The sum raised in voluntary subscriptions, through
the Relief Committees was L98,000. The largest number of persons
employed at any one time in this first season of relief was 97,000;
which was in August, 1846.[94]
There was very considerable delay in affording relief to the people
under the above acts. New Boards--new Commissioners--new Forms--new
everything had to be got up, and all were commenced too late; it was,
therefore, long, provokingly and unnecessarily long, before anything was
done. The Rev. Mr. Moore, Rector of Cong, in one of his letters,
complains that he was superciliously treated at the relief office in
Dublin Castle, and finally told relief was only to be had in the
workhouse. He then wrote to the Lord Lieutenant asking for a consignment
of meal to be sold in his neighbourhood, undertaking to be responsible
to the Government for the amount. A promise was given to him that this
would be done, but I cannot discover that it was ever fulfilled.
Great numbers were in a starving condition in the southern and western
counties, and in districts of Ulster also. A correspondent of the London
_Morning Chronicle_, writing from Limerick under date of the 16th of
April, says: "The whole of yesterday I spent in running from hut to hut
on the right bank of the Shannon.
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