3-028-278 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches from Ireland: cabin on the estate of Lord Castlemaine, in Kilkenny West, 1870. '...we caught sight by the roadside of a heap of stones, with smoke curling around it, and a woman and children nestled, as it were, in a corner. Directing the driver to pull up, we alighted and found that the object which had attracted our attention was a cabin consisting of a single apartment, the internal measurement of which was less than 9 ft. by 7 ft., and which had neither chimney nor even the most trifling article of furniture in it...So far as one could detect in the blinding smoke from the turf fire which was burning on the bare ground, there was not a single...household utensil in the place...In the confined space described eight human beings - a man, his wife, and six children - and the pig were installed regularly every night. The man - who at the call of his wife came reeling out of this hovel, for he was stone blind, and, though only forty-five years of age, was emaciated to a shadow of what he had evidently formerly been - had a painful story to tell, and yet he told it without a word of reproach against anyone...he had had the misfortune to lose his sight...and, owing to his being unable to work, was now reduced to a starving condition'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.