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    Famine in Kilrush: An Inquiry
    Famine in Kilrush: An Inquiry
    Famine in Kilrush: An Inquiry
    Ebook25 pages18 minutes

    Famine in Kilrush: An Inquiry

    By Brian Comerford

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    About this ebook

    December 1849, Kilrush, County Clare, Ireland. A Reporter has been despatched to investigate reports of distress and starvation. It is the period now known as The Great Irish Famine. There is no food, no shelter and the Board of Guardians, charged with relieving distress, have run out of money. The reporter interviews paupers, the Landlord, Reverend Osborne, the Poor Law Inspector and the Parish Priest. He also attends a harrowing inquest on the body of a child, found dead.

    This dramatisation is based on contemporary records. By way of brief illustration of the effects of the Great Irish Famine, Kilrush in 1841 had a population of 5,071. It has never exceeded 2,800 in the intervening years.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrian Comerford
    Release dateNov 15, 2012
    ISBN9781301733972
    Famine in Kilrush: An Inquiry
    Author

    Brian Comerford

    Resident in Ireland, Brian Comerford has written for the theatre, screen, audio dramas and poetry. Please come back to Brian's Smashwords pages as new work is constantly being added.

    Read more from Brian Comerford

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      Book preview

      Famine in Kilrush - Brian Comerford

      FAMINE IN KILRUSH – AN INQUIRY

      by

      Brian Comerford

      Copyright 2012 Brian Comerford

      Smashwords Edition.

      CAST

      (in order of speech)

      REPORTER

      PAUPER MAN

      PAUPER WOMAN

      REVEREND OSBORNE

      COLONEL CROFTON MOORE VANDELEUR

      CLERK

      CORONER

      MARY McMAHON

      DOCTOR O’DONNELL

      CAPTAIN KENNEDY

      FATHER KELLY

      BRIDGET

      SACRISTAN

      Note: Synopsis is on the final pages.

      SCENE ONE

      OPEN OUTDOOR SPACE

      MUSIC – OPENING CHORDS – MOZART REQUIEM

      REPORTER: The town we are visiting is Kilrush, Kilrush, the centre of Kilrush Poor Law Union. For the part few weeks, London has got reports...many reports..of distress and starvation in this area, and we’re here to check the truth...or other wise... of these stories, and present the facts to you, the listeners. Kilrush was a thriving market town, it had a good export trade in corn, over thirty five thousand pounds worth in 1836. There was an import duty on American corn, but Westminster abolished it. Cheap imports of American corn have wiped out the trade from Kilrush in the past few years. And now, in the last week of the Eighteen Forties, this last week of December Eighteen Forty-Nine I will talk with the people, with the priests, with the landlords, with officials, with anyone. (PAUSE) Just a moment, there is a man coming this way, barefoot, head uncovered, dressed only in the shreds of a shirt, the rags of a pants. (SHIVERS) It is bitterly cold. I cannot understand why he has not frozen, frozen to death, already. (RAISES VOICE) Excuse me, Sir, excuse

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