How many people died in the Skibbereen Workhouse and how did it happen?

Answer 1

According to a very useful history and guide to sources, www.skibbereen.ie/microsite/skibbereen_famine/HTML/intro

Establishing how many died in the Skibbereen area during the Famine is problematic but a figure of 28,000 deaths and a further 8,000 emigrated, from population of 105,000 may be reasonable. Further, it was the poorest who were hit worst. Between 1847 and 1852 holdings of less than 15 acres declined by 31%; holdings greater than 30 acres increased by 63%. Pre Famine Skibbereen society was obliterated.Most of those who died in the Famine in Skibbereen were buried in the abbey graveyard, where a Famine Memorial stands with the inscription: 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Ps.CXV-5.' 'Erected to the memory of those departed ones who fell victims to the awful famine of 1846 and 1847. Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord. And let perpetual light shine on them. May they rest in peace. Amen.'

Harrowing images were intended to shock, like those of starving children in Africa on television are today. The commentary makes it clear that 'our main object in the publication of this series of Illustrations is to direct public sympathy to the suffering poor of these localities'.

The situation in Skibbereen was also the focus of a number of national newspaper reports. It soon became a byword for human suffering. As early as March 1847, the Liverpool Journal headed a report on fever deaths in Webster's Court, off Oriel Street, Liverpool - 'A Skibbereen In Liverpool'.

The scenes we have witnessed at Skibbereen, equal any thing that has been recorded by history, or could be conceived by the imagination. Famine, typhusfever, dysentery, and a disease hitherto unknown, are sweeping away the whole population. The poor are not the only sufferers: fever is spreading to every class, and even the rich are becoming involved in the same destruction.Narrative of a Journey from Oxford to Skibbereen during the year of the Irish Famine by Lord Dufferin and G F Boyle (Oxford, 1847).

Early in 1847, two aristocratic young Oxford undergraduates, Lord Dufferin and G F Boyle, visited Skibbereen. Shocked by what they saw, they published their Narrative of a Journey from Oxford to Skibbereen to raise funds for famine relief. They described how, in some cottages, 'dead bodies had lain putrefying in the midst of the sick remnant of their families, none strong enough to remove them, until the rats and decay made it difficult to recognise that they had been human beings'.