104 A LIFE'S WORK *N IRELAND. 



These things were hardly completed when the 

 famine of 1845-6 fell on us. In 1843 I went to live 

 in Ireland. It is not too much to say that the famine 

 knocked the whole previously existing social state 

 into chaos. Our tenants stood the crash much better 

 than their neighbours. There was no starvation, or 

 even want, among them. With good stock, and food 

 for stock, they easily got through 1846. Farmers 

 then had many labourers living on their farms, for 

 all of whom I provided work in draining. I do not 

 remember a single application for work from a tenant 

 whilst he held on as such. 



But the spring and summer of 1847, especi- 

 ally when it appeared that the potatoes were again 

 diseased, altogether upset most of the less well-off 

 tenants. America was the only bourne. No one 

 who has lived in Ireland can doubt that farmers with 

 their habits could not get on there without potatoes. 

 Potatoes were twisted into every thought and idea 

 they had, and they were utterly ignorant of all else, 

 except the modicum of knowledge of turnips and 

 better farming which my Scotchman had put into 

 them. The gain of even this trifle was evident in those 

 who remained, and helped them much, as it did also 

 neighbours who were near enough to copy them in 

 part. Especially it lessened the hopeless feeling 

 amongst them that it was impossible to live and 

 farm without potatoes. Still it was the common 

 saying amongst the farmers, " The landlords and the 



