Sidney Osborne: “On our journey we had ample opportunity of seeing to what shifts the peasantry will resort before they will face the union house after they have been evicted and seen their homes tumbled. Their usual practice is, with the thatch and some of the roof stick s, to build up a dwelling called a scalpeen, the most common form of this specie of dwelling is what I suppose an Englishman would call, the lean-to.”
Taken from The Truth Behind The Irish Famine, 72 paintings, 472 eye witness quotes: http://www.jerrymulvihill.com