August 30th, 1847: The soupkitchen operation is being wound down.
On August 15th, the Treasury ordered that the distribution of rations by public relief committees was to cease in 55 Poor Law unions, mainly in the east and midlands.
It ended in the remaining unions yesterday, except for the 26 poorest unions where assistance may continue until September 30th.
The Catholic chaplain consecrates a quarry near Westport workhouse for use as a mass grave. Bailiffs enter Ballina poorhouse and seize goods in distraint for debt.
The Quakers warn that the coming period is likely to be catastrophic for the poor. Jonathan Pim fears "the new Poor Law may not be found capable of preventing a severe pressure and grievous suffering in many places".
He reports the death of a Cork Friend, Abraham Beale: "The constant anxiety, together with the painful effect on his mind of tales of sorrow beyond his power to relieve, was too much for him."
The harvest employment is temporary, Joseph Bewley points out, "and we continue to look forward with considerable apprehension to the approaching period when the demand for labour will be so abridged as to leave without the means of subsistence that large proportion of our rural population, who have been heretofore accustomed to live for a considerable part of the year solely on the produce of their potato ground.
"In dealing with this state of things, great difficulties will be experienced; in the first place, to preserve from starvation those who are really destitute, and in the next place to administer the required help in a way as little calculated as possible to foster habits of idleness and dependence on others."
The Nation has accused the Catholic Church of not speaking out against the "murder" of its people. While discharging their local duties "with a devotion unsurpassed in the annals of martyrdom", the priests should have excoriated the non-interventionist policy of the government, thunders an increasingly agitated John Mitchel.
"Did this gentleman ever read any of the thousand letters of the Catholic priesthood complaining of the murder of their parishioners by starvation?" asks Father James Fitzpatrick, of Castletownroche.
"The Catholic clergy took every opportunity, publicly and privately, of denouncing the criminal policy of the Whigs." But by raising their voice against oppression they are accused of inciting the people to crime.
According to the Viceroy, Lord Clarendon: "The priests are everywhere behaving ill and are bitterly hostile to the government whom they accuse of starving the people, etc., nor is it much to be wondered at for they are in great distress and consequently in bad humour; they must have some cry wherewith to excite the people."