Nos.
1-3.]
in the Islands of Innishofjin and Iunissharl: 45
No.
.'I—Memorial
of the Catholic Clergy of Connemarra to His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; referred by His Excellency to the Local Government Board for Report.
M vy it please Your Excellency,
We the Catholic clergy of Connemara most respectfully invite the attention of the Irish Executive to the great distress unfortunately prevalent throughout the entire of this remote district.
There is no necessity for going into prolix details.
Food and fuel are unprecedently .scarce.
There aie at present large numbers of the people utterly destitute of both these necessaries of life; and as the season advances, the distress will become more intense and wide-spread.
We may also observe that credit is at a stand-still.
There are scarcely any potatoes or corn for seed.
The corn of last year's growth was nearly all as light as chaff.
Last year's potato produce was far from being half matured, so that if the few that have escaped the hunger of the owners and the rot be used as seed, the yield will be unquestionably a worse quality, and the result a protracted famine.
That hunger has been already endured is patent from the following fact:—Five weeks since, twelve large boats were despatched from Clifden to Galway for bread-stuffs.
Owing to the terrible weather they could not put to sea for twenty-one days of suspense throughout the district.
During that period of utter dearth of oatmeal, Indian meal, and flour, the few potatoes set aside for seed were much diminished, despite the (hjath struggle of the people to save them for next year's crop.
We pray Your Excellency to excuse the following brief digression that is suggested by the fact of the boats being weather bound, and that to the imminent peril of the lives of many.
The facilities of land transit between Galway and Connemara are tedious and difficult, so that this interesting district is in a state of semi-barbarism in that respect.
Neither Governments nor landlords have made one foot of either rail way or tramway on the forty Irish miles that separate Galway as well as Westport from Clifden.
We take leave to suggest to your Excellency that any organization based on begging for the relief of an honest people must end in failure, because impracticable in a poor district like this.
Employment alone is the medium of relief for an able-bodied people who are willing to earn their bread and quite unwilling to subsist on mendicancy.
An honest high-spirited people ask leave to live by labour, and they and we hope that there will be no overstrain put on the co-relative duty of Government to come thus to the succour of an industrious and loyal people.
As your Excellency has many channels of accurate information rela¬ tive to the existence of distress in our district, we can have no misgiving that our respectful statement can or will be suspected of exaggeration, or of the slightest tint of colouring.
We, therefore, do hope that em¬ ployment will be given without delay, leaving to Government the selection of public works, and any other measures for the relief of a de-
