236 A LIFE'S IWlRk' IX IRELAND. 



trict in which I write is only twenty miles from 

 Skibbereen, and part of the Union was cut out of the 

 Skibbereen Union, and runs witliin ten miles of that 

 town. Every one knows wliat Skibbereen was in the 

 famine of 1846. This district was not so bad, because 

 there was less congestion of poor people from the poorer 

 districts beyond, yet the suffering and starvation in 

 it were terrible. The whole winter 1846-7 was like 

 a frightful niglitmare to those who had to go through 

 it. In the following years more than half our people 

 emigrated. Where an estate had been only neglected 

 and subdivided, with low rent and no pressure, 

 tenants being suffered to do as they liked, they 

 emigrated more than from other lands. They had 

 made a harder pressure for themselves. These spots 

 had become much the same as rabbit-warrens. I 

 knew two such cases from which nearly all went to 

 America, though the rent was a mere trifle, and no 

 pressure or restraint put on them. A large part of 

 our population were labourers. There had been 

 much emigration before the famine, so that many 

 had friends in America : tliis helped to cause 

 emigration to be looked on with liking. Our land 

 is mostly of a quality that will not yield still 

 without good manuring. So it was not easy to do 

 much here without money. We are now one of the 

 most thriving parts of the South of Ireland, and im- 

 prove yearly. The land has got into larger farms ; 

 and though the farmers only haK manure and give 



