SEPTEMBER 21st, 1846: A Mayo priest finds it difficult to witness the sufferings of his people. Father Peter Conway, of Partry, regrets being unable to feed them.
Writing from Louisburgh, Father Patrick MacManus estimates that a great number of the 12,000 population require employment. It is frivolous to exclude people on the verge of starvation from public works unless they have tickets.
A police report from Ferbane, King's County, asserts that, although generally considered troublesome, the labourers of the district appear grateful for all that has been done to provide employment and food for them.
Jonas Studdert, a west Clare proprietor, says want of money has already induced many to plunder the potato fields of their neighbours. Kilkee resort is crowded in summer but forsaken in winter. The poor who have flocked in from the surrounding countryside are now without food, employment or any support.
In Carrigeen, Co Kilkenny, farmers contribute £45 to a relief fund compared with the landlords £26. The redoubtable John Smith, of Clifden, Co Galway, asks the authorities: "Can I believe that you will allow thousands to starve from your negligence? ... We have daily men carried off the road from absolute starvation ... How long is mismanagement to exist?"
Thomas Tully, a Poor Law guardian in the Loughrea union, complains about extortioners who are exacting from the poor a security to pay 50 per cent above the market price of food.
Ballyhogue relief committee, Co Wexford, tells of poor families which brought waste land into cultivation but are destitute since the loss of the potato crop. "Some families have no one to earn for them yet won't take workhouse relief, fearing that when they get out they would not have land or cabin to go into."
C.K. O'Hara, the principal landlord in his part of Co Sligo, has employed 350 men and spent £500 on meal during the last six months. His funds are exhausted and he cannot support the poor of other estates.
Father John Golden PP writes from Kildorrery, Co Cork: "The district is generally wretchedly poor and very densely inhabited and with two exceptions, Mr Oliver and Mr Bowen, has no resident gentry. I feel the greatest alarm and uneasiness respecting the preservation of the peace if something is not immediately done for us.
J.J. Heard, Justice of the Peace and chairman of Kinsale relief committee, warns that the people must starve or plunder unless they are employed. A meeting of labourers dispersed at his suggestion, "but made no secret of their determination to help themselves if they were not enabled to procure food by their labour".