Mr. Egan, who at the date of my visit was Clerk of the Union, held the
same office during the Famine. The Workhouse was built to accommodate
one thousand persons. There were two days a-week for admissions. With
the house crowded far beyond its capacity, he had repeatedly seen as
many as three thousand persons seeking admission on a single day.
Knowing, as we do, the utter dislike the Irish peasantry had in those
times to enter the Workhouse, this is a terrible revelation of the
Famine; for it is a recorded fact that many of the people died of want
in their cabins, and suffered their children to die, rather than go
there. Those who were not admitted--and they were, of course, the great
majority--having no homes to return to, lay down and died in Westport
and its suburbs. Mr. Egan, pointing to the wall opposite the Workhouse
gate, said: "There is where they sat down, never to rise again. I have
seen there of a morning as many as eight corpses of those miserable
beings, who had died during the night. Father G---- (then in Westport)
used to be anointing them as they lay exhausted along the walls and
streets, dying of hunger and fever."[231]
The principal aim of the Society of Friends was to establish
soup-kitchens, and give employment to the women in knitting.
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