Christmas Eve 1846: Ennis poorhouse is full. Capt Wynne, inspecting officer for west Clare, reports that "police are stationed at the doors to keep the numerous applicants out, therefore no relief can be expected from that quarter."
The relief committees are broke. Capt Wynne warns:
"Without food we cannot last many days longer the public works must fail in keeping the population alive. What is to become of the thousands to, whose cases the relief works are totally inapplicable?"
The public works in Clare Abbey have been closed because of an assassination attempt on Wynne's principal overseer. In accordance with regulations, the works are to remain closed until information leading to the arrest of his assailant is forthcoming. As a result the people are starving, "but as yet peaceably".
After venturing through this parish, Wynne writes to Trevelyan: "Although a man not easily moved, I confess myself: unmanned by the intensity and extent of the suffering I witnessed more especially among the women and little children, crowds of whom were to be seen scattered over the turnip fields like a flock of famishing crows, devouring the raw turnips, mothers half naked, shivering in the snow and sleet, uttering exclamations of despair while their children were screaming with hunger. I am a match for anything else I may meet with here, but this I cannot stand."
Ennistymon workhouse is overflowing. Doctors report that deaths are increasing due to the effects of disease brought on by inadequate food, rather than actual starvation.
December 25th: William Sharman Crawford, who has formed the Ulster Tenant Right Association, writes to his tenants: "I do not take from the landlord the power of resumption, but I endeavour to limit it within just bounds. It will be said by some that this restraint is a violation of the rights of property. I say not.
"Property in land is not absolute ownership ... I am only reducing to practical rules the unwritten law of tenant right, founded on the long established custom of this part of Ireland by which its superior prosperity has been permanently established."
December 27th: Maj Denis Mahon, of Strokestown, serves eviction notices on tenants who have not paid their rents. The tenants petition to be allowed to stay in their homes, at least for the remainder of this pitiless winter. But Mahon believes most of them are troublemakers, "who are known to be able to pay and only refuse from combination. These tenants I should be glad to get rid of on any terms."
December 28th: Sir Randolph Routh considers 8,000 tons of grain the minimum level needed before there can be any general opening of the western depots. With official stocks barely exceeding 6,000 tons, the Treasury consents finally, to opening the depots "for the sale of food as far as may be prudent and necessary."