This illustration was "intended to convey an idea of the state of desperation to which the poor of Galway have been reduced by the present calamitous season of starvation."

To see the full test of this article go to THE GALWAY STARVATION RIOTS, JUNE 25, 1842

The Conflict at Ballinhassig, Cork

Illustrated London News, June 30, 1845

As people assembled for a fair in Ballinhassig in County Cork the Royal Irish Constabulary perceived themselves to be under attack and consequently fired on the crowd. Ten (or possible 11) people were killed.

IRISH MENDICANTS BY ALFRED FRIPP, 1845

Mendicants = beggars.

The following "sketches on the west of Ireland" by Mr James Mahony were taken from The Illustrated London News, February 20, 1847.

The purpose of the article was to "direct puplic sympathy to the suffering poor " in the west.

Boy and Girl at Cahera, Illustrated London News, Febraury 20, 1847

Conditions of Ireland

Village of Moveen

"Sixteen thousand and odd persons unhoused in the Union of Kilrush before the month of June in the present year; seventy one thousand one hundred and thiry holdings done away with in Ireland, and nearly as many homes destroyed in 1848; two hundred and fifty-four thousand holdings of more than one acreand less than five acres put an end to between 1841 and 1848; six-tenths in fact, of the lowest class of tenantry driven from their now roofless or annihilated cabins and houses, makes up the general description of that desolation of which Tullig and Moveen are examples. The ruin is great and complete.

See Emigration - Clare Heritage and Genealogical Centre

Scalpeen, December 15, 1849, Illustrated London News

The accompanying article was missing.

A scalpeen was a temporary hut build against a wall of a home from which the tenants had been evicted. It usually had a roof and walls but was very crudely made from the remnants of the tumbled house.

Scalp of Brian Connor, near Kilbush Union-House Illustrated London News, December 22, 1849

Part of the article is missing form the two pages that I have. The explanation of the "Scalp of Bran Conner" is referred to in the remaining article: "The Scalp of Brian Conner (here represented) has already been described: it is another illustration of the worse than pig-sty habitations of those who did live in the in the now roofless cottages." A scalp was even cruder than a scalpeen and generally consisted of little more than a hole in the ground.

Miss Kennedy distributing clothing at Kilrush

Miss Kennedy was the seven year old daughter of Captain Kennedy, the Poor-law of the Kilrush Union. She engaged "in the daily occupation of distributing clothing to the wretched children brought around by their more wretched parents." It is explained that the young Miss Kennedy was so upset at the sight of the impoverished peasant children that she gave away some of her own clothes and then, with the help of other, started to make clothes for the children.

Scalpeen of Tim Downs at Dunmore

"... the scalpeen of Tom Dunmore in the parish of Kellard where he and his ancestors resided on this spot for over a century, with renewal of the lease in 1845. He neither owed rent arrears nor taxes up to the present moment, and yet he was pitched out on the roadside, and saw ten other houses like his own leveled at one fell swoop on the spot the ruins of which are seen in the sketch. None of them were mud cabins, but all capital stone-built houses."

Bridget O'Donnel and Children

"I lived," she said "on the lands of Gurranenatuoha. My husband held four acres and half of land, and three acres of bog land our yearly rent was £7 4s.; we were put out last November; he owed some rent."

Searching for potatoes in a stubble field

Illustrated London News, December 22, 1849

As long as there was no legal provision for the poor, a landlord had some repugnance to drive them from every shelter; but the instant the law took them under its protection and forced the landowner to pay a rate to provide for them, repugnance ceased; they had a legal home, however, inefficient, to go to; an eviction began......

.......... and the landlords of Ireland with a strong desire to enlarge and consolidate farms, and clear them of squatters and subtenants, who had formerly been permitted, if not encouraged. With a Poor-law that desire could be safely acted on, and so it supplies a temptation and means to carry eviction extensively into effect.
The evictions were numerous before the potato rot. It was not that great a calamity, therefore, that superinduced them, or was the chief cause of the present desolation. The potato harvest and harvests of every kind have been lost many times before 1846, without reducing the people to their present misery. But that calamity threw the people at the mercy of the Government, and the Government used its power directly and indirectly in accordance with the theory, to clear the land. Out-door relief was established in that season of distress, and relief altogether was coupled with the resignation of the land. The poor were required to give up their heritage, small though it were, for less than a mess of pottage. A law was passed, the 11 and 12 Vic. c. 47 entitled, "An Act for the Protection and Relief of the Destitute Poor Evicted from their Dwellings" which provided a means of evicting them, subjecting the landlords to the necessity of giving notice to Poor-law guardians, and to share of a common burden. Under such stimuli and such auspices, the clearing process has gone in an reaccelerated ratio, and Ireland is now dotted with ruined villages, and filled with a starving population, besieging the doors of crowded workhouses, and creeping into the halls and chambers of the deserted mansions of he nobility and gentry. A gentleman's mansion turned into a poor-house, is a fit emblem of the decay that a mistaken policy has brought on all classes. The system intended to relieve the poor, by making the landlords responsible for their welfare, has at once made it the interest, and therefore the duty, of the landlords to get rid of them. Extirpation is accordingly going forward at a rapid rate; and the evidence of that is now placed before the eyes and understanding of the readers of the ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.

An Irish Board of Guardians

The accompanying article was not available. Date and periodical unknown.

Notice that the Irish peasant (represented by the two men leaning across the table and making fists) are given ape-like facial features.

IRISH HARVEST HOME — FROM AND ORIGINAL SKETCH

Illustrated London News, September 15, 1849.

The text was missing on the copy that I bought. However, in Representing Ireland: gender, class, nationality edited by Susan Shaw Sailer, Chapter 4, Irish Identity and the Illustrated London News 1849-1841 Famine to Depopulation, Leslie Williams says:

The text describes the "frolic and fun".... [of] a night's amusement for the boys and girls who assisted in reaping and securing the gifts of Ceres" (188). Ceres is, of course, the goddess of grain. Around the barn, however, the candlesticks are draped with potato plants. Nothing in the scene suggests the desperation of those who were suffering famine and with it choler, typhus, and other fevers"

The incongruity of the happy harvest image and the actual famine that was occurring in Ireland at the time has been noted by several other writers. The use of the potato plant as decoration instead of the traditional wheat sheafs used in England has also been noted.

This image may be looked on as propaganda, suggesting that things were not so bad in Ireland after all.