December 6th, 1847: Tightening hunger, pitiless evictions and growing violence form a vicious circle.Three families - 23 people - are removed from the property of J.M. Walsh, a Tipperary magistrate. The occupant of one cabin is so ill that the sheriff hesitates to carry out his orders. But Mr Walsh is inexorable. The sick man is placed in a piggery while his house is levelled. The roof of the outhouse is then removed. The man remains in the open air for two days until death puts an end to his sufferings.
In Kilmastulla, 47 people are evicted. They squat in dykes and glens, "burrowing in the earth for shelter, victims to every inclemency of the weather".
In "consolidation clearances" in Co Leitrim, a detachment of military from Mohill and 50 policemen assist in dispossessing 55 men, women and children. Ten dwellings are burned to the ground. The landlord refuses to accept rent from any tenant holding under 20 acres.
The Wexford Independent reports that some landlords are taking advantage of the helpless condition of their tenants to evict them.
In west Clare, 800 families have no means of support "except by second digging the potato fields for the purpose of collecting a scanty meal, at which work they may be seen engaged in groups of one to two hundred". Kilrush workhouse is attacked by 600 hungry people refused admission; they are driven away by military and police with fixed bayonets.
In east Clare, magistrates apply for more police in Tulla and for a barracks in Feakle. Constables remove a placard announcing a meeting at Meelick Pike "for the purpose of demanding relief or employ", and signed "your true and loyal brethren until death".
Famine has returned to Kilfenora, where two people have died of starvation and great numbers are subsisting on cabbages and turnips.
Fever is reported from Tullamore, King's County, where destitution has caused several deaths. The bad food - diseased turnips and weeds - on which the poor try to subsist is the chief cause of the increased sickness.
Bands of armed men prowl the Tipperary countryside at night, while "an organised body of conspirators has suddenly sprung into existence" in Co Sligo. Bailiffs are attacked in south Armagh; a would-be informer is murdered in Co Tipperary; a steward is shot dead in Scarriff. In Cappamore, Co Limerick, four men stone a rich farmer and money-lender to death.
The Nation is appalled at the growing number of cruel murders. But a new Irish Coercion Bill is no remedy: "Like all injustice, it will widen the circle of sympathy with the crime it is provided to arrest."
A special commission is to try prisoners in Limerick, Clare, Tipperary and Roscommon - where up to 700 families have been evicted.