THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.
[Feb. 13, 1847.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


SKETCHES IN THE WEST OF IRELAND. -- BY MR. JAMES MAHONY.



The accounts from the Irish provincial papers continue to detail
the unmitigated sufferings of the starving peasantry. Indeed, they are
stated to be on the increase, notwithstanding the very great exertion of
public bodies and individuals to assuage their pressure.



With the object of ascertaining the accuracy of the frightful statements
received from the West, and of placing them in unexaggerated fidelity
before our readers, a few days since, we commissioned our Artist, Mr. James
Mahoney, of Cork, to visit a seat of extreme suffering, viz., Skibbereen
and its vicinity; and we now submit to our readers the graphic results of
his journey, accompanied by such descriptive notes as he was enabled to
collect whilst sketching the fearful incidents and desolate localities;
premising merely, that our Artist must already have been somewhat familiar
with such scenes of suffering in his own locality, (Cork), so that he
cannot be supposed to have taken an extreme view of the greater misery at
Skibbereen.



"I started from Cork, by the mail (says our informant), for Skibbereen and
saw little until we came to Clonakilty, where the coach stopped for
breakfast; and here, for the first time, the horrors of the poverty became
visible, in the vast number of famished poor, who flocked around the coach
to beg alms: amongst them was a woman carrying in her arms the corpse of a
fine child, and making the most distressing appeal to the passengers for
aid to enable her to purchase a coffin and bury her dear little baby. This
horrible spectacle induced me to make some inquiry about her, when I
learned from the people of the hotel that each day brings dozens of such
applicants into the town. 



"After leaving Clonakilty, each step that we took westward brought fresh
evidence of the truth of the reports of the misery, as we either met a
funeral or a coffin at every hundred yards, until we approached the country
of the Shepperton Lakes.  Here, the distress became more
striking, from the decrease of numbers at the funerals, none having more
than eight or ten attendants, and many only two or three.





"We next reached Skibbereen, a general view of which I send you from
Clover Hill House, the residence of J. Macarthy Downing, Esq.; and, it
being then late, I rested until Monday, when, with the valuable aid of Dr.
D. Donovan, and his assistant, Mr. Crowley, I witnessed such scenes of
misery and privation as I trust it may never be again my lot to look upon.
Up to this morning, I, like a large portion, I fear, of the community,
looked on the diaries of Dr. Donovan, as published in The Cork Southern
Reporter, to be highly-coloured pictures, doubtless, intended for a good
and humane purpose; but I can now, with perfect confidence, say that
neither pen nor pencil ever could portray the miser and horror, at this
moment, to be witnessed in Skibbereen. We first proceeded to Bridgetown, a
portion of which is shown in the right hand distance of the sketch; and
there I saw the dying, the living, and the dead, lying indiscriminately
upon the same floor, without anything between them and the cold earth, save
a few miserable rags upon them. To point to any particular house as a proof
of this would be a waste of time, as all were in the same state; and, not a
single house out of 500 could boast of being free from death and fever,
though several could be pointed out with the dead lying close to the living
for the space of three or four, even six days, without any effort being
made to remove the bodies to a last resting place.



"After leaving this abode of death, we proceeded to High-street,
or Old Chapel-lane (See the Sketch ) and there found one house, without
door or window, filled with destitute people lying on the bare floor; and
one, fine, tall, stout country lad, who had entered some hours previously
to find shelter from the piercing cold, lay here dead amongst others likely
soon to follow him. The appeals to the feelings and professional skill of
my kind attendants here became truly heart-rending; and so distressed Dr.
Donovan, that he begged me not to go into the house, and to avoid coming
into contact with the people surrounding the doorway.



"We next proceeded to the Chapel-yard, to see the hut, of which Dr.
Donovan gives the following graphic account in his diary:--



'On my return home, I remembered that I had yet a visit to pay; having in
the morning received a ticket to see six members of one family, named
Barrett, who had been turned out of the cabin in which they lodged, in the
neighbourhood of Old Chapelyard; and who had struggled to this
burying-ground, and literally entombed themselves in a small watch-house
that was built for the shelter of those who were engaged in guarding
against exhumation by the doctors, when more respect was paid to the dead
than is at present the case. This shed is exactly seven feet long, by about
six in breadth. By the side of the western wall is a long, newly-made
grave; by either gable are two of shorter dimensions, which have been
recently tenanted; and near the hole that serves as a doorway is the last
resting-place of two or three children; in fact, this hut is surrounded by
a rampart of human bones, which have accumulated to such a height that the
threshold, which was originally on a level with the ground, is now two feet
beneath it. In this horrible den, in the midst of a mass of human
putrefaction, six individuals, males and females, labouring under most
malignant fever, were huddled together, as closely as were the dead in the
graves around.



