“Dig up your potatoes in the beginning of December, or sooner, and, in proportion to your quantity of potatoes, dig a large hole about ten foot deep in such place as your garden or near your house where the ground is sandy or dry, and not subject to water; then put your potatoes into the hole, with all their dirt about them, to within three feet of the surface of the ground.  If you have sand near you, throw some of it among the potatoes and on top of them.  When you have thus lodged your potatoes, then fill up the rest of the hole with the earth first thrown out, and, with some stuff, raise upon the hole a large heap of earth in the form of a large haycock, which you may cover with some litter or heath.  By the covering of earth of five or six feet deep, your potatoes will be secured against the severest frosts, which are not known to enter over two feet into the ground.  The same pit will serve you year after year, and when the frosts are over you may take out your potatoes.”

[17] “O’Halloran on the Air.”

[18] Exshaw’s Magazine.

[19] Pue’s Occurrences, March 11, 1740.

[20] Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, of course.

[21] Pue’s Occurrences, Jan 1, 1740.

[22] This storm visited other parts of the coast.  The news from Dundalk under the same date is, that the Jane and Andrew of Nantz was wrecked there, “the weather continuing very stormy, with a very great frost.”  Accounts from Nenagh under date of Jan. 5th say:—­“The Shannon is frozen over, and a hurling match has taken place upon it; and Mr. Parker had a sheep roast whole on the ice, with which he regaled the company who had assembled to witness the hurling match.”  Under January 29th we have a ludicrous accident recorded, namely, “that the Drogheda postboy’s horse fell at Santry, near Dublin, and broke his neck.  One of the postboy’s legs being caught under the horse got so frozen that he could not pull it out!” At length some gentlemen who were passing released him.—­Ibid.

[23] I find by the newspapers of the time that Primate Boulter acted with much generosity, especially in the second year of the famine, feeding many thousands at the workhouse at his own expense.  He also appealed to his friends to subscribe for the same purpose.  The Right Honourable William Conolly, then living at Leixlip Castle, distributed L20 worth of meal in Leixlip, and ordered his steward to attend to the wants of the people there during the frost.  Lords Mountjoy and Tullamore, Sir Thomas Prendergast, and other influential persons commenced a general collection in Dublin, but it was only for the starving artizans of Dublin.  The co-heirs of Lord Ranelagh ordered L110 to be distributed in Roscommon; Lady Betty Brownlow, then abroad, sent home L440 for her tenants in the North; Chief Justice Singleton gave twenty tons of meal to be sold in Drogheda at one shilling and a penny a stone; the Rt.  Hon. Wm. Graham did the same—­it was then selling from one shilling and sixpence to one shilling and eightpence a stone; Lord Blundell gave L50 to his tenants; Dean Swift gave L10 to the weavers of the Liberty.