The following actual happenings, reported in the metropolitan and provincial Press of Ireland in the Spring of 1848’, are only a few, and not the most horrifying, selected from hundreds taking place daily that year and the year before and the two years that followed, all over the country; end there were many more terrible happenings that never found their way into print at all. Remember as you read them that they took place in the most fertile country in Europe, in a country that produced during all that time sufficient food for double the number of its people. And as von read and remember perhaps you will understand a little of the hot anger and hatred of injustice that burned in the heart of John Mitchel until his dying day, because of the sights his eyes had seen, the sounds his ears had heard, when the British Empire’s Sword of Starvation was drawn from its sheath to kill and maim and exterminate the defenceless people of Ireland.

Writing from Cliffden, Co. Galway, to the Freeman’s Journal, under date February Il, 1848, Rev. Peter Fitzmaurice, P.P., said :—-“ I am sure my readers, though shocked, will not deem it exaggerated, when I certify to the fact of some persons in these parishes living on horse flesh for days, nay nit that of dogs, until death put an end to their sufferings,”

In February, 1848, the Limerick Chronicle had this item of news :—-“ At Tulla, Co. Clare, an inquest has been held on the bodies of one man and two women, named Boland, who had died of starvation. Five or six weeks before their death everything they possessed had been seized for rates, since which time they had never lain on a bed. They held over twenty acres of ground from Col. Windham.”

In February, 1848, the Waterford Mail reported five inquests held on poor people who had fallen down suddenly and died. The verdict in each case was “ Death from Starvation.”

The Galway Vindicator, February 12, 1848, had this paragraph :—“ It is our painful duty to announce the murder of one hundred in our poorhouses, gaols and hospitals. In Connemara, in the neighbourhood of Roundstone, six dead bodies have been for days over-ground, no persons being able to perform the sad rites of burial.’’

We have tn-day in our county prison,” wrote the same paper a few weeks later, “997 prisoners, in a house originally built for the reception of only 110 inmates. The number of deaths in the gaol are 25 since Sunday last, and 116 since the first of the month. Our poorhouse, originally intended for 800, now contains 1,105, with 242 in hospital, and 30 deaths during the week. The fever hospital is filled to overflowing, and there were 73 deaths during the week, or an average of 11 per day. Our town gaol contains 136 prisoners, although intended for 64.” Let it he remembered that the crime committed by most of the prisoners mentioned was the taking of turnips, marigolds and parsnips from farmers’ fields, to relieve the pangs of hunger.

The Cork Examiner of February 25, 1848, carried a report from a correspondent in Donoughmore, giving sickening details of how little children, distracted mothers and men worn to skin and bone by hunger were dying day by day. The correspond-

ent added :—“ I am of opinion that I will have to report the death of twice as many before another week, and the principal cause is, that the small pittance allowed by the law, of one pound of meal for each adult per day, and half a pound for each under nine years of age, has been curtailed by the Board of Guardians about one third. This is for economy, 1 suppose. This, sir, is a melancholy state of things, when food is so very cheap; but we do not know where to apply for redress. If report be true, one of our Guardians has been heard to say that Ireland will not prosper until another million of the wretched die.’

The Tuam Herald told of a starving family who died after eating portion of the putrid flesh of a dead donkey they had found by the roadside.

A local paper reported :—“ Longford Gaol is filled to excess with famine victims, who have been committed to take their trial for the stealing of cabbage and turnips. Fever and dysentry prevail in the gaol o an alarming extent. It at present contains more than three times the number of persons it was originally intended to accommodate.”

The Sligo Champion published a letter from Rev. Fr. Henry, Bunenaden, Ballymote, in March, 1848, in which he gave a list of 24 deaths that had occurred in his parish within ten days. He wrote :—“ Every person living in the townlands where these deaths have occurred can testify that in every case starvation was the cause of death. In none of the cases was there any means of procuring a coffin. I reported the deaths to the police, in order that they would call for a coroner’s inquest. They told me that they were not allowed to call on a coroner in cases where there was no doubt that starvation was the cause of death.”

That order was probably given to the police after several juries had brought in a verdict of wilful murder against Lord Clarendon, the Lord Lieutenant, and Lord John Russell, Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister—the Wings were then in power. They hadn’t progressed so far towards justice and freedom in those days as to stop coroners’ inquests altogether in such awkward cases.

