Threatening meetings of the disemployed began to be held. Towards the end of April we read of vast crowds assembling in the neighbourhood of Drone, county Tipperary, crying aloud for food and employment. They consisted chiefly of the dismissed labourers. Their wretched emaciated children were clinging to them for sustenance, but they had not wherewith to satisfy their hunger. Large numbers also assembled near Thurles, crying out for bread and employment; they proceeded to that town, and had an interview with the head officer under the Board of Works.[263]
The news from Galway was, that the funds of the old relief committee were completely exhausted, and although it was the 5th of May, the new one had not completed the lists, so as to procure food for distribution to the unemployed destitute. Some of the public works were stopped for want of money; the labourers on the others were dismissed, with a very few exceptions. The labourers paraded the streets with a white flag bearing the inscription, "We are starving;" "Bread or employment." They conducted themselves with the utmost order.
About four hundred men who had been employed on the public works near Ballygarvan assembled and marched in procession into Cork. Having drawn up before the door of the Board of Works' office, they sent a deputation to confer with Captain Broughton, to state the distress they were suffering, in consequence of being suddenly dismissed off the works. He assured them he could do nothing for them.
The Limerick Reporter says: "On Monday morning the people of Meelick and its neighbourhood, who had been lately discharged from the public works, assembled at Ahernan Cross, to the number of two hundred, and afterwards proceeded to the residence of Mr. Delmege, J.P., of Castle Park, with whom they had an interview, declaring that they should get work; that they were ready and willing to work, but that they would not put up with nor endure the use of soup or porridge; that they could not, nor would they live upon one pound of meal in the twenty-four hours." They proceeded to the soup-kitchen of the parish, broke the boiler and all utensils belonging to the kitchen, and tore the books which contained the names of those to be relieved. Their numbers increased to about six hundred, when they proceeded to demolish the soup-kitchen at Ardnacrusha, quite close to the police barrack. The police succeeded in taking a man named Pat Griffin in the act of breaking the boiler with a large stone hammer, and succeeded in getting him into the barracks. The crowd attempted to rescue him. They broke the windows, and were demolishing the doors, when the police began to fire from within. Two men were severely wounded. The police discharged forty rounds before the people dispersed. Griffin stated that neither himself, nor many of the people assembled, had eaten any food for two or three days.
In several other places the soup-kitchens were attacked, and the boilers broken or attempted to be broken. At Kilfenora, the people carried off the boiler and threw it into a lough. So that in the matter of the new relief system, the Government were not only very slow in getting it into operation, but when they did so, it was distasteful to the people in various places. How slow they were appears from an answer given to a question asked by Lord Fitzwilliam in the House of Lords, so late as the 11th of May. On that day he asked the Government to what extent the new Act—commonly known as the Soup-kitchen Act—had been brought into operation. Lord Lansdowne, in reply, said that "there had been preparations in various places under the auspices of the relief committees, and with the aid of voluntary contributions they were putting the Act into operation; but the Act had been so recently passed, the Government had no exact information upon the subject; inquiries, however, should be instituted." The Act had become law on the 26th of February, nearly three months before; besides which, the Government were, or said they were, organizing beforehand the machinery by which it was to be carried out, and it was specially intended to take the place of the relief works, all of which had ceased on the 1st of May, so that Lord Lansdowne's reply was a very cool one under the circumstances.
Although the spring work must have absorbed a very considerable portion of the dismissed labourers, it did not absorb them all, nor anything near it; whilst those who failed to get employment, or were unfit for it, had not the new relief to turn to. The poorhouses became dangerously crowded. The poorlaw statistics of 1847 show this in a striking manner: in the beginning of the year—that is in mid-winter, a time when there is scarcely any employment—the total number receiving relief in the Irish workhouses was 52,626. One month after the dismissals of the 20th of March—namely, on the 17th of April, perhaps the very busiest period in the farmer's year—the number in the workhouses had doubled; the figure standing on that day at 104,200; being about 11,000 more than they were built to accommodate; nor did this suffer any notable diminution until the harvest came in.
The Relief Commissioners published their third report on the 17th of June, at which time 1677 electoral divisions were under the operation of the Relief Act; being 429 more than at the date of the second report, the 15th of May. They were then distributing 1,923,361 rations per day gratuitously, at an average cost of 2-1/2d. per ration; and 92,326 rations were sold, making in all 2,015,687 rations. Of the 1677 electoral divisions under the Act, 1479 had received loans or grants, 198 had not applied for any advances, and 312 had not sent in any return up to the time the report was published. The Commissioners make this calculation: If, they say, the number of rations necessary for the returns still to be received shall be in proportion to those of which we have already cognizance, the entire number of rations will be 2,388,475; and if the ordinary proportion for children at half rations be added, the number of persons to receive relief will be 2,729,684, of whom 2,622,684 will receive relief gratuitously.
The springing up of abuses under such an extensive system of relief was unavoidable, some of which the Commissioners mention in their third report. Cases occurred in which more rations were demanded than there were individuals in the whole district. Hundreds of names were struck off by the inspecting officers, including servants and men in the constant employ of persons of station and property; these latter were frequently themselves members of the committees; and in some cases the very chairmen, being magistrates, have sanctioned the issue of rations to tenants of their own of considerable holdings, possessed of live stock, and who, it was found, had paid up their last half year's rent. The intimidation attempted in various places, say the Commissioners, was generally successfully resisted, although to this there were exceptions deserving of notice. It was reported to them that the introduction of cooked food had produced the best effects on the health and appearance of the people.
An inspector asks this question: "Is a man who owns a horse, or a cow, or such things, destitute?" The Commissioners answer: "No, in the abstract; but better give him relief than to drive him to permanent destitution." On the 27th of May an inspector, who appears to have been in a state of worry and excitement, writes to head-quarters:—"Entirely deserted by the landlords and their representatives; the working of the Committee [he names a particular committee] has fallen into the hands of a class who insist on 'Universal Relief!' who will not think of scrutinizing lists to prevent fraud, and who are eager to have brothers, cousins, and dependants employed in the distribution." Alluding to the violence on the part of the people, another inspector writes: "I have spoken to the Roman Catholic Clergymen on this subject, and take this opportunity of stating that I have received great assistance from those gentlemen." Another says: "The people who ought to have an interest in checking abuses are mostly absentees, and the few who are living in the country try all they can to provide for their own tenants." Another: "All jobbing and intrigue here." Another: "A day or two since I found the wife of a coachman of a magistrate of £2,000 a year on the relief list." The Commissioners, however, were strongly of opinion that the introduction of cooked food was a great means of checking fraud.
Up to the 17th of June there were 570 electoral divisions which had received neither grant nor loan; some of these were the richest, and some were the poorest in the country. Perhaps, says the Report, the rich ones had other means, and the poor ones could not get the loan, and may have had the remains of subscriptions. The Commissioners had much difficulty in getting the accounts from committees; the clerks in rural districts were, for the most part, totally inefficient, and the weekly stipend of twenty-one shillings was not sufficient to induce any person accustomed to keep accounts to quit the towns and undertake such duties.