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O'Rourke, John

"With Notices of Earlier Irish Famines"


"One subscription of L1000 came from another anonymous donor, and for
years the Committee knew not who those generous and really charitable
parties were; but I had always a suspicion that the giver of the L1000
was Lord Dufferin. The grounds for my supposition were, that during the
height of the sufferings of the people, I heard that two noblemen had
been in the neighbourhood, visiting some of the localities. One was Lord
Dufferin, then a very young man, who alluded subsequently in feeling
terms to the wretchedness and suffering which he had witnessed; the
other, I heard, was Lord John Manners.
"In some years after, I met at the house of Mr. Joshua Clarke, Q.C., in
Dublin, Mr. Dowse, then a rising barrister, now a Baron of the Court of
Exchequer, who addressed me, saying, 'We are old acquaintances;' to
which I replied that I thought he was mistaken, as I had never the
pleasure of meeting him before. He said 'That is quite true, but do you
remember having received monthly remittances during the severe pressure
of the Famine in Skibbereen?' I answered in the affirmative; and
thereupon he said, 'I was your correspondent, I remitted the moneys to
you, they were the offerings of a number of the students of Trinity
College.


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