Works were often marked out for
a considerable time before they were commenced. At a place called
Lackeen, in the South, they were in that state for three weeks or more,
without any employment having been given. If this goes on, writes a
resident of the locality, there must be an increase of coroners, and a
decrease of civil engineers. "It is coffins," says another, "must now be
sent into the country. I lately gave three coffins to bury some of the
poor in my neighbourhood." This was bad enough; but a time was at hand
when the poor had to bury their dead without coffins.

Three weeks had scarcely elapsed from the day on which the labourers
engaged on the Caharagh road had shouldered their spades and picks, and
marched to Skibbereen, when an inquest upon one of them laid open a
state of things that no general description could convey. A man named
Denis M'Kennedy was employed on those works. He was found dead on the
side of the road one day, and a coroner's inquest was held upon his
remains in the historic graveyard of Abbeystrowry. The evidence will
tell the rest. Johanna M'Kennedy, the wife of the deceased, was the
first witness examined. She said her husband died on Saturday, the 24th
of October, and had been at work on the Caharagh road _the day he died_.
He had been so engaged for about three weeks before his death. He did
not complain of being sick. She explained to the coroner and the jury
what they had had to support them during the week, on the Saturday of
which her husband died. Her family was five in number. She had nothing,
she said, to give them on Monday; and then the poor woman varied her
mode of expression by saying they had nothing at all to eat on Tuesday.
On Wednesday _night_ she boiled for her husband and the family one head
of cabbage, given to her by a neighbour, and about a pint of flour,
which she got for a basket of turf she had sold in Skibbereen. On
Thursday morning her husband had nothing to eat. She does not account
for Friday; but on Saturday morning she sent him for his breakfast less
than a pint of flour baked. Poor creature! she had but a pint for the
whole family; but in her loving anxiety to sustain her husband, who was
trying to earn for them, she only kept "a little" for the children. "The
rest was sent to him," said Mrs. M'Kennedy, through her choking grief,
"but it was too late; before it arrived he was dead." Thus, through the
whole of that, to her dreadful week, she had for her fam