The Cholera of 1849 in Ireland.
The cholera of 1849 found Ireland in a state of exhaustion and confusion. The fever and dysentery that followed the great potato famines of 1845 and 1846 were still far from extinct; the workhouses, which had not existed in 1832, were full of paupers. The mortality of nearly half a million in the famine years, and the emigration of perhaps three times as many, had reduced greatly the population of the scattered cabins, hamlets and villages; but the towns were more populous than ever from the immense number of destitute persons that had gravitated to them. In these circumstances it was not surprising that the cholera of 1849 should have been more disastrous than that of 1832. The infection appeared first in Belfast in November, 1848, in a man who had come with his family from Edinburgh and had been admitted into the workhouse. Some thirty cases of cholera among the inmates followed his death, and at length the infection was started at large in the town, probably by a man who had been discharged from the workhouse[1554]. The cholera of 1849 in the capital of Ulster was more fatal than that of 1832, causing 969 deaths in 2705 attacks. Over Ireland generally its great season appears to have been, as in England, the summer, and in part also the spring. Excepting Belfast, the principal cities and towns had fewer deaths than in 1832; Dublin having only 1664 as compared with 5632, Cork 1329, or nearly the same number as in 1832, Limerick 746, which was about a fourth less, Galway less, Waterford about the same as in 1832 and 1833 together, and Drogheda as severe an epidemic as last time. But the smaller towns and the rural districts generally suffered more. The deaths for all Ireland returned to the Board of Health were 19,325, nearly the same total as in 1832; but there were no returns included from Wicklow, Cavan, Fermanagh and Donegal, and it is probable that the returns were otherwise incomplete, the census taken in 1851 giving 30,156 cholera deaths under the year 1849, and 35,989 in the whole decennial period from 1841. The larger total was distributed as follows:
| Urban | Rural | In hospitals | In workhouses | |||
| 10,653 | 10,656 | 7964 | 6716 |
The number of rural deaths is much larger than in 1832. There were only a few towns with over 2000 inhabitants that escaped—one in Connaught, six in Munster, one out of forty-one in Leinster, while seventeen towns were visited in Ulster. The counties of Dublin, Carlow, Clare and Galway suffered most; of the smaller towns, Tralee and Dingle lost heavily, both among the poor and the rich. The town of Ballinasloe, near the confluence of the Suck with the Shannon, had 756 deaths from 23 April to 19 August, a great part of them in the workhouse. In clinical characters, the cholera of 1849 was noted in Ireland, as in Scotland and England, for the high proportion of sudden fatalities, about one-third, without the warnings of diarrhoea or the usual choleraic symptoms. It was remarked also that many children under the age of seven died of cholera, about one in ten of all ages. There was a second season in 1850, with 1768 deaths (according to the census), but hardly comparable to the return of cholera in 1833 in the country districts more particularly.