October 5th, 1846: "Give us food or we perish" is now the loudest cry in this unfortunate country, according to the Belfast Vindicator.
"It is heard in every corner of the island - it breaks in like some awful spectre on the festive revelry of the licentious rich - it startles and appals the merchant at his desk, the landlord in his office, the scholar in his study, the lawyer in his stall, the minister in his council room and the priest at the altar.
"It is a strange popular cry to be heard within the limits of the powerful and wealthy British empire.
In other countries there are wants, the Vindicator concludes in isolated Ireland alone is there a want of the necessities of life. "Nothing but a state of being, in which the crimes of civilisation and barbarity had united to banish the virtues of both, could reduce a whole nation to a huge, untended poorhouse, from which one only prayer ascends - `Give us food or we perish.'"
A police officer warns of "the most direful consequences" in Skibbereen unless immediate employment is provided on public works. But the relief given this year is more stringently administered, frugal and difficult to obtain.
An extract from the report of Sub inspector George Pinchin: "I beg to impress on you the great failure of the potato crop, want of employment and consequent destitution that exists to an alarming extent in this part of the country amongst the working classes. A stranger would be at a loss to imagine where these wretched beings find means (small as they are) to procure occasional food on inquiry it would be found that the clothing of these miserable creatures are the resources used, through the agency of a pawn office, that enables them to do so; and it is a fact that the majority of them exist upon one meal a day (such as it is)."
Fever is raging in this Co Cork town, the constabulary report continues. It is caused by lack of cleanliness and not having a change of clothes. The poor are compelled to sleep in the rags they wear by day, as their bedding has also been pawned. "The produce of means so procured cannot last long... The accounts from the islands of Cape Clear and Shirkin are horrifying, even the fisheries in those places (this season) produce little or no fish."
A Justice of the Peace finds people are "actually starving" in Kinsale. On learning that crowds are gathering, Thomas Cuthbert and a "brother magistrate" ride through the district. They meet three large assemblages whose demand is for food or work.
The local relief committee gives £20 worth of Indian meal in payment for work repairing old roads. "When our small fund is exhausted, we fear the very worst consequences unless active measures of relief are adopted."