Death by Starvation - The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)
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When O'Brien left the Assembly, he was accompanied by his friends; and there was an end of the Repeal Association, save as a machinery of securing offices for O'Connell's dependants. Even for that purpose it was not efficient; because it had too clearly become impotent and hollow; there was no danger in it; and Ministers would not buy a patriot in that market unless at a very low figure.
In the meantime, the famine and the fever raged: many landlords regained possession without so much as an ejectment, because the tenants died of hunger; and the county Coroners, before the end of this year, were beginning to strike work—they were so often called to sit upon famine-slain corpses. The verdict,—"Death by Starvation,"—became so familiar that the county newspapers sometimes omitted to record it; and travellers were often appalled when they came upon some lonely village by the western coast, with the people all skeletons upon their own hearths. Irish landlords are not all monsters of cruelty. Thousands of them, indeed, kept far away from the scene, collected their rents through agents and bailiffs, and spent them in England or in Paris. But the resident landlords and their families did, in many cases, devote themselves to the task of saving their poor people alive. Many remitted their rents, or half their rents; and ladies kept their servants busy and their kitchens smoking with continual preparation of food for the poor. Local Committees soon purchased all the corn in the government depots (at market price, however), and distributed it gratuitously. Clergymen, both Protestant and Catholic, I am glad to testify, generally did their duty; except those absentee clergymen, bishops, and wealthy rectors, who usually reside in England, their services being not needed in the places from whence they draw their wealth. But many a poor rector and his curate shared their crust with their suffering neighbours and priests, after going round all day administering Extreme Unction to whole villages at once, all dying of mere starvation, often themselves went supperless to bed.
The Western and South-western coast, from Derry round to Cork, is surely the most varied and beautiful coast in all the world. Great harbours, backed by noble ranges of mountains, open all around the Western coast of Munster, till you come to the Shannon's mouth: there is a fine navigable river opening up the most bounteously fertile land in the island—Limerick and Tipperary. North of the Shannon, huge cliff-walls, rising eight hundred feet sheer out of deep water, broken by chasms and pierced by sea-caves, "with high embowed roof," like the choir ...continue reading »
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