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The weekly returns of the dead were like the bulletins of a fierce
campaign. As the end of the year approached, villages and rural
districts, which had been prosperous and populous a year before, were
desolate. In some places the loss amounted to half the resident
population. Even the poorhouses shut up, and paupers did not escape.
More than one in six perished of the unaccustomed food. The people did
not everywhere consent to die patiently. In Armagh and Down groups of
men went from house to house in the rural districts and insisted on
being fed. In Tipperary and Waterford corn stores and bakers' shops were
sacked. In Donegal the people seized upon a flour-mill and pillaged it.
In Limerick five thousand men assembled on Tory Hill and declared that
they would not starve. A local clergyman restrained them by the promise
of speedy relief. "If the Government did not act promptly, he himself
would show them where food could be had." In a few cases crops were
carried away from farms.


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