What motivated Meagher, the fount of his fury, was the fast-developing famine; it epitomized all the wrongs of Ireland. Through the winter of 1846 and into the spring, hundreds, then thousands of people dropped dead of starvation. Bellies of little children swelled, their faces went powdery, their hair fell by the handful, and they sniffled away to a corner of a hut or a roadside ditch, their parents soon to follow.
