Food they
urgently required, no doubt, for two of those in the gathering fell in
the street from hunger. One, a muscular-looking young man, was unable to
move from the spot where he sank exhausted, until some nourishment was
brought to him, which revived him.[166] At Killarney, a crowd, preceded
by a bellman and a flag of distress, paraded the streets, but the
leaders were arrested and lodged in Bridewell. In the neighbourhood of
Skibbereen, the people employed in breaking stones for macadamizing the
roads struck work, and marched into the town in a body, asserting that
the wages they were receiving was insufficient to support them. The
overseer alleged that enough of work had not been done by the men, and
that task work should be introduced. Their answer was, that the stones
given them to break, being large field stones, _were as hard as anvils_,
and they could not break more of them in a given time than they had
done; and that death by starvation was preferable to the sufferings they
had already endured.
Those men worked some miles from Skibbereen, at a place called Caheragh,
and before their arrival, the wildest rumours were afloat as to their
coming and intentions.
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