May 15th, 1847: A west Clare priest sees no alternative to emigration from "this doomed land".
Malachy Duggan, PP of Moyarta and Kilballyowen, has been serving his people since the famine of 1822. He now writes to the Limerick Reporter: "Hitherto, the employment under the Board of Works enabled about half of those who were applying for relief to drag out a miserable existence.
But this plank, to which they clung with the grasp of death, has been withdrawn, throwing the country into the greatest confusion.
"Nothing [is] to be heard but lamentations, sighs and moans, nothing scarcely to be seen but crowds of emaciated, naked and starved creatures; flocking to every door, craving for something to prolong life, even for a few hours - but, alas, in vain.
"The people, however, well disposed and ready to respond to the calls of charity, are not able to give them any, even the smallest relief, for such as were hitherto in comparatively comfortable circumstances, their private resources being exhausted from purchasing food during the year at an exorbitant price, are now reduced to a level with almost the most destitute, thus rendering almost universal that deluge of ineffable woe which has visited this district, sweeping away hundreds.
Father Duggan despairs of being able any longer to save the people. The present relief measures are rendered inadequate by delays and technicalities.
Since the dismissal of men from the public works, he was enabled by the donation of a benevolent family in England to rescue many from the grasp of "a most violent and malignant" fever.
But that fund is now exhausted, while sickness consigns to premature graves those who could have been saved had he the means to provide them with "those necessaries the sick poor require".
There is one measure which, in his opinion, "would serve as a safety valve for the people, at least in these parishes, and that is emigration on a liberal scale ... It is impossible that a population of 14,000 could exist under present circumstances on 10,000 acres of arable land of an inferior quality. For the next year there is scarcely any provision made - no cultivation, no tillage".
Hemmed in on every side, the poor must perish unless, some means be devised "whereby they may be enabled to leave this doomed land, and pass to another country to obtain that which is denied them in their native home".
Despite the mounting crisis and numerous suggestions that the poorest people need assistance to emigrate, the government refuses to deviate from its policy of minimum intervention.
At a meeting of the Irish Confederation, Charles Gavan Duffy proposes a resolution calling on Smith O'Brien "and" other Irish members who loved their country to quit the British Parliament and come home and take counsel for the salvation of Ireland".
O'Connell dies in Genoa.