In parts of
Ulster, the applications for employment on the Government works were
very numerous; in one parish alone (Ballynascreen) there were sixteen
hundred such applications. In West Innishowen, within twelve miles of
Londonderry, twelve persons died of starvation in one week.
Thus had the great Famine seized upon the four Provinces before the end
of 1846; Munster and Connaught, however, enduring sufferings which, in
their amount and terrible effects, were unknown to Leinster or Ulster.
In the West, Mayo, up to this time, had suffered most, which, from its
previously known state of destitution, was to be expected; in the South,
Cork seems to have been the county most extensively and most fatally
smitten. This, however, may not have been actually the case. Clare and
Kerry suffered greatly from the very beginning, but their sufferings
were not brought so prominently before the public as those of Cork.
This county had many and faithful chroniclers of her wants and
afflictions--a fact especially true of Skibbereen. That devoted town and
its neighbourhood were amongst the earliest, if not the very earliest,
of the famine-scourged districts; and their story was well and feelingly
told by special correspondents, and, above all, by Dr.
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