“the result of three bad harvests together,” adds, “the worst is that it affects only the Protestants, and reigns chiefly in the North."[13] He, in his tender anxiety for the Protestant colony, purchased corn in the South to sell it cheaply in the North, which caused serious food riots in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Clonmel, and other places.  These riots were of course quelled, and the rioters severely punished.  The broad rich acres of the lowlands were in the hands of the Protestants; and these being specially suited to grazing were accordingly thrown into grass, whilst the Catholic Celts planted the potato in the despised half-barren wilds, and were increasing far more rapidly than those who were possessed of the choicest lands of the kingdom.

But a terrible visitation was at the threshold of Celt and Saxon in Ireland; the Famine of 1740 and ’41.  There were several years of dearth, more or less severe between 1720 and 1740.  “The years 1725, 1726, 1727, and 1728 presented scenes of wretchedness unparalleled in the annals of any civilized nation,” says a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine.[14] A pamphlet published in 1740 deplores the emigration which was going forward as the joint effect of bad harvests and want of tillage:  “We have had,” says the author, “twelve bad harvests with slight intermission.”  To find a parallel for the dreadful famine which commenced in 1740, we must go back to the close of the war with the Desmonds.[15] Previous to 1740 the custom of placing potatoes in pits dug in the earth, was unknown in Ireland.  When the stems were withered, the farmer put additional earth on the potatoes in the beds where they grew, in which condition they remained till towards Christmas, when they were dug out and stored.[16] An intensely severe frost set in about the middle of December, 1739, whilst the potatoes were yet in this condition, or probably before they had got additional covering.  There is a tradition in some parts of the South that this frost penetrated nine inches into the earth the first night it made its appearance.  It was preceded by very severe weather.  “In the beginning of November, 1739, the weather,” says O’Halloran, “was very cold, the wind blowing from the north east, and this was succeeded by the severest frost known in the memory of man, which entirely destroyed the potatoes, the chief support of the poor."[17] It is known to tradition as the “great frost,” the “hard frost,” the “black frost,” etc.  Besides the destruction of the potato crop it produced other surprising effects; all the great rivers of the country were so frozen over that they became so many highways for traffic; tents were erected upon the ice, and large assemblies congregated upon it for various purposes.  The turnips were destroyed in most places, but the parsnips survived.  The destruction of shrubs and trees was immense, the frost making havoc equally of the hardy furze and the lordly oak; it killed birds of almost every kind, it even killed the shrimps of Irishtown Strand, near Dublin, so that there was no supply of them at market for many years from that famous shrimp ground.[18] Towards the end of the frost the wool fell off the sheep, and they died in great numbers.[19]