iving on cabbage leaves and salt, previous to his
misconduct. But the saddest part of this Dungarvan tale is, that the
poor carrier, whose name was Michael Fleming, died of his wounds on the
26th of October, in the Workhouse, to which he had been removed for
medical treatment.

Formidable bands went about, in some portions of the country, visiting
the houses of farmers, and even of the gentry, warning them not to raise
the price of provisions, and also asking for employment. Notices
continued to be distributed, and posted up in public places, calling
assemblies of the people in various towns of the South, in order to
discuss their existing state and future prospects. A notice posted on
the chapel of Carrigtwohill, calling one of those meetings, warned such
as absented themselves that they would be marked men, as there was
famine in the parish, and they should have food or blood. The priests of
the place advised and warned their flocks against those illegal
proceedings, and the evils to themselves which must necessarily spring
from them. This had the desired effect, and the objects contemplated by
the promulgators of the notice were entirely foiled. At Macroom, crowds
of working men paraded the streets, calling for work or food. Food they
urgently required, no doubt, for two of those in the gathering fell in
the street from hunger. One, a muscular-looking young man, was unable to
move from the spot where he sank exhausted, until some nourishment was
brought to him, which revived him.[166] At Killarney, a crowd, preceded
by a bellman and a flag of distress, paraded the streets, but the
leaders were arrested and lodged in Bridewell. In the neighbourhood of
Skibbereen, the people employed in breaking stones for macadamizing the
roads struck work, and marched into the town in a body, asserting that
the wages they were receiving was insufficient to support them. The
overseer alleged that enough of work had not been done by the men, and
that task work should be introduced. Their answer was, that the stones
given them to break, being large field stones, _were as hard as anvils_,
and they could not break more of them in a given time than they had
done; and that death by starvation was preferable to the sufferings they
had already endured.

Those men worked some miles from Skibbereen, at a place called Caheragh,
and before their arrival, the wildest rumours were afloat as to their
coming and intentions. It was Wednesday, the 30t