SOURCE: "The Great Hunger 1845-1850," in The Great Irish Famine, Macmillan Education Ltd., 1989, pp. 39-64.

A. Nicholson Describes a Starving Man:

[R]eader, if you have never seen a starving human being, may you never! In my childhood I had been frightened with the stories of ghosts, and had seen actual skeletons; but imagination had come short of the sight of this man. And here, to those who have never watched the progress of protracted hunger, it might be proper to say, that persons will live for months, and pass through different stages, and life will struggle on to maintain her lawful hold, if occasional scanty supplies are given, till the walking skeleton is reduced to a state of inanity—he sees you not, he heeds you not, neither does he beg. The first stage is somewhat clamorous—will not easily be put off; the next is patient...