Great numbers were in a starving condition in the southern and western
counties, and in districts of Ulster also. A correspondent of the London
_Morning Chronicle_, writing from Limerick under date of the 16th of
April, says: "The whole of yesterday I spent in running from hut to hut
on the right bank of the Shannon. The peasantry there were in an awful
condition. In many cases they had not even a rotten potato left. They
have consumed even the seed potatoes, unable any longer to resist the
pangs of hunger." The Rev. Mr. Doyle, of Graig, in the county Kilkenny,
writing on the 13th of April, says, he had made a visitation of his
parish and found five hundred and eighty-three distressed families,
comprising two thousand seven hundred and thirty individuals; of this
number fifty-one had constant employment, two hundred and seventy none
at all; the rest got occasional work; three-fourths of the whole had not
three days' provisions. Sir Lucius O'Brien, (afterwards Lord Inchiquin),
as Chairman of the Ennis Board of Guardians, took occasion to remark,
"on the heartlessness of some of the Dublin papers, when speaking of the
famine." "Everyone acquainted with the country, knew," he said, "that at
this moment the people are in many places starving."[95]
The people assembled in considerable numbers in parts of the South
calling for food or employment. A man died of starvation on the public
works in Limerick. At a meeting in Newry for the purpose of taking
measures against the scarcity, and whilst some were denying its
existence in that locality, the Right Rev. Dr. Blake, the Catholic
bishop, said, that since he had entered the meeting, a letter had been
handed to him stating that a person had just died of starvation in High
Street. In April and May potatoes had risen to a famine price in the
provinces. They were quoted in Galway and Tuam at 6d. a stone, but in
reality, as the local journals remarked, the price was double that, as
not more than one-half of those bought could be used for food.
The humane and philanthropic, who went about endeavouring to save the
lives of the people, often asked, as they travelled through the country,
"Are the landlords making any efforts? "The common answer was, with very
rare exceptions, "None whatever." The correspondent of a Dublin
newspaper,[96] writing from Cashel, quotes a notice he had copied in
Cahir, which was posted all about the town.
It ran thus:--"The tenantry on the Earl of Glengall's estate, residing
in the manor of Cahir, are requested to pay into my office on the 12th
of May, all rent and arrears of rent due up to the 25th of March,
otherwise the most summary steps will be taken to recover same.
"JOHN CHAYTOR,
"1st April, 1846."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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