issed labourers. Their wretched emaciated
children were clinging to them for sustenance, but they had not
wherewith to satisfy their hunger. Large numbers also assembled near
Thurles, crying out for bread and employment; they proceeded to that
town, and had an interview with the head officer under the Board of
Works.[263]

The news from Galway was, that the funds of the old relief committee
were completely exhausted, and although it was the 5th of May, the new
one had not completed the lists, so as to procure food for distribution
to the unemployed destitute. Some of the public works were stopped for
want of money; the labourers on the others were dismissed, with a very
few exceptions. The labourers paraded the streets with a white flag
bearing the inscription, "We are starving;" "Bread or employment." They
conducted themselves with the utmost order.

About four hundred men who had been employed on the public works near
Ballygarvan assembled and marched in procession into Cork. Having drawn
up before the door of the Board of Works' office, they sent a deputation
to confer with Captain Broughton, to state the distress they were
suffering, in consequence of being suddenly dismissed off the works. He
assured them he could do nothing for them.

The _Limerick Reporter_ says: "On Monday morning the people of Meelick
and its neighbourhood, who had been lately discharged from the public
works, assembled at Ahernan Cross, to the number of two hundred, and
afterwards proceeded to the residence of Mr. Delmege, J.P., of Castle
Park, with whom they had an interview, declaring that they should get
work; that they were ready and willing to work, but that they would not
put up with nor endure the use of soup or porridge; that they could not,
nor would they live upon one pound of meal in the twenty-four hours."
They proceeded to the soup-kitchen of the parish, broke the boiler and
all utensils belonging to the kitchen, and tore the books which
contained the names of those to be relieved. Their numbers increased to
about six hundred, when they proceeded to demolish the soup-kitchen at
Ardnacrusha, quite close to the police barrack. The police succeeded in
taking a man named Pat Griffin in the act of breaking the boiler with a
large stone hammer, and succeeded in getting him into the barracks. The
crowd attempted to rescue him. They broke the windows, and were
demolishing the doors, when the police began to fire from within. Two
men we