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FAMINES IN IRELAND. 



At Skibbereen, on Dec. 16, a man named Dono- 

 van, who could obtain no employment, walked 

 twelve miles to the nearest town to pawn his 

 shoes for bread for his family. The loaf he was 

 thus able to buy he took back under his cloak 

 through the falling snow, and fell dead at the 

 door of his cabin. The poverty was so general 

 and universal that there was no money to buy 

 coffins, and the absence of coffins generally in- 

 duced the survivors to delay burial until the 

 decomposing body poisoned the hovel and became 

 loathsome. Therefore, the people, in many in- 

 stances, buried their dead in the earthen floor 

 that they might escape both trouble and shame, 

 for the poorest felt that there was shame in de- 

 nying decent burial to their deceased relatives. 

 Besides, others had already buried the dead in 

 the fields and highways, and it was thought that 

 a resting-place by the cabin hearth was as sacred 

 as these. In a village almost depopulated by 

 famine five bodies were dragged to a kitchen 

 garden and buried in so imperfect a trench by 

 the weak survivors that the dogs (themselves 

 starving all over the island) smelled them out 

 and began to unearth them. In one cabin, in 

 Filemuck, Darby Ryan and his son died. The 

 old man's wife contrived to lay them out on 

 two panniers as decently as possible, after which 

 she died also. And when the cabin was visited, 

 the only living things found there were an 

 emaciated boy in the last stages of starvation 

 and a little skeleton babe, which vainly tried 

 to hang to the breast of its dead mother. In 

 Kinsale, out of 200 houses, there were only two 

 where there was any food. At Ballydehob, 

 in Bantry, every hovel had its dead body, and 

 every dead body the marks of famine. The 

 Rev. Richard Chenevix Trench, afterward Arch- 

 bishop of Dublin, wrote at the time : " On our 

 way home we passed the hut of the first man 

 who perished by famine in the parish. When 

 he found death staring him in the face he built 

 up the door of his hut with large stones, and 

 thus inclosing himself and his children, prepared 

 to die. No one took any notice, but some days 

 afterward one of the children contrived to re- 

 move some of these stones and creep through 

 the aperture. Crawling to some of his neigh- 

 bors, he told them that his father ' did not seem 

 to care about him and his brother,' and had now 

 ' been asleep two days.' An entrance was effected, 

 and the man and the other child found dead." 

 The writers of that time pause horror-stricken 

 at the sights they saw, and more than once re- 

 fuse to describe the condition in which the bod- 

 ies of the dead and dying were left by the starv- 

 ing rats and dogs. 



The scenes of distress during the famine of 

 1879-'80, before aid from the outside world had 

 reached the starving people, were equally terri- 

 ble. The Bishop of Elphin said concerning his 

 own parish. "There are thousands of families 

 suffering from hunger." The priests of Arran 

 Island, visiting among its villages in the early 

 winter, saw children absolutely naked shivering 

 in the fireless chimney-corners. A correspond- 

 ent of the " Freeman's Journal," who traveled 

 through the distressed districts in early Janu- 

 ary, visited hundreds of families that were wast- 

 ing away in actual starvation, existing on a 

 chance meal of stirabout (badly cooked Indian 



meal) begged from neighbors only less destitute 

 than themselves, digging the potato fields over 

 again in the hope of finding a few forgotten 

 roots, or cowering in their cabins all day in or- 

 der not to excite the pangs of hunger by exer- 

 cising. A family of nine on Dinas Island ex- 

 isted on periwinkles their potatoes gone since 

 Christmas, nothing to sow, nothing to fish with, 

 nothing to pawn ; children without a rag of 

 clothing ; sick men and women without a drop 

 of milk or tea, with hollow cheeks, lusterless 

 eyes, and broken hearts. A priest of Galway 

 said he knew a family that had not had a meal 

 for four days. Men dropped dead in the high- 

 ways and at the doors of houses where they had 

 gone to beg for aid. Swarms of the starving 

 populace from the country districts went into 

 the towns, and were seen squatting in rows 

 along the curbstones, sitting on doorsteps, wait- 

 ing and watching for food the livelong day. 

 In Killarney, a correspondent of the London 

 " Standard," leaving the main thoroughfares, 

 passed with the dispensary medical officers 

 and a priest through crowded lanes and alleys 

 where the poor were clustered thickly together. 

 " I shall never forget," he said, " the scenes of 

 poverty and wretchedness which were here 

 revealed, although I should vainly attempt 

 to describe them. In one wretched house we 

 found a family of eight persons. The father 

 had not had a day's work for two months, and 

 the mother assured us that her little ones had 

 not tasted food since the morning of the pre- 

 vious day. Huddled upon a wisp of straw that 

 lay on the damp earth, and covered only with an 

 old quilt, the hungry children had cried them- 

 selves to sleep ; but the noise of our visit dis- 

 turbed them, and they renewed their clamors and 

 piteous appeals to 'mammy 'for something to 

 eat. Not an article of furniture save a broken 

 bench was in the house ; all had been sold or 

 pawned for food. The Sisters of Mercy had 

 given them their last meal. The eldest child 

 was to go to the convent that evening, and 

 should she fail to get food the poor creatures 

 would be supperless. My companions gave this 

 destitute family the price of a supper, and we 

 went our way and saw able-bodied men lying 

 upon wretched straw couches, believing that by 

 remaining quiet they could better resist the pain 

 of the hunger that gnawed at their vitals. Fur- 

 ther on we came to the cabin of a family who 

 had once been better off, but were now reduced 

 to the lowest extremity ; and, horrible to relate, 

 the mind of the mother had given way under 

 the pangs of hunger and she had become insane." 

 Another writer says : " We visited more than 

 thirty hovels of the poor, principally in the town- 

 lands of Culmore and Cash el, in which I beheld 

 scenes of misery and wretchedness wholly inde- 

 scribable. In some of these hovels evicted fami- 

 lies had lately taken refuge, so that overcrowding 

 added to the other horrors of the situation. In 

 one hovel in the townland of Cashel, we found a 

 little child, three years old, one of a family of six, 

 apparently very ill, with no person more com- 

 petent to watch it than an idiot sister of eighteen, 

 while the mother was absent begging relief, and 

 the father in England seeking work at the har- 

 vests. In another an aged mother, also very ill, 

 lying alone, with nothing to eat except long- 



