sherry). Alderman Mathew Cocken indulged liberally in the former. The Suttlers improvised bars set up around the Irish camp served beer and Michelburne portrays a Derry officer (perhaps Gervais Squires) penetrating the enemy lines disguised as an old wandering brandy-seller. The Colonel also employs a spy, honest Darby, who slips in and out of the city, plying his trade as a tobacco seller but bringing the governor welcome supplies of a brandy, cheese and dried herring! There must have been a roaring black-market trade.
Tea and coffee had arrived in England in the early 1650's and tea drinking was made fashionable by Charles II and his wife Catherine of Braganza. Many bought the exotic beans and dried leaves for private use along with other luxuries like raisins, sultanas, sugar and spices. Soon Coffee houses serving both beverages along with tobacco and a free read of a newspaper sprang up in major cities. Michelburne was an enthusiastic frequenter of a coffee house in Dublin where political news was rapidly exchanged although he makes reference to such a modish establishment in Londonderry. In a small a town, where fashions were slow to catch on, people would have been much more interested in the alehouse.