This is the view of Old Chapel Lane or High Street in Skibbereen, Ireland. A coffin is being carried up the road. People stand and sit huddled outside doorways hunched with misery. The sketch intends to portray the horror and misery of both Skibbereen and Bridgetown. A portion of Bridgetown is shown in the right hand corner of the sketch and here not one house out of the 500 there was free of death and fever. The dead and the living lay close to each other for up to six days. In Skibbereen, in one particular house without doors or windows destitute people lay on the bare floor waiting to die. These miserable conditions were brought on by the potato famine in the mid 19th century and lack of work.