[2] The author of this paper was the late Mr. Joseph Sabine, the Secretary to the Horticultural Society.
[3] Sir John Burgoyne’s letter to the “Times,” dated th October, 1847.
[4] The following description of the state of agriculture in West Clare, previously to the failure in the potato crop in 1845, is taken from a narrative by Captain Mann of the Royal Navy, who had for some time previously been stationed in that district, in charge of the Coast Guard, and when the distress commenced, he took an active and very useful part in assisting in the measures of relief: “Agriculture at that period was in a very neglected state; wheat, barley, and oats, with potatoes as the food of the poor, being the produce. Of the first very little was produced, and that not good in quality; barley, a larger proportion and good; oats, much greater, but inferior for milling purposes. Various reasons were given for this inferiority in produce, the quality of the land and deteriorated seed being the cause generally assigned; but I would say that the population being content with, and relying on, the produce of the potato as food—which had with very few exceptions hitherto proved abundant—there was a general neglect and want of any attempt at improvement. Green crops were all but unknown, except here and there a little turnip or mangel wurzel in the garden or field of the better class,—the former scarcely to be purchased. Even the potatoes were tilled in the easiest way, (in beds called ‘lazy beds’), not in drills, so that the hoe might in a very short time clear the weeds and lighten the soil.”
[5] We are indebted for these particulars to Mr. Mc Cullagh, who has lately collected the contemporary accounts of this famine. It appears that the farmers at this period did not dig their potatoes until about Christmas, and that few stored them at all for use.
[6] An interesting account by Mr. Bertolacci, of the manner in which this fund and that collected in 1831 were distributed, will be found in the “Morning Chronicle” of the 25th November, 1847.
[7] For the details of these operations see the following Parliamentary papers:—
“Copies of the Reports of Messrs. Griffith, Nimmo, and Killaly, the civil engineers employed during the late scarcity, in superintending the Public Works in Ireland; 16 April, 1823 (249).”
“Report from the Select Committee on the employment of the poor in Ireland; 16 July, 1823 (561).”
It is a remarkable testimony to the improvement effected by such works in the social habits of the people, that the district between the Shannon and the Blackwater, which was opened in four directions by the roads executed by Mr. Griffith, although formerly the seat of the Desmond Rebellion, and subsequently, in the year 1821, the asylum for Whiteboys and the focus of the Whiteboy warfare, during which time four regiments were required to repress outrage, became perfectly tranquil, and continued so up to the commencement of the late calamity.
[8] The following remarkable passage is extracted from the Report of the Dublin Mansion House Committee, dated the 22nd October, 1831:—