We brought with us a gallon measure, and a half-gallon measure. A gallon holds about seven pounds of meal, and we were to distribute our relief as nearly as we could within the bounds of the Poor Law Outdoor-relief regulations—giving no single individual more than three and a half pounds of meal.
When we had supplied the relief to all that called, we had about a hundred pounds of meal left. We decided to leave it at Father Collins’s until we would call again, which we expected to be the following week.
After breakfast, Father Collins took us to see a bed-ridden woman who was living in a cleft of a rock on a hill back of his house. He went on his hands and knees getting into her house; I went in after him in the same fashion; and there was the poor woman stretched upon flag stones covered with heath. She could not sit up to cook the measure of meal that we gave to a neighboring poor woman for her. Father Collins suggested that as we had some of the meal left, it would be no harm to give this neighboring poor woman an extra measure of it in consideration of her attendance upon the sick woman. We acted upon the suggestion, and gave the extra measure. I lost my job by doing so. Further on, I will come to the story of it.
Father Collins accompanied us to the other end of the island to take the boat for Sherkin. The walk was about three miles. We entered many houses on the way. Some of them had flags for doors—the wooden doors having been burned for firing. In one house were five or six children; one of them was dead—evidently dead from starvation. I reported that case of death to the first coroner I could communicate with when I reached the mainland; an inquest was held and the coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of: “Death from starvation.”
On Thursday, Board day, the following week, I gave in my report to the Skibbereen Board of Guardians. The landlords of the islands—the Beechers—were there. They are what is called “ex-officio guardians”—that is, guardians of the poor by virtue of their possessing the lands of the poor—for the O’Driscolls owned the lands of Sherkin and Cape Clear till the Beechers came and swindled them out of these lands, as I will show you by Irish history, by and by.
The John Wrixon Beecher who was in the Skibbereen Board room that day that I gave in the report of my visit to the island is the Beecher that was married to Lady Emily Hare, the daughter of Lord Ennismore. He scrutinized every item of my report; and he asked for a postponement of its full consideration until another Board day. That Board day, he was on hand with all his friends; he laid hold of that item of my having given the extra measure of meal to the bed-ridden woman; he declared it to be a violation of the Poor Law Rules and Regulations; he proposed that I be dismissed from the situation of temporary relieving officer; that I get no salary for the time I served, and that I be made to pay out of my own pocket for the extra measure of meal I illegally gave away.
The fight on that subject continued for four or five weeks, during which time I visited the islands four or five times.
McCarthy Downing was in a fix. He was the land-agent of much of the Beecher estate; but his heart was with the people. I wrote to the Guardians and the Poor Law Commissioners some letters at the time, and in the copies of the letters before me now, I see McCarthy Downing’s pencil-writing, toning down some expression of mine, and substituting words of his for words of mine. I told him I would take the case into court, and sue the Guardians for three months’ salary. He said he could not act as my attorney, but advised me to employ Chris. Wallace or Tom Wright. I did so, and I got a decree against the Guardians for the quarter’s salary.
This story in my recollections will be better understood by my giving you to read the following letters which I wrote at the time: