Letter to the London ‘Times’, 14th November 1846 from the Rev. Crosthwaithe, Durrus, West Cork re Board of Works building road on the Northside of Muintervara Peninsula, 500 men employed at 8d a day able bodied, 6d for young, 4d for infirm travelling vast distances to work, 150 have received no pay for a month and 350 for 3 weeks.

He was heavily involved in famine relief in the area. The population of 7,000 he mentions is now down to around 1,000.

 

William Moore Crosthwaite 1842-1854.  Formerly Vicar of Kilcoe.  He was fluent in Irish which was remarked upon at the time as making his suitable for the parish.  His family said that his death was brought on by a fever contacted in the famine when he was doing relief work. In London in 1847 seeking to raise funds for relief and wrote to London Times. He attended the opening of the new Church of Ireland Church on Cape Clear in October 1849 when the Vicar, the Rev. Edward Spring preached in Irish.  The itinerant preacher Rev. Daniel Foley, accompanied by Rev. Fisher of Altar and Toormore, visited his parish in early 1849.  He had a Curate, paid for by the Irish Society in London.  It is probable that he was involved as a minor figure in the ‘Second Reformation’ being associated with controversial figures in West Cork and Kerry, Seamus O Suilleabhain, the Irish poet employed in the area as a scripture teacher was associated with the Rev Joseph Baylee who ministered in the Rev Nagle’s mission in Achill and later in Liverpool.

Curate Bell, 5th February 1851, paid for by Irish Society London, had a church for a period in Kilcrohane, withdrawn 1853