removal, was suffocated. Much was not made of this, as a life in those days was hardly of any consequence. The Limerick Reporter had a leading article on the subject in the same year, from which the following may be quoted:"The landlords of the Union (Kilrush), to whom high rents were paid, pounced, tiger-like, on the people after the potato crop failed, and put out nearly TWENTY-FOUR THOUSAND of the working farmers, out of a total of 82,000, to perish in the scalps." Without any desire to exaggerate the horror of the situation, it may be fairly assumed that, in proportion to population, very little if anything short of similar devastation was made over the whole face of the county. Can it be a matter for wonder that there are burning memories among those still living at home and abroad, of the awful privations endured and the wrongs inflicted on them and theirs during that disastrous period? Many of them have oftentimes bitterly regretted that the people did not adopt the despairing course urged on them by William Smith O'Brien and the Young Ireland party. It would have been more manly, it could hardly have cost more loss of life, if they had flung themselves, all unarmed as they were, on the bayonets of the British soldiery. The following correspondence may well be allowed to conclude this dark chapter in the history of Clare: "KILRUSH UNION. LETTER from the Very Rev. Mr. KELLY, P.P., Kilrush, to His Excellency the EARL OF CLARENDON, Lord-Lieutenant General, and General Governor of Ireland. "KILRUSH, Dec. 13, 1849. "MY LORD,-Fully sensible of your pressing engagements, I am unwilling to trespass on your Excellency; yet, from the heartrending scenes which have occurred in this district within the last few days, I feel it a duty briefly to offer our distressed situation to your Excellency's consideration. "In this Union (Kilrush), the poorest in Ireland, during the summer months thirty thousand persons, half the present Of these nearly twenty population, received out-door relief. their hunger shrieks are truly heartrending. But, my Lord, I am gratified to say that no property is touched-no threat held forth. I know whole families in this town to lie down on their beds of straw, determined rather to starve than to steal. It is true that no means are left untried to alleviate their miseries by many, very many, charitable persons, of whom it may be said that, if they could coin their hearts into gold, they would give it to the poor in their present extreme necessity. Yet what avail their efforts to meet the present awful destitution! "It was determined that a public meeting would be held to address your Excellency; but when a report-alas! a true report-reached us, that thirty-five paupers from Moyarta. parish, a distance of fifteen miles, in the hope to be relieved at the workhouse, were all-all drowned whilst crossing a narrow ferry, I considered it my duty not to lose a moment in communicating to your Excellency our awful situation, which may be imagined, but cannot be described. One week more, and no food! The honest, peaceable poor of this district fall like leaves in autumn. "I feel, in thus addressing your Excellency, I take a bold step; but your sympathy for the poor has encouraged me. Never, never be it said, that during your Excellency's Administration half the population in a remote and wretched district were suffered to starve. I write in a hurry-I write in confusion. My house at this moment is surrounded by a crowd of poor persons, whose blood has become water, seeking relief, which, alas! I cannot bestow. "Anxiously and confidently expecting at your Excellency's hands a remedy, I have the honour to be your Excellency's obedient and humble servant, TIMOTHY KELLY, P.P., Kilrush.” HIS EXCELLENCY'S REPLY. "DUBLIN CASTLE, Dec. 18, 1849. "SIR,-In acknowledging the receipt of your memorial, the Lord-Lieutenant has directed me to state that his Excellency has received, with deep regret, the intelligence of the melancholy loss of life which has occurred at the ferry of Kilrush, and of the destitution stated to prevail in that Union. regrets that the Guardians have not put rates in course of collection, from which funds could be afforded for the relief of the poor, the responsibility of providing which rests with that body. He "Your communication has been referred to the Poor Law Commissioners. "I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant, Nothing more came of it!! hunger under the paternal sway Great Britain and Ireland. "T. N. REDINGTON." The people still died of of the United Kingdoms of This amiable and high-souled priest, of whom there is a lifelike statue in the Kilrush church, told the writer that while the cholera raged in that "black '49," he and one of his curates, Father Meehan, afterwards the well-known parish priest of Carrigaholt, had to leave Kilrush and go through the parish of Carrigaholt administering the last sacraments, when word was brought them that the parish clergy were all down in the epidemic. In that one day they attended not less than about forty cases of cholera and famine fever. The parish priest, Father Malachy Duggan, who had himself attended eighteen cases only two days before, died of cholera within a few days. 1 Lever, who was then a medical officer in Kilrush, afterwards vilely caricatured those priests in one of his novels. Death in the discharge of duty did not avail to save Father Duggan from his anti-Catholic pen. CHAPTER XXVIII. FROM 1851 TO 1893. Effects of the Famine-William Smith O'Brien's Career - O'Gorman, O'Donnell, and Doyle-Proselytism in Clare-Springfield College leading on to Diocesan College-Contests on Independent Opposition Principles-Six-Mile Bridge Massacre-Narrow Escape at Tulla— Uncertain Tenure and Unrest-Distress in '63 and '64-Fenianism— Its Consequences-Amnesty--Home Rule-Farmers' Club and Land League in Clare-Parnell-Meetings at Ennis and Milltown-MalbayPhases of the Land Struggle-An Irish Parliament at last within reach. THE events to be recorded in this concluding chapter belong for the most part to the history of our own times, and are too well known to require more than brief notice. The prosecution of O'Connell gave a death-blow to the Repeal movement. He tried bravely to carry it on, but, though he had succeeded in reversing the conviction, two facts had been plainly placed before the country: England would not yield Repeal without a fight, and O'Connell would not fight. The movement had been carried too far, and was too widespread, and had stirred up the hopes of the people too much, to admit of a craven surrender. The more ardent spirits among the Repealers came now to the front. Clare and Tipperary gave to this whole-souled band of earnest patriots, William Smith O'Brien, M.P., Richard O'Gorman, Richard Dalton Williams, O'Donohue, and Father Kenyon, a priest of the Diocese of Killaloe. The Nation sprang into being to give voice to the new advanced policy. No man was more fit to throw life into the pages of a journal than its first editor, Charles Gavan Duffy. He had on his staff a brilliant band of enthusiasts; Davis, Kenyon, Mitchell, Dillon, and others such like, writing not for pay, but to infuse their own national inspirations into |