had not even a rotten potato left.  They have consumed even the seed potatoes, unable any longer to resist the pangs of hunger.”  The Rev. Mr. Doyle, of Graig, in the county Kilkenny, writing on the 13th of April, says, he had made a visitation of his parish and found five hundred and eighty-three distressed families, comprising two thousand seven hundred and thirty individuals; of this number fifty-one had constant employment, two hundred and seventy none at all; the rest got occasional work; three-fourths of the whole had not three days’ provisions.  Sir Lucius O’Brien, (afterwards Lord Inchiquin), as Chairman of the Ennis Board of Guardians, took occasion to remark, “on the heartlessness of some of the Dublin papers, when speaking of the famine.”  “Everyone acquainted with the country, knew,” he said, “that at this moment the people are in many places starving."[95]

The people assembled in considerable numbers in parts of the South calling for food or employment.  A man died of starvation on the public works in Limerick.  At a meeting in Newry for the purpose of taking measures against the scarcity, and whilst some were denying its existence in that locality, the Right Rev. Dr. Blake, the Catholic bishop, said, that since he had entered the meeting, a letter had been handed to him stating that a person had just died of starvation in High Street.  In April and May potatoes had risen to a famine price in the provinces.  They were quoted in Galway and Tuam at 6d. a stone, but in reality, as the local journals remarked, the price was double that, as not more than one-half of those bought could be used for food.

The humane and philanthropic, who went about endeavouring to save the lives of the people, often asked, as they travelled through the country, “Are the landlords making any efforts?  “The common answer was, with very rare exceptions, “None whatever.”  The correspondent of a Dublin newspaper,[96] writing from Cashel, quotes a notice he had copied in Cahir, which was posted all about the town.

It ran thus:—­“The tenantry on the Earl of Glengall’s estate, residing in the manor of Cahir, are requested to pay into my office on the 12th of May, all rent and arrears of rent due up to the 25th of March, otherwise the most summary steps will be taken to recover same.

“JOHN CHAYTOR,

“1st April, 1846.”

The same correspondent, in a letter from Templemore, informs his readers that a certain noble proprietor was just after paying a visit to his estate in that locality, and he had no sooner taken his departure, than notices were served on his tenantry to pay the November rent.  The tenants asked time, saying they had only a few black potatoes left.  The bailiff’s reply was characteristic, and no doubt truthful:—­“What the d——­ do we care about you or your black potatoes?—­it was not us that made them black—­you will get two days to pay the rent, and if you don’t you know the consequence."[97]