Cork Examiner 2 May 1849
Cholera in Dungarvan
A petition has been signed by 27 of the most
respectable inhabitants of Abbeyside, and addressed to the Rev. Mr Shanahan,
P.P., calling on him to prohibit in future the internment of the paupers in the
Augustinian Cemetery in that parish. The yard is literally covered with graves
even to the very edge of the walks, and no room left, unless they may be piled
one over another. This shows a most awful state of mortality in this locality.
There were 900 paupers sent out of the Union Workhouse this day, for outdoor
relief at one penny a day each, or one pound of Indian meal for their support.
28 April
On the 25th instant, a boy of the name of Fitzgerald,
aged 15, was discharged on the previous evening from the Union poorhouse and
died of Cholera after four hours illness, he being one of the number for
out-door relief, and on the 26th three new cases occurred in the poor-house,
one of which was expected to terminate fatally before night. And yet with all
these people of Cholera amongst us, what do you think the Guardians…have done
at the Board meeting the following day? They have actually appointed their only
medical officer, Dr Christian*,
to take part of the duties of the Fever Hospital…I ask…how is it possible any
medical man could attend to the wants of over 3,000 paupers, divided amongst
five auxiliary poor-houses. Furter I have to state that the Sanatory Board, and
inhabitants disapprove of the Guardians having taken houses in the most
populous part of the town, for the reception of Cholera patients.
*In 1840 Doctor Thomas Christian married a daughter of the Rev
Stephen Dickson of Monroe Glebe, Abbeyside. He died on 14 February 1853.
