of the Mayo inquests may have been the occasion of
more dreadful revelations than even those of Skibbereen,
but they did not receive the same extensive and detailed
publicity. Here are two or three starvation cases
from that county. Patrick M’Loughlin, in
the parish of Islandeady, was ordered by the Relief
Committee a labour-ticket, in consequence of earnest
representations as to his starving condition.
He did not get the ticket for five days, he, his wife
and five children not having a morsel of food in the
interval. Having at length obtained the ticket,
he produced it, and went to labour on the Public Works.
He got no pay for the first three days, and in the
meantime his wife died from actual starvation.
Being unable to purchase the timber for a coffin in
which to bury her, poor M’Loughlin held over
the remains for upwards of forty-eight hours; but
yet anxious to earn what would give her decent sepulture,
and at the same time procure food for his children,
he went each of the two days her remains were in his
cabin to labour, and spent the night in sorrowing
over his departed wife. At length the story came
to the ears of the parochial clergy, one of whom immediately
furnished the means of interment, and she was consigned
to the grave at night, in order that the survivors
might not lose the benefit of M’Loughlin’s
toil on the following day.[188] Bridget Joyce, a widow
with four children, was found dead in a little temporary
building, which had been erected in a field to shelter
sheep. One of the children was grown enough to
give some attention to her dying mother, but had nothing
to moisten her parched lips but a drop of water or
a piece of snow. The woman died, and so poor
were the people of the locality, that for want of a
few boards to make a coffin, she remained uninterred
for eight days. There is a melancholy peculiarity
in the case of a young lad named Edmond M’Hale.
When he had been a considerable time without food,
he became, or seemed to become, delirious. As
his death approached, he said from time to time to
his mother—“Mother, give me three
grains of corn.” The afflicted woman regarded
this partly as the mental wandering of her raving child,
and partly as a sign of the starvation of which he
was dying. She tried to soothe him with such
loving words as mothers only know how to use. “Astore,”
she would say, “I have no corn yet awhile—wait
till by-and-by;” “Sure if I had all the
corn in the world I’d give it to you, avour-neen;”
“You’ll soon have plenty with the help
of God.” A neighbouring woman who was present
at the touching scene searched the poor boy’s
pockets after he had died, and found in one of them
three grains of corn, no doubt the very three grains
for which, in his delirium, he was calling. Many
of the deaths which happened are too revolting and
too horrible to relate; no one could travel any considerable
distance in Mayo at this period without meeting the
famine-stricken dead by the roadside.