At the time (eleven o'clock at night) that I went to visit these
poor sufferers, it was blowing a perfect hurricane, and such groans of
roaring wind and rain I never remember to have heard.



'I was accompanied by my assistant, Crowley, and we took with us some
bread, tea and sugar; on reaching this vault, I thrust my head through the
hole of entrance, and had immediately to draw back, so intolerable was the
effluvium; and, though rendered callous by a companionship for many years
with disease and death, yet I was completely unnerved at the humble seen of
suffering and misery that was presented to my view; six fellow creatures
were almost buried alive in this filthy sepulchre. When they heard my
voice, one called out, 'Is that the Priest?' another, 'Is that the Doctor?'
The mother of the family begged in the most earnest manner that I would
have them removed, or else that they would rot together; and they all
implored that we would give them drink. Mr. Crowley produced the tea and
sugar, but they said it was of no use to them, as they had no fire or place
to light it in, and that what they wanted was water ; that they had put a
jug under the droppings from the roof, but would not have drink enough for
the night. The next day I got the consent of the Poor Law Guardians to have
my patients removed from this abode of the dead to the fever hospital, and
they are since improving.'



"To complete my melancholy visit to this scene of horror, and to visit
every corner of Skibbereen, next morning, accompanied by a Mr. Everett,
whose knowledge of the country I found most useful, I started for
Ballidichob, and learned upon the road that we should come to a hut or
cabin in the parish of Aghadoe, on the property of Mr. Long, where four
people had lain dead for six days; and, upon arriving at the hut, the abode
of Tim Harrington, we found this to be true; for there lay the four bodies,
and a fifth was passing to the same bourne. On hearing our voices, the
sinking man made an effort to reach the door, and ask for drink or fire; he
fell in the doorway; there, in all probability to die; as the living cannot
be prevailed to assist in the interments, for fear of taking the fever.



"We next got to Skull, where, by the attention of Dr. Traill,
vicar of the parish (and whose humanity at the present moment is beyond all
praise), we witnessed almost indescribable in-door horrors. In the street,
however, we had the best opportunity of judging of the condition of the
people; for here, from three to five hundred women, with money in their
hands, were seeking to buy food; whilst a few of the Government officers
doled out Indian meal to them in their turn. One of the women told me she
had been standing there since daybreak, seeking to get food for her family
at home.



"This food, it appeared, was being doled out in miserable quantities, at
'famine prices,' to the neighbouring poor, from a stock lately arrived in a
sloop, with a Government steamship to protect its cargo of 50 tons; whilst
the population amounts to 27,000; so that you may calculate what were the
feelings of the disappointed mass.



"In my way out of the town, I made the accompanying Sketch; and, here,
again, I had an opportunity of witnessing the efforts of the Vicar's family
to relieve the afflictions around them; and we met his daughters returning
from their work of charity in the poorest portion of the town.




"Having returned to Skibbereen, my next object was to seek out the truth
of the following extract from Dr. Donovan's Diary, as published in the Cork
Southern Reporter, of Jan. 26:--





"'A man of the name of Leahey died in the parish of Dromdaleague about a
fortnight ago; his wife and two children remained in the house until the
putrescent exhalations from the body drove them from their companionship
with the dead; in a day or two after, some persons in passing the man's
cabin, had their attention attracted by a loud snarling, and on entering,
found the gnawed and mangled skeleton of Leahey contended for by hungry
dogs.'"





"This, I need not tell you, I looked upon as designed for an effect; and
so I started for Dromdaleague, to reach which we had to pass through the
miserable parish of Cahera, where, unless something be done for the poor,
and that quickly and effectively, 
the result will be awful."



Here the report must terminate for the present. Next week we shall
complete our painfully interesting series of Illustrations.