Increase of Destitution in the West

G. E. Burke, (Local Landlord from the townland of Kylebroghlan), in a letter to the Freeman, from Moycullen, May 17th, 1849, says :—

The people are actually being swept away. Burials of victims to famine, cholera, fever, and all the other diseases consequent upon starvation, are (and I declare the fact from my own personal knowledge), on each day, of hourly occurrence. I have just seen one good Parish Priest, and he informed me that, alarming as the description he had already given me of his diminishing flock was, that state had been rendered more fearful by the presence among us of the cholera.’ Morning, noon, and night is the Rev. Clergyman engaged in the administration of the last sacraments, and still he cannot reach all the cases. In many instances at night the want of light from candle, bogwood. or fire of any kind, renders it almost impossible for him to administer the last rite; and, were it not that constant repetition has impressed on his memory the prayers for the dying, many would die without their consolation. He also mentioned to me, that in 1844 the population of this parish amounted to 4,630 souls; and during that year there were 180 births, or about four and a-half per cent., and that now the people have dwindled down to 2,680, and during the last winter months the births were only fifteen, or about one to each 200. Up to this month in the former year, there were about forty marriages, and to this date in 1849 there were but three. These, Sir, are about the average data of many parishes in the west of Ireland. Our burial ground, an extensive one, and but lately formed, will bear silent testimony to the rapidity with which the people are passing away; and its clay will soon be insufficient to hide the hundreds of victims over whom ” the grave will have its victory.” Pestilence and starvation are at work among all classes of the people; but those who suffer most are the spirited and industrious poor who have endeavoured to ,brave the storm and have clung to the wreck, and who, trusting to the mercy of Providence and the humanity of man, have sold all they possessed on earth in order to find means with which to till their small holdings of land. Hundreds, who up to this period have committed to the soil enough (if Heaven prospered their work) to raise them above want next year, are now each day taking their places in death in that earth the like of which their labour once rendered life-supporting. Few will ever reap what they have sown. If relief from any quarter is to be afforded to the wretched and struggling survivors, now is the time. Should this month and the next be allowed to pass away, the most liberal and generous aid will be of no avail for the future. The grateful heart of many a poor wretch is now blessing the charity of the English people, and thanking them for the life which makes it beat; but bitter experience now shews that had that charity been afforded in time, and aid been given to the people to crop their lands in season, they would not be again, as they are now, dependant upon others for means to support life. Can it be that the Christian Government of such a country as England, which has ever boasted to be the champion of humanity and civilisation over the world, and to have taxed itself to the amount of millions on millions to better the condition of a race differing from them in blood, intellect, and faith, will not now strain some of the vast resources at their command to save the lives of a people said to be united with them by laws and nature, whose patience under misery and wretchedness, such as no history records, has been unparalleled, and who now claim as charity that aid which they are told to believe the ” spirit of the constitution ” entitles them to as a right—the right to live?