town. The police were confronted by an angry crowd throwing rocks and sticks. The police were obliged to charge the crowd and fire buckshot resulting in a large number of injuries. The police made 20 arrests. A workhouse was erected on the site of the current hospital. The Head of the Treasury, Charles Trevelyan, notoriously decreed that relief was only to be given to workhouse people. Starving people crowded to the workhouse. At one stage at the height of the Famine, 3,000 people were recorded as being in Belmullet workhouse. The area around Belmullet was severely impacted by the Great Irish Famine in the 19th century and in the next 100 years many people emigrated from the area to the United States and to England. Throughout the second half of the 19th century, many proposals were made regarding the development of a railway line in to Belmullet and Erris region. Three routes were surveyed and discussed: Route One: Ballina – Ballycastle – Belmullet Route Two: Newport – Mulrany – Belmullet Route Three: Ballina – Crossmolina – Belmullet People along these routes lobbied for the railway lines to pass through their district. However the merchants of Belmullet were more skeptical and feared that the introduction of a railway line would adversely affect their trading position, putting Ballina within easy reach of the population. Plans for a railway to Blacksod, which would have served trans-Atlantic shipping, were therefore postponed. Many still pressed the authorities for a rail line, and this movement gained momentum during the latter days of the First World War, when it was proposed that a line would improve lines of communication between both London and Canada, and between London and the United States. However, when the war ended in 1918, the hopes for a railway service to Blacksod ended with it. In the early 1920, the Sligo Steam Navigation Company ran weekly sailings between Belmullet, Sligo and Liverpool. In July 1865, two local men – Richard Barrett and James Hogan were found guilty of piracy. They were convicted of plundering the schooner Elizabeth McClure of Indian meal near ar the island of Iniskee. Both men were sentenced to five years hard labor. Belmullet established a monthly cattle fair, and the town began to take trade from An Geatta Mór. The Bingham family fought back, but their village was more or less deserted by the cattle traders by the late