The Distress in Ireland.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3476, 14 February 1880, Page 2

The Distress in Ireland.

In an article on the distress the London Daily Telegraph says^:—

It is now clear that the apprehended distress in Ireland will be severe in certain districts, but there is every reason to hope that it will remain local in its scope and be limited to the winter season. On the South-West and West the trouble will fall most heavily. They are the most purely Celtic districts of Ireland; they are almost entirely agricultural; they have no manufactures of note; the people depend for food on the potato, and for fuel on the turf cut from their bogs. In fact, Kerry and Clare in the South, and Mayo, Galway, and Sligo in the West, remain now to a great extent in the condition of three-fourths of Ireland in 1845—that is, overpeopled, and dependent on theimperfect cultivation of a poor, damp soil. Here, too, may be found the Irish race with little admixture of English or Scotch. Tipperary and Wexford and the King's County have been peopled from time to time by English, settlers who have infused into the softer Celtic tribes a certain hardness of temperament in the lawless assertion of agrarian rights ; and in the far South and West the same ideas prevail, but not the same vigour in translating them into criminal fact. Another element—the Scotch—has made the Celt of the North very different from his fellow-countryman in the rest of the Island; for there we have manufactures and tenant-right, and a certain personal self-assertion. The Cells of the South and the West are dreamy and irresolute, with an eloquence full of sound and fury, deeply attached to their families and to the soil, improvident and emotional, but with generous aspirations and soft hearts. Notwithstanding their many political faults and industrial shortcomings, they are a graceful, lovable people, and the sacrifices mothers make for their children—and this is amply repaid—have endeared them to many Alien observers, who came to denounce and went away with tributes of admiration. Pure household lore, fidelity in marriage, maternal devotion, filial affection, are high virtues in any land ; and in no homes on eartu do they.burn more brightly than in the mud cabins now menaced with actual want of food.