Note 31 — Front matter
Reading edition
This was the amount of the private subscriptions upon which Government donations were made; but other large sums were raised by local Irish subscriptions, through the medium of some of the Relief Committees, of which no account was furnished to the Government, because the Committees concerned would not submit to the rule of selling at cost price except in cases of extreme destitution. Large funds were also administered by private individuals, quite independently of the Local Relief Committees; of which class of operations the following account of the expenditure of a Protestant clergyman in the south-west of Ireland, with a parish of 10,000 inhabitants, no resident gentry, not a single town in the whole of it, nor a road through the greater part of it, may be taken as a specimen:—
£ s. d.
Gratuitous aid of every sort 306 6 0
Loss by sale of food under market price, when exorbitant 208 9 0
Payment of labour—making road to the bog, and other public works 150 10 0
Seed—corn, wheat, oats, and barley 300 0 0
Turnip seed 15 0 0
Fishing materials 150 10 6
£1,130 15 6
Funds of this sort administered by benevolent and public-spirited individuals in Ireland, were generally supplied by the exertions of their relations and friends, or by grants from societies in England and elsewhere. It was a common practice for ladies in England to have parishes assigned to them in Ireland, and each lady raised all she could, and made periodical remittances to the clergyman of her adopted parish, receiving accounts from him in return, of the manner in which the money was expended. The self-denial necessary to support this charitable drain was carried to such an extent at Brighton and elsewhere, that the confectioners and other trades-people suffered severely in their business.