devoid of them in the other.  There rest the mortal remains of many generations of the people of Skull; but it is especially worthy of notice as the burial-ground which had to be doubled in size in order to receive upwards of half the population within its bosom in a single year; and yet all were not interred there:  many found a grave in the fields nearest to which they died; many others, among the ruins of their dismantled cabins.  This graveyard, looking out upon the restless waters from its quiet elevation, must remain for ages the most historic spot in the locality, although Skull is not without a history and historic remains.  Many a castle and stronghold have the O’Mahonys and O’Donovans built among the crags of the rocky islands, which are grouped in such variety to seaward, the ruins of which are to-day full of interest and beauty for the tourist.  But surely the day will come when those crumbling ruins shall be once again a portion of the common soil, nameless and forgotten; but distant though that day may be, Skull and Skibbereen, those two famine-slain sisters of the South, must still be found on the page of Irish history, illustrating the Great Famine of 1847.

The parish of Skull is situated in the barony of West Carberry, county of Cork, and is very large, containing no less than 84,000 acres.  The town, a small one, is on the shore in the portion of the parish called East Skull; West Skull runs inland towards Skibbereen, and in this division is the village of Ballydehob.  The town of Skull is built upon a piece of low level ground, a short distance from which, in the direction of Ballydehob, there is a chain of hills, the highest of which, Mount Gabriel, rises 1,300 feet above the sea level.  Nothing can be happier or more accurate than the poet’s description of this scenery, when he writes:—­

“The summer sun is falling soft on Carbery’s hundred isles, The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel’s rough defiles."[237]

A correspondent of the Southern Reporter, writing from Ballydehob during the first days of January, gives the most piteous account of that village; every house he entered exhibited the same characteristics,—­no clothing, no food, starvation in the looks of young and old.  In a tumble-down cabin resembling a deserted forge, he found a miserable man seated at a few embers, with a starved-looking dog beside him, that was not able to crawl.  The visitor asked him if he were sick; he answered that he was not, but having got swelled legs working on the roads, he had to give up; he had not tasted food for two days; his family had gone begging about the country, and he had no hope of ever seeing them again.  Efforts were still being made at this place to get coffins for the dead, but with indifferent success.  There were not coffins for half the people; many were tied up in straw, and so interred.  This writer mentions what he seems to have regarded as an ingenious contrivance of the Galeen relief committee, namely, the use of