PERSECUTION AND STARVATION
On Monday last upwards of 500 poor, wretched, emaciated human beings assembled, with loys, shovels, etc., at Greenhills, the residence of Dominick J. Burke, Esq., J. P., demanding work to keep them from dying of starvation. Their appearance and their declarations before the God of Heaven - to two respectable gentlemen, our informants - that unless speedily relieved, they and their families would be all dead from starvation, elicited much commiseration from all who beheld them. One of those gentlemen declared to us he cried from pity for their sufferings. The poor wretches crowded round the car on which the gentlemen were seated as if craving their aid but offering no violence.
The Landlords are now actually calling for their rents! The drivers are gone forth - the potatoes are gone before them! The Treasury minute has followed the potatoes – the grain is unripe in the fields – death is now loose! The green church yards open their graves to receive the victims of persecution and starvation! We tell the landlords in the present contingency it is foolishness to talk of law or to threaten their pauper and starving tenantry with military force. Come what may, the people must be fed!
[The Telegraph 19 August 1846]
