Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 38

"Clogheen, Co. Tipperary, 13th January, 1880

"Clogheen, Co. Tipperary,

"My Lord Mayor,

"May I submit to your Lordship and the Committee of the Mansion Relief Fund, who have so nobly undertaken the great work of charity, that a considerable number of poverty-stricken people living on the mountain-side called Kilcaroon, about 3 ½ miles from Clogheen, are this day in absolute want, a want indeed becoming hourly aggravated. I have just visited these poor people in their houses, some of their hovels without a window, and doors a little over 3 feet high. I do not in the least desire to trump up a case in their behalf, but simply state facts. They have no firing, no potatoes, in some instances the ridges have been left untouched, as the crop was not worth the trouble of rooting for it. Men, women and children met me on the way, quite in rags, asking if I brought them anything; some few creatures have struggled along, living on the produce of a few hens, which they managed to keep in the limited tenement with themselves and invariably the donkey. The whole village seems to suffer, with perhaps two exceptions, and though ready and willing to work for a day's hire, yet no employment can they find. Your Lordship and the Committee may be disposed to take their deplorable condition into kindly consideration when the distribution of the fund takes place. In Clogheen town the distress has been much alleviated by the kindness of good-hearted Viscount Lismore, who has on several occasions driven to the door of the page 55 Presbytery and with his own generous hands given me parcels of warm clothing, consisting of blankets, flannels, jerseys, &c., and in addition has ordered nutritious soup from the kitchen of Shanbally Castle to be daily meted out to the poor in that locality.

"I remain your Lordship's obedient servant,

"Thomas M'Grath, P.P."