Heath, William "Shooting Pigs in Dublin. That is to say Shipping for England - A Fact- and facts like pigs are stubborn things."

William Heath.  “Shooting Pigs in Dublin. That is to say Shipping for England - A-Fact - and facts like pigs are stubborn things.”  Along the top margin:  “Bad luck to you – hold yere manners light – don’t be after singing yere selves out of wind,”  “There ye go Jew’ls,” “Below.” 

London:  T. McLean, December 23, 1829. Hand colored etching.   9 7/8 x 14 1/8 (sheet).   Attached to paper sheet creating wider margins.

William Heath (1794-1840), an ex-military man, became an illustrator of color-plate books and a prolific caricaturist on topics both military and satirical.  He helped establish the Glasgow magazine The Looking Glass and is identified on this print as the editor thereof.

This print, not listed in M. Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, appears to have reference to the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829.  While it antedates the period of the Irish famine when the British took food from a starving nation, the print does show impoverished-looking Irish observing the loading of hogs onto ships bound for England.