Distress in Ireland.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1677, 6 April 1886, Page 4

Distress m Ireland.

(Per Mail Steamer.) : A London despatch of March 11 says that Government has olaced gunboats at the service ot Mi Tuke m his. work of relieving the distress among the; inhabitants of the islands along the western Irish coast. Indescribable distress has been developed among the people ii> habiting the Arran Isles, off Gal way, who besides having hardly anything to eat other than moss and seagrass, are without fire, and often without clothing and shelter. It is not rare to find girls o£l7 and 18 years of age kept m enforced hiding during the daytime, because bereft of every article of clothing, long ago bartered away for seed potatoes or roots to feed the smaller children. Inspector Brady recently went among the miserable people to distribute relief furnished by an. organisation of Irish police. His funds ran. short on the 11th, and he still had. so much pitiable wretchedness to relieve that he appealed to Mr Busy, who is charged with the distribution of a fund raised, m America for the impoverished fishermen of Achill and Baffin Islands,' and begged him to divert part of his store for the relief of the Arranese. This Mr. Busy was permitted to do, and he reports thatin order to savo the lives of scores of people now dying of starvation io those western island^'itis imperative that relief on" a large scale shou|d be at, once , organised. A relief meeting at the Mansion House, Dublin, on the 11th, was attended by' all the distinguished people of the capital. ' The Lord Mayor pre- / sided. On their'arrival at the Mansion Hotise, the Earl and Countess of Aberdeen were very lustily cheered, and also along the route from the castle. Letters were read from Archbishop Walsh and others enclosing cheques amounting to £400. and at the same time regretting the inability of the donors to be present. Archbishop Plunkett, Bishop Donelly, Mr Michael Davitt and others spoke.