To fully appreciate this, we need to turn to the first-hand accounts from the time. As we will hear in letters read today by Matt Farrell, a bright spot in this period in Edgeworthstown was the efforts of the author Maria Edgeworth and her family to help those most in need. In one truly harrowing account, she writes of a woman so overwhelmed and broken by the effects of famine that she does not seem to even notice that the child she carries on her back has died. It is hard to easily forget this image, of a mother bereft beyond understanding, and the head of her innocent, lifeless child bobbing from side to side. While others of her class isolated themselves from this suffering on their doorstep and often exacerbated it, Maria Edgeworth rejected the dehumanising effects of this attitude and took action.