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16-12-1848)
    The question often asked regarding the famine in the Claddagh, and indeed Connemara, is why did the people not eat fish? It seems that the fish stocks mysteriously disappeared during this period. The herring shoals moved some thirty or forty miles offshore, far beyond the reach of a native currach (a small fishing boat). Another problem was that the sale of fish had traditionally helped pay rent and other debts, while the potato had been the main source of food. [5]
    The clergy in Galway were feeding some 4,300 people daily, but were unable to reach everyone. Public relief works included the construction of Threadneedle Road (then called Bóthar na Mine) and the Dyke Road. Those unable to find work, or physically unfit for it, had to find alternative means of feeding themselves and their families, and the number of prisoners in Galway jail soared as a result. Many destitute people sought refuge there by committing petty crime. A fever hospital on Earl’s Island, close to the jail, was originally built to accommodate forty patients in four wards, but if necessary could accommodate up to sixty. However, during the famine it became extremely overcrowded. Some of the patients would beg for food on the bridge just outside the grounds, and today it is still known as Beggar’s Bridge.
    Some people ardently believed that the scarcity of food was created by the British government, who allowed grain and livestock to be exported out of the country during the famine, a view that became widely accepted after the end of the famine. According to one report, the British government spent some seven million pounds on famine relief – a mere five per cent of its gross national profit for that period.
    The following poem appeared in the Galway Mercury on 10 July 1847: [6]
    â€˜The Song of the Famine
    (from the University Magazine)’
    Want! want! want!
    Under the harvest moon;
    Want! want! want!
    Thro’ dark December’s gloom;
    To face the fasting day
    Upon the frozen flag!
    And fasting turn away
    To cower beneath a rag.
    Food! food! food!
    Beware before you spurn,
    Ere the cravings of the famishing
    To loathing madness turn;
    For hunger is a fearful spell,
    And fearful work is done,
    Where the key to many a reeking crime
    Is the curse of living on!
    For horrid instincts cleave
    Unto the starving life,
    And the crumbs they grudge from plenty’s feast
    But lengthen out the strife –
    But lengthen out the pest
    Upon the fœtid air,
    Alike within the country hut
    And the city’s crowded lair.
    Home! home! home!
    A dreary, fireless hole –
    A miry floor and a dripping roof,
    And a little straw – its whole.
    Only the ashes that smoulder not,
    Their blaze was long ago,
    And the empty space for kettle and pot,
    Where once they stood in a row!
    Only the naked coffin of deal,
    And the little body within,
    It cannot shut it out from my sight,
    So hunger-bitten and thin;
    I hear the small weak moan –
    The stare of the hungry eye,
    Though my heart was full of a strange, strange joy
    The moment I saw it die.
    I had food for it e’er yesterday,
    But the hard crust came too late;
    It lay dry between the dying lips,
    And I loathed it – yet I ate.
    Three children lie by a cold stark corpse
    In the room that’s over head –
    They have not strength to earn a meal,
    Or sense to bury the dead!
    And oh! but hunger’s a cruel heart,
    I shudder at my own,
    As I wake my child at a tearless wake,
    All lightless and alone!
    I think of the grave that waits
    And waits but the dawn of day,
    And a wish is rife in my weary heart –
    I strive and strive, but it won’t depart –
    I cannot put it away.
    Food! food! food!
    For the hopeless days begun;
    Thank God there’s one the less to feel [sic] !
    I thank God it is my son!
    And oh! the dainty winding sheet,
    And oh! the shallow grave!
    Yet your mother envies you the same
    Of all the alms they gave!
    Death! death! death!
    In