ions of the land:--"We regret to state that, on the
night of Thursday (last week), a barbarous murder was committed at a
village near Woodford, in this county. The unfortunate object of the
assassin's vengeance was a man named Pat Hill. Two persons came into
his house, and brought him out of his bed to a place about forty yards
distant, and there inflicted no less than forty-two bayonet wounds
on his person, besides a fracture of the skull. His wife, hearing his
screams, went to his assistance, and, having begged for mercy, she was
told by the heartless ruffians that if she did not go away, she would
herself be treated in a like manner. Having completed their purpose,
the miscreants, who are unknown, walked off, and their victim almost
immediately expired. An inquest was held at Portumna, when a verdict of
'Wilful murder' was returned against persons unknown. Deceased was in
rather comfortable circumstances, and bore a most excellent character."

While disaffection, secret societies, fanatical intolerance, and
wide-spread personal outrage cursed unhappy Ireland, the failure of the
potato crop intensified every other form of evil to which the country
was subjected. Very early in the year it was obvious to intelligent
observers that the failure of 1845 would be exceeded in 1846. The
distress developed itself very early. In February the Rev. W. B.
Townend, rector of Aghadda, in the diocess of Cloyne, county of Cork,
published a letter, in which he thus described the sufferings and the
prospects of the people:--"In this part of Ireland we are in a frightful
state--the humbler classes are all living on the contaminated potato;
the sides of fields and gardens literally covered with rotten ones,
thrown away. The detail of destruction is endless. That employment
should be wanted for the people, while one-third of Ireland is as
much waste as the woods in Canada, and the rest badly cultivated, not
affording half labour, is a strange anomaly."

Later in the year the Rev. J. B. Tyrwhitt, an English clergyman of
the Established Church, settled in Keny, published an account of the
sufferings and prospects of the people of the south and west of Munster,
truly appalling. The reverend gentleman wrote in the celebrated Vale
of Iverah, where the O'Connells held property, and exercised an almost
absolute sway:--"The prospects of the people of this very poor barony,
and all along from the River Kenmare, Sneem, Darrynane, to Cahirciveen,
an