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O'Rourke, John

"With Notices of Earlier Irish Famines"

At the commencement they obtained lodgings, and the
sympathies of the citizens were awakened; but when fever began to spread
in Cork they became alarmed for themselves, and they were anxious at any
risk to get rid of those wretched creatures. The lodging-house keepers
always turned them out when they got sick. We had no additional fever
hospitals; the Workhouse was over full, and those poor creatures
perished miserably in the streets and alleys. Every morning a number
were found dead in the streets; they were thrown out by the poor
creatures in whose houses they lodged. Many of them perished in rooms
and cellars, without its being known, and without their receiving any
aid from those outside. It may appear as if the citizens of Cork and the
clergy of Cork had neglected their duty; but they did not. The calamity
was so great and so overwhelming, that it was impossible to prevent
those calamities. As one instance, I may mention that one Sunday morning
I brought Captain Forbes, who came over with the 'Jamestown,' United
States' frigate, and Mr. William Rathbone, and several other persons,
to show the state of the neighbourhood in which I resided, and to show
them the thousands whom we were feeding at the depot, While we were
going round a person told me, 'There is a house that has been locked up
two or three days.


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