2-888-303 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Village of Killard, [Ireland], 1850. '...Killard forms part of the Union of Kilrush, and possesses an area of 17,022 acres. It had a population, in 1841, of 6850 souls, and was valued to the Poor-rate at £4254...The village was mostly inhabited by fishermen, who united with their occupation on the waters the cultivation of potatoes. When the latter failed, it might have been expected that the former should have been pursued with more vigour than ever; but boats and lines were sold for present subsistence, and to the failure of the potatoes was added the abandonment of the fisheries. The rent dwindled to nothing and then came the leveller and the exterminator. What has become of the 6850 souls, I know not...Killard is an epitome of half Ireland...the class of men...by whose bidding, and for whose supposed advantage all this ruin has been wrought, are still blindly treading in the same path...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.