Though in the summer of 1848 many were suffering, yet the workhouse was not filled with the dying as before, and the "sliding coffin" never met my eye. The indefatigable nuns still were overwhelmed with children, many of whom were placed there by Father Mathew, and in one contiguous to his chapel were about thirteen hundred, who were fed when food could be obtained. One of the most affecting items of the famine, if item it may be called, is the multitude of orphans left in that afflicted country, and the saying was becoming quite a common one, when a hungry child was asked where he lived, or where his father and mother were, to answer, "They died sir (or ma'am), in the stirabout times." This alluded to the year 1847 particularly, when the "stirabout" was most in vogue. The "black bread times" now have an imperishable name in the west of Ireland, and "Soyer's soup" will not die in the memory of the wags of Dublin, till wars, pestilence, and famine shall cease to the ends of the earth.
The environs of Cork had not lost any of their charms by the scourge, and Blarney seemed to have put on new beauties; her old castle and Blarney stone, now supported with two iron grasps, are still looking forth from the shrubbery and trees, which wildly surround it, for the good taste of the owner keeps the pruning knife confined to his enchanting gardens and walks, and allows nature here to frolic according to her own vagaries. The sycamore, oak, arbutus, elm, ash, holly, copperbeech, and ivy, were mingling and com-
