To Jer. O’Donovan Rossa, Dr.
| 1882 | |||
| To salary as relieving officer, per appointment by a committee of the Board of Guardians, for three months | £12 | 00 | 00 |
| To boat hire for second week | 10 | 00 | |
| £12 | 10 | 00 |
Gentlemen—As you have appointed a relieving officer in my place, I believe you are all under the impression that my services are virtually at an end. As this is the day, then, for paying the officers, I put in my bill. I have heard it said I would get only a fortnight’s salary, though the situation has yet involved me in five weeks’ attendance upon you, and I believe will occupy more of my time.
If you are disposed to give me only a fortnight’s salary, I shall claim my right to the entire three months’ salary, as per appointment; and then, I think I can show what has so often been talked of at the Board, that my discontinuance in office was owing to a cry of politics gotten up against me, and against the committee who appointed me—a cry unworthy to be raised, where the discharge of a duty to the suffering poor was alone involved. I remain, gentlemen,
Respectfully yours,
Jer. O’Donovan Rossa.
Here is a letter I wrote to the Poor Law Commissioners, Dublin, at the time:
Skibbereen, June 7, 1862.
The Poor Law Commissioners, Dublin:
Gentlemen—On the 22d of last month a committee of the Skibbereen Board of Guardians requested me to go into the islands of Cape and Sherkin with one ton of meal to distribute among the destitute poor people there, whose names were previously taken down by Mr. James Barry in his application-book and report book—which names I copied. I went with all possible haste, and distributed the meal. I returned, and, according to the instructions of the clerk of the Union, placed the names of the recipients on the register. He then gave me a “statistical report book,” directing me to enter the cases in the columns of the first section of the act. I found that this section contained no column for many of those I relieved; and, seeing that they were relievable under the second section of the act, I placed them in its columns.