dreds, as was
asserted, surely the gentlemen ought to have millions. When the
gentlemen complained of want of means, no wonder the farmers did the
same. There was not, Mr. Kelly maintained, enough of corn in the
haggards of the country to last until the 1st of June,--

Mr. Fitzgerald: The haggards are in the Savings' Banks.

Mr. Kelly: You will find them in the pockets of a great many landlords.
I don't say in yours.[183]

In Bandon there was a somewhat similar meeting. Lord Bernard, who
presided, told his hearers in solemn accents that the Government was
awfully responsible for not either assembling Parliament, as they were
called upon to do, or at least providing effectively for the relief of
the people. His lordship recommended the suspension of the Poor Laws as
a measure that would be advantageous at the present emergency!
Undeveloped though the poor law system was in Ireland at the time of the
famine, it still afforded much relief in many places. It is hard to see
what Lord Bernard hoped to gain from the suspension of the Poor Laws
during the famine, unless exemption from his own share of the rates.

Turning over the public journals during this period is the saddest of
sad duties. It is like picking one's way over a battle-field strewn with
the dead and dying. "Starvation and death in Dingle;" "Deaths at
Castlehaven;" "Death of a labourer on his way to the Workhouse;"
"Coroner's inquests in Mayo;" "Four more deaths on the roads at
Skibbereen." Such are specimens of the ghastly headings that lie before
us. One of those deaths at Skibbereen calls for more than a passing
word; it is that of Jeremiah Hegarty. As in M'Kennedy's case we have
here what is seldom attainable, an account of the evidence given at the
inquest upon his remains. He was a widower and lived with his married
daughter, Mary Driscoll, at Licknafon. Driscoll, his son-in-law, was a
small farmer. He had a little barley in his haggard, some of which he
was from time to time taking privately out of the stack to keep himself
and his family from dying of starvation, although Curley Buckley, his
landlord's driver,[184] _had put a cross and keepers on it_.

Mary Driscoll, daughter of the deceased, being examined, deposed that
her father eat a little barley stirabout on Saturday morning, but had
not enough; "none of us," she said, "had enough. We all lived
together--nine in family, not including the infant at my breast. My
father went to work; my husband