Early in March, 1848, the Mayo Constitution said in its editorial columns

“ We have learned, from various quarters, during the past week, the most shocking accounts of the misery and sufferings of hundreds of wretches who are sinking into untimely graves, the victims of disease and hunger. It is almost unnecessary to particularise localities, for in every direction we find the general plaint of hunger. The streets of every town in the county are overrun by stalking skeletons. The several poorhouses are crammed to suffocation. Our county prison is thrice filled with perpetrators of petty thefts. While this state of things exists, thousands of pounds are being weekly expended in outdoor relief.” The editor did not say that most of the money so expended went into the pockets of overbearing officials, on reports, in printing, and on every possible form of red tape. When “ economies had to be effected, they were always made at the expense of the starving people.

A CRUCIFED PEOPLE.

In the week ending March 18, 148, deaths from hunger were reported from Limerick, Westmeath, Galway, Tipperary, Cork, Kerry, Mayo, and other Counties. Some were buried in turf banks or the nearest convenient place, because there was no one strong enough to carry the coffinless bodies to a graveyard. One paper told of a poor woman who carried her dead boy in a rope to a place of burial; and the Mayo Telegraph had this news item :—“ Died at Kilmeena, of want, this week, Austin Heraghty. This poor man had been deprived of his scanty allowance of meal during seven days, for having absented himself one day from the stone- breaking depot! He was that day engaged in seeking out some asylum for the ensuing week; and when he found one, the poor, heart-broken man had to carry his sick children on his back to their new quarters. Needless to add, he had to assist in throwing down his own cabin before he would get a morsel of food.”

In his Lenten Pastoral that year Most Rev. Dr. Derry, Bishop of Clonfern, said :—“ In almost every parish the work of extermination is ruthlessly carried on. The smoking ruins of 31 dwelling houses in one townland—all levelled in one day—lately filled our hearts with anguish; and on our inquiring the fate of the unhappy outcasts, we have learned that for a time they clung to the ruins, that their exposure during the snow brought on sickness, and that some, with limbs already mortified, ultimately sought refuge in the Union workhouse.”

At the end of March, 1848, the Galway Vindicator reported:—” Rev. George Commins, P.P., chaplain of the county prison, submitted to the Grand Jury an appalling statement. He said that for the last week, up to 8 o’clock on Sunday morning, no fewer than 48 deaths had taken place, of which five had died last night; that instances occurred where persons died without the benefit of a clergyman, owing to their having been brought in in a dying state, and placed on the cold flags,• there being no other accommodation for them; that the hospital, which was only built to contain a few dozen, had on the day before 149 within its walls; that there are upwards of 1,000 at present in the prison, and that 266 deaths had taken place since the 1st of February.”

The people mentioned by Fr. Commins were not patients brought in with loving care to be nursed back to health and strength, but prisoners who, whether well or ill, would, if they lived, be brought before the courts as thieves and robbers, because they had taken a few turnips, or some such substitute for the food England had robbed from them; and when found guilty, would be transported to some penal prison abroad to consort with and he contaminated by moral degenerates from the cities of England. Death on the cold flagstones of Galway Prison was for them a happy release.

The United Irishman 01 March 8, 1848, quoting from provincial papers, announced that in a few days 762 men, women and children, had been evicted and their poor homes burned to the ground, or otherwise destroyed, by the Stackpools, the Ventrys, the Lloyds, and other landlords carrying out their own desire and the wishes of the British Government for the sweeping away of Ireland’s “ surplus population.”

The Tipperary Vindicator, the Cork Examiner, the Ttmam Herald, the Mayo Constitution, the Galway Mercury and other papers, published in the last weeks of May, 1848, heart-rending accounts of the misery and suffering to which thousands were being subjected by inhuman landlords, subservient lawyers, brutal or indifferent police, guarded by military arnied to the teeth, and a horde of greedy officials, all acting for the British Government. In a description of conditions in Skibbereen district the Cork Examiner wrote :—“ It is utterly impossible to give even an outline of the wretchedness and misery that surround us here. Our town presents nothing but a moving mass of military and police, conveying to and from the courthouse crowds of famine culprits. I attended the court for a few hours this day. The dock was crowded with prisoners, not one of whom, when called up for trial, was able to support himself in front of the dock. The sentence of the court was received by each prisoner with apparent satisfaction. Even transportation appeared to many to be a relaxation from their sufferings.”