(Note)—­Price of Wheat—­Bread Riots—­Gangs of Robbers—­“The Kellymount Gang”—­Severe punishment—­Shooting down Food-rioters—­The Lord Lieutenant’s Address to Parliament—­Bill “for the more effectual securing the payments of rents and preventing the frauds of tenants”—­This Bill the basis of legislation on the Land Question up to 1870—­Land thrown into Grazing—­State of the Catholics—­Renewal of the Penal Statutes—­Fever and bloody flux—­Deaths—­State of Prisoners—­Galway Physicians refuse to attend Patients—­The Races of Galway changed to Tuam on account of the Fever in Galway—­Balls and Plays!—­Rt.  Rev. Dr. Berkeley’s account of the Famine—­The “Groans of Ireland”—­Ireland a land of Famines—­Dublin Bay—­The Coast—­The Wicklow Hills—­Killiney—­Obelisk Hill—­What the Obelisk was built for—­The Potato more cultivated than ever after 1741—­Agricultural literature of the time—­Apathy of the Gentry denounced—­Comparative yield of Potatoes a hundred years ago and at present—­Arthur Young on the Potato—­Great increase of its culture in twenty years—­The disease called “curl” in the Potato (Note)—­Failure of the Potato in 1821—­Consequent Famine in 1822—­Government grants—­Charitable collections—­High price of Potatoes—­Skibbereen in 1822—­Half of the superficies of the Island visited by this Famine—­Strange apathy of Statesmen and Landowners with regard to the ever-increasing culture of the Potato—­Supposed conquest of Ireland—­Ireland kept poor lest she should rebel—­The English colony always regarded as the Irish nation—­The Natives ignored—­They lived in the bogs and mountains, and cultivated the Potato, the only food that would grow in such places—­No recorded Potato blight before 1729—­The probable reason—­Poverty of the English colony—­jealousy of England of its progress and prosperity—­Commercial jealousy—­Destruction of the Woollen manufacture—­Its immediate effect—­“William the Third’s Declaration—­Absenteeism—­Mr. M’Cullagh’s arguments—­See Note in Appendix—­Apparently low rents—­Not really so—­No capital—­Little skill—­No good Agricultural Implements—­Swift’s opinion—­Arthur Young’s opinion—­Acts of Parliament—­The Catholics permitted to be loyal—­Act for reclaiming Bogs—­Pension to Apostate Priests increased—­Catholic Petition in 1792—­The Belief Act of 1793—­Population of Ireland at this time—­The Forty-shilling Freeholders—­Why they were created—­Why they were abolished—­The cry of over-population.

The great Irish Famine, which reached its height in 1847, was, in many of its features, the most striking and most deplorable known to history.  The deaths resulting from it, and the emigration which it caused, were so vast, that, at one time, it seemed as if America and the grave were about to absorb the whole population of this country between them.  The cause of the calamity was almost as wonderful as the result.  It arose from the failure of a root which, by degrees, had become the staple food of the whole working population: