"I am sorry to tell you," writes
the correspondent of a local print, "that this town [Tuam] is, I may
say, in open rebellion. They are taking away cattle in the open day, in
spite of people and police.... They cannot help it; even if they had
money, they could not get bread to buy." Works were often marked out for
a considerable time before they were commenced. At a place called
Lackeen, in the South, they were in that state for three weeks or more,
without any employment having been given. If this goes on, writes a
resident of the locality, there must be an increase of coroners, and a
decrease of civil engineers. "It is coffins," says another, "must now be
sent into the country. I lately gave three coffins to bury some of the
poor in my neighbourhood." This was bad enough; but a time was at hand
when the poor had to bury their dead without coffins.
Three weeks had scarcely elapsed from the day on which the labourers
engaged on the Caharagh road had shouldered their spades and picks, and
marched to Skibbereen, when an inquest upon one of them laid open a
state of things that no general description could convey. A man named
Denis M'Kennedy was employed on those works.
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