Captain Starlight threats as crop fails

July 14th, 1846: Sir Randolph Routh who is receiving daily reports from throughout the country, informs Charles Trevlyan: Disease…

July 14th, 1846: Sir Randolph Routh who is receiving daily reports from throughout the country, informs Charles Trevlyan: Disease is reappearing he adds, "The reports of the new potato crop are very unfavourable. All letters and sources of information declare disease to be more prevalent this year than last in the early crop.

Father James O'Driscoll, secretary of the Kilmichael (Co Cork) relief committee, applies to use a government grant to provide Indian corn at a reduced price or gratuitously to the destitute, who have pawned clothing and bedding and are subsisting on cabbage.

In Co Clare, the Corofin relief committee has been selling Indian meal to the poor since April 25th at a reduced price. John Cullinan, secretary, recording that 142 tons of meal have been sold at a loss of, £500, requests a grant to feed 40,000 dependants in the seven parishes of the barony.

The parish priest of Ahascragh, Co Galway, having failed to persuade the local gentry to form a relief committee, observes that many would have starved but for the Calcutta Fund.

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Public anger is reported from Kinvara, where landowners are demanding compensation for public works on their properties. Charles Lynch, of Clonbur, reports two deaths from starvation.

Ballingarry (Co Limerick) relief committee encloses two threatening notices from "Capstain Starlight", ordering farmers to provide employment. In Kilfinane, a pay clerk is robbed of labourers' wages.

The parish priest of Firodah Co Kilkenny, reports that several of his parishioners are living on weeds.

July 18th: In Foxford, Co Mayo, the peasantry are subsisting on one meal of oatmeal a day, having sold their belongings or borrowed from usurers at 20-50 per cent interest. They are reluctant to enter the workhouse after the death of some inmates.

July 20th: Father Thomas O'Connor, secretary of the Frenchpark relief committee, reports that the new potato crop has failed a large proportion of the baronial population of 28,859 is surviving on one meal a day.

The Castlerea relief committee records "abject distress" in the town, where the distillery has closed. The entire population of the town land of Arou, 1,116 souls, is reduced to pauperism.

The Ballaghaderreen relief committee, having received £54 in subscriptions, sends for three tons of Indian meal. It points out that the population of the town is nearly 1,500, "many of whom are unable to work and are completely destitute no credit being now given in the country as was heretofore the custom, those poor persons who depended on it in other years and have no means of obtaining provisions are in a deplorable state . .