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O'Rourke, John

"With Notices of Earlier Irish Famines"

When he was at home, his habit was to
walk from Merrion Square to that, his favourite chapel, to eight o'clock
Mass. On those occasions he usually wore a very ample cloak, the collar
of which concealed the lower half of his face. Thus enveloped, he
entered the sanctuary with an expression of recollection so profound,
that it might have been a Trappist who had entered. So it was during the
hour he remained: he seemed perfectly unconscious of any human creature
being in the place, except the priest at the altar before him. He seldom
used a prayer-book, and his eyes were never once raised during the whole
time. Buried in his great cloak, he moved noiselessly out, as he had
entered--a bright example,--a very model,--to the whole congregation.
The remaining reports of the Relief Commissioners do not call for any
very lengthened notice. The fourth of the series was published on the
19th of July, at which time 1,823 electoral divisions were receiving
relief under the Act. They say: "By an arrangement with the Commissary
General, we are clearing out the Government depots of provisions, by
orders on them in lieu of so much money. These depots were established
at an anxious period of a prospect of great deficiency of supplies,
which no longer exists.


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