Subscribers to the Leckpatrick Famine Relief Committee

In response to the worsening crisis created by the Great Famine relief committees were established. In some areas these were based on parochial divisions. Thus the parish of Leckpatrick in County Tyrone had its own relief committee. The impact of the Famine in Leckpatrick can be gauged from a letter to Sir Randalph Routh, the Commissary-General for Ireland, from William Chambers, secretary to the local relief committee, dated 18 January 1847.

Describing the situation in the parish, Chambers wrote: The fact is starvation is at our doors, ay in the homes of some of our labouring population. The universal cry is We, our wives and children must die of hunger. The subscription list supplied by Chambers to the authorities in Dublin was a cutting from an unidentified newspaper.

• From: Famine Relief Commission Papers, NAI (RLFC 3/2/28/36).
• Compiled by Alba De Evan Freijedo.