A priest who was stationed at Westport during the Famine, was still
there at the period of my visit. During that dreadful time, the people,
he told me, who wandered about the country in search of food, frequently
took possession of empty houses, which they easily found; the inmates
having died, or having gone to the Workhouse, where such existed. A
brother and sister, not quite grown up, took possession of a house in
this way, in the Parish of Westport. One of them became ill; the other
continued to go for the relief where it was given out, but this one soon
fell ill also. No person heeded them. Everyone had too much to do for
himself. They died. Their dead bodies were only discovered by the
offensive odour which issued from the house in which they died, and in
which they had become putrefied. It was found necessary to make an
aperture for ventilation on the roof before anyone would venture in. The
neighbours dug a hole in the hard floor of the cabin with a crowbar to
receive their remains. And this was their coffinless grave!
This same priest administered in one day the last Sacrament to
thirty-three young persons in the Workhouse of Westport; and of these
there were not more than two or three alive next morning.
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