210 
Reclamation of Bog and Moorland in Gahcay. 
ment Valuation of Ireland,' on which all county and poor 
rates are levied. The valuation of Galway was made in 1854. 
The Barony of Ballinahinch in the district of Connemara 
contains 191,432 a. 2 r. 4 p., and is valued at 17,756/. 2s. ^ 
being an average of Is. \Q\d. per acre. The land at Kylemore, 
however, is below the average rate of the barony, 9252 statute 
acres being only valued at 639/., that is, at the rate of Is. 4|-f/. 
per acre. It originally formed a portion of the Blake estate. 
In the time of the famine it suffered more than other parts of 
Ireland, in consequence of its isolation. The relief works were 
at a distance ; the poor people remained on their bits of land as 
long as they could get anything to keep body and soul together ;. 
food was not brought to the starving families ; and when at length 
they were forced to leave their homes, they were not strong 
enough to travel, but dropped and died upon the hills before 
they could reach the relief stations. Looking down upon a large 
field recently ploughed at Mullaghglass, we asked Mr. JNlac- 
Alister the reason of its appearing cut up into numerous strips 
and squares of varying quality. The explanation brought most 
vividly before the mind the painful history of the periodical 
famines that culminated in 1847. It was originally a township, 
with a cabin standing upon every land. The plots still give 
some evidence of the varying industry with which the tenant 
dug his peat and grew his potatoes. The township was de- 
jiopulated by famine, when many died and others left ; twice 
afterwards it was repeopled, but the new comers were again 
driven away by failure of their crops. Now all the cabins are 
gone, the site of the township having been let as a beach-farm 
to a grazier before it came into the possession of the present 
owner. In a similar way a great part of the Kylemore property 
had been converted into grazing land, and Mr. Henry was al^lc 
to secure 4000 acres of land almost without a tenant upon it. 
This has been of the greatest importance, for no tenant has been 
turned out to facilitate the reclamations, and care has been 
taken to leave the hearth-stones undisturbed, in accordance with 
local prejudices. Shortly after the famine, Archdeacon Wilbcr- 
force purchased 8000 acres, through the Encumbered Estates 
L'ourt ; he let the greater part of the land as a grazing farm to 
Mr. St. J. C. Clowes, working himself as a Catholic priest 
among the peasantry then remaining Avhile building cottages for 
them as their landlord. On a part of the site of the old village of 
Mullaghglass he erected thirty cottages of stone and larch timber, 
at an average cost of 17/. each. The remaining part of this 
township was let to a grazier, shortly before the whole property 
was purchased by the present owner. 
