The Limerick Reporter says:  “On Monday morning the people of Meelick and its neighbourhood, who had been lately discharged from the public works, assembled at Ahernan Cross, to the number of two hundred, and afterwards proceeded to the residence of Mr. Delmege, J.P., of Castle Park, with whom they had an interview, declaring that they should get work; that they were ready and willing to work, but that they would not put up with nor endure the use of soup or porridge; that they could not, nor would they live upon one pound of meal in the twenty-four hours.”  They proceeded to the soup-kitchen of the parish, broke the boiler and all utensils belonging to the kitchen, and tore the books which contained the names of those to be relieved.  Their numbers increased to about six hundred, when they proceeded to demolish the soup-kitchen at Ardnacrusha, quite close to the police barrack.  The police succeeded in taking a man named Pat Griffin in the act of breaking the boiler with a large stone hammer, and succeeded in getting him into the barracks.  The crowd attempted to rescue him.  They broke the windows, and were demolishing the doors, when the police began to fire from within.  Two men were severely wounded.  The police discharged forty rounds before the people dispersed.  Griffin stated that neither himself, nor many of the people assembled, had eaten any food for two or three days.

In several other places the soup-kitchens were attacked, and the boilers broken or attempted to be broken.  At Kilfenora, the people carried off the boiler and threw it into a lough.  So that in the matter of the new relief system, the Government were not only very slow in getting it into operation, but when they did so, it was distasteful to the people in various places.  How slow they were appears from an answer given to a question asked by Lord Fitzwilliam in the House of Lords, so late as the 11th of May.  On that day he asked the Government to what extent the new Act—­commonly known as the Soup-kitchen Act—­had been brought into operation.  Lord Lansdowne, in reply, said that “there had been preparations in various places under the auspices of the relief committees, and with the aid of voluntary contributions they were putting the Act into operation; but the Act had been so recently passed, the Government had no exact information upon the subject; inquiries, however, should be instituted.”  The Act had become law on the 26th of February, nearly three months before; besides which, the Government were, or said they were, organizing beforehand the machinery by which it was to be carried out, and it was specially intended to take the place of the relief works, all of which had ceased on the 1st of May, so that Lord Lansdowne’s reply was a very cool one under the circumstances.