December 7th, 1846: Anarchy is setting in. Bands of starving people roam the country begging for food, "more like famishing wolves than men". In the relatively prosperous county of Westmeath, a Board of Works officer reports that he has "half clad wretches howling at the door for food".
Employment lists become a farce as mobs force themselves on to the public works. Women are breaking stones at 4d a day. In Co Limerick, masses of hungry people with spades and pickaxes "are perfectly unmanageable".
The weather compounds the misery. Already the winter is being described as the most severe in living memory. Snow has continued to fall throughout November, while a northeast wind sweeps across Europe. Crowds of starving, half naked men, women and children huddle on the works, exposed to the cold and rain.
In Cork 5,000 beggars roam the streets, dying according to Father Mathew at the rate of 100 a week.
Farmers, unable to pay by money instead of potatoes, are turning their labourers adrift.
The landlies neglected, a Board of Works inspector writes, "partly from the inability to get seed and partly from the feeling that if they do sow it the landlord will seize the crop".
The relief department of the Board of Works in Dublin issues circular No 38, which proposes to assist small farmers while they cultivate their plots. It is suppressed by the Treasury. Trevelyan explains: "It is quite impossible for my lords to give their sanction to parties being paid from public funds for the cultivation of their own land."
In Co Mayo the parish priest of Kilconduff, Father Bernard Durcan, deplores the apathy of the Whig government. He finds it impossible to estimate the number of Famine victims.
Nearly the entire population of the united parishes of Kilconduff and Meelick - 10,987 people - depended on the potato, according to Father Durcan. Yet not more than 400 men have been employed in the two parishes and the public works system is so defective even that number receives little help. In despair, the people are abandoning their homes and fleeing the country.
Censuring O'Connell's judgment, Father Durcan believes there should be no question of supporting a government that would not fling its "wretched blighted theories to the winds when the people are starving - open the ports, establish depots for the sale of food to the at moderate prices" and employ the destitute.
There are no resident landlords in Kilconduff, the priest continues. "We made an effort to create a fund by subscription for the purpose of keeping a supply of provisions in Swinford, to be sold to the poor in small quantities." Not one of the absentee landlords responded. "They are not, however, idle. Their bailiffs are on the alert, distraining the rent, and the [cattle] pounds are full."