ith food, to be brought
from foreign lands, is not an easy job. No government could bring the
food itself; but by striving to do so it might effectually prevent
such bringing on the part of others. Nor when the food was there,
on the quays, was it easy to put it, in due proportions, into the
four million mouths. Some mouths, and they, alas! the weaker ones,
would remain unfed. But the opportunity was a good one for slashing
philanthropical censure; and then the business of the slashing,
censorious philanthropist is so easy, so exciting, and so pleasant!

I think that no portion of Ireland suffered more severely during
the famine than the counties Cork and Kerry. The poorest parts
were perhaps the parishes lying back from the sea and near to the
mountains; and in the midst of such a district Desmond Court was
situated. The region immediately round Castle Richmond was perhaps
better. The tenants there had more means at their disposal, and did
not depend so absolutely on the potato crop; but even round Castle
Richmond the distress was very severe.

Early in the year relief committees were formed, on one of which
young Herbert Fitzgerald agreed to act. His father promised, and was
prepared to give his best assistance, both by money and countenance;
but he pleaded that the state of his health hindered him from active
exertion, and therefore his son came forward in his stead on this
occasion, as it appeared probable that he would do on all others
having reference to the family property.

This work brought people together who would hardly have met but for
such necessity. The priest and the parson of a parish, men who had
hitherto never been in a room together, and between whom neither had
known anything of the other but the errors of his doctrine, found
themselves fighting for the same object at the same board, and each
for the moment laid aside his religious ferocity. Gentlemen, whose
ancestors had come over with Strongbow, or maybe even with Milesius,
sat cheek by jowl with retired haberdashers, concerting new soup
kitchens, and learning on what smallest modicum of pudding made
from Indian corn a family of seven might be kept alive, and in such
condition that the father at least might be able to stand upright.

The town of Kanturk was the head-quarters of that circle to which
Herbert Fitzgerald was attached, in which also would have been
included the owner of Desmond Court, had there been an owner
of an age to undertake