its desolating progress.  But the worst had not yet come.  It was in 1847 that the highest point of misery and death had been reached.  Skibbereen, to be sure, ceased to attract so much attention as it had been previously doing, but the people of that devoted town had received much relief; besides, there were now fewer mouths to fill there, so many were closed in death, at the Windmill-hill, in the Workhouse grounds, and in the churchyard of Abbeystrowry.  Instead of one, Ireland had now many Skibbereens.  In short, the greater part of it might be regarded as one vast Skibbereen.  In the Autumn of 1846, the famine, which all saw advancing, seized upon certain districts of the South and West; but as ulcers, which first appear in isolated spots upon the body, enlarge until, touching each other, they become confluent, so had the famine, limited in its earlier stages to certain localities, now spread itself over the entire country.  Hence, it is not in any new forms of suffering amongst the famine-stricken people that its increasing horrors are to be looked for:  it is in its universality, and in the deadly effects of a new scourge—­fever—­which was not only manifesting itself throughout the land at this time, but had already risen to an alarming height—­a thing not to be wondered at, because it is the certain offspring, as well as the powerful auxiliary, of famine.

In the fall of 1846, several parts of Clare were in a very wretched condition; but, at the opening of the new year, the most prosperous localities in that county had been sucked into the great famine vortex.  Writing at this period from Ennis, the chief town, Captain Wynne says:  “The number of those who, from age or exhaustion and infirmity, are unable to labour, is becoming most alarming; to those the public works are of no use; they are, no doubt, fit subjects for private charity and the exertions of relief committees, but it is vain to look to these sources for relief at all commensurate with the magnitude of the demand.  Deaths are occurring from Famine, and there can be no doubt that the Famine advances upon us with giant strides.”  Several of the officials who had written to Sir Randolph Routh and others, from different parts of the country, blamed the people for their listlessness, their idleness, and the little interest they seemed to take in cropping their land, in order to secure a future supply of food.  Addressing himself to this point, Captain Wynne says:  “It is in vain to direct their [the people’s] attention to the prosecution of those agricultural operations which can alone place any limit to their present deplorable condition.  Agricultural labour holds out a distant prospect of reward—­their present necessities require immediate relief.  Such is their state of alarm and despair at the prospect before them, that they cannot be induced to look beyond to-morrow; thousands never expect to see the harvest.  I must say the majority exhibit a great deal of patience, meekness,