When he had
been a considerable time without food, he became, or seemed to become,
delirious. As his death approached, he said from time to time to his
mother--"Mother, give me three grains of corn." The afflicted woman
regarded this partly as the mental wandering of her raving child, and
partly as a sign of the starvation of which he was dying. She tried to
soothe him with such loving words as mothers only know how to use.
"_Astore_," she would say, "I have no corn yet awhile--wait till
by-and-by;" "Sure if I had all the corn in the world I'd give it to you,
_avour-neen_;" "You'll soon have plenty with the help of God." A
neighbouring woman who was present at the touching scene searched the
poor boy's pockets after he had died, and found in one of them three
grains of corn, no doubt the very three grains for which, in his
delirium, he was calling. Many of the deaths which happened are too
revolting and too horrible to relate; no one could travel any
considerable distance in Mayo at this period without meeting the
famine-stricken dead by the roadside.
Still it would be hard to surpass Skibbereen in the intensity and
variety of its famine horrors. Dr. Donovan, writing on the 2nd of
December, says: Take one day's experience of a dispensary doctor.
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