"[35]
The winter and spring of 1822 continued very wet, and it was extremely
difficult to perform any agricultural work. Seed potatoes were
excessively scarce, and the first relief that reached the country was a
prudent and timely one; it consisted of fourteen hundred tons of seed
potatoes, bought by the Government in England and Scotland. Charitable
persons at home also gave seed potatoes, cut into _sets_, to prevent
their being used for food; yet, in many instances, those sets were taken
out of the ground by the starving people and eaten. Cork, Limerick,
Kerry, Clare, Mayo, and Galway were the counties most severely visited.
These, according to the accounts given in the public journals of the
time, were in a state of actual famine. Potatoes were eight pence a
stone in districts where they usually sold from one penny to two pence.
But although the potato had failed, food from the cereal crops was
abundant and cheap enough if the people had money to buy it. "There was
no want of food of another description for the support of human life; on
the contrary, the crops of grain had been far from deficient, and the
prices of corn and oatmeal were very moderate. The calamities of 1822
may, therefore, be said to have proceeded less from the want of food
itself, than from the want of adequate means of purchasing it; or, in
other words, from the want of profitable employment.
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