3-052-427 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The State of Ireland: scene outside the Courthouse, Galway, 1880. Sketch of '...the doleful groups of starving and destitute people, waiting outside the Courthouse in the city of Galway, who have begged for doles of "yellow meal" to be granted by the relief committee there...The two committees at Dublin, that of the Duchess of Marlborough and the Mansion House Committee, have been going on with their charitable work...and the amount they have raised, adding one fund to the other, is about £150,000. On Tuesday last, at the meeting of the Duchess of Marlborough's committee, Lord R. Churchill read a large number of reports from all the distressed districts, which went to show that the distress, although on the increase, is still being in a great measure met by the efforts of the local committees of the two funds. The Duchess has made a direct appeal to Australia for help, and she has again written to the Lord Mayor of London thanking him for the remittances he has regularly sent during the last six weeks. In America, the New York Herald...has opened a relief subscription for the Irish poor...We feel sure that there will be need of all that can be done to ward off the impending calamity in the western parts of Ireland before the coming of summer'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.