Madam, – In Michael Harding’s piece (“An Ireland as real as Peig Sayers’ cottage – but different”, Summer Living, August 24th), he notes that the third Earl of Rosse, even with the aid of his mighty Leviathan, then the largest telescope in the world, could not foresee the Famine of 1845.
In fact, William Parsons, the third Earl, one of our more visionary landlords and great scientists, had foreseen the Famine. The records of the Agricultural Society of Parsonstown (Birr) in 1843 note that Lord Rosse had expressed concern about the alarming increase in population and sub-division and warned that “a year of scarcity would at length come, and with it, a visitation of the most awful famine, such as the history of the world affords very many examples of, a famine followed by a pestilence, when the utmost exertion of the landlords of Ireland, of the government, and of the legislature, aided by the unbounded generosity of the people of England . . . would be totally inadequate to avert the most fearful calamities”.
He may have have been wrong about “the unbounded generosity” but he had the rest right . . . even without the aid of his magnificent telescope.