1846
June - Russell denounces Young Ireland in the Commons; "A group who, if I read rightly their sentiments as expressed in a newspaper - I shall name it - called the Nation, which has a great circulation in Ireland, who go beyond that question of the Legislative Union - who would wish not merely to have such a parliament as that which it was the boast of Grattan to have found, and which legislated under the sceptre of the same Sovereign as the Parliament of Great Britain, but a party which exerts every species of violence, which looks to disturbance as its means, and which regards separation from England as its end."
Tensions first appeared between the Repeal movement and Young Ireland after the aborted 'monster meeting' at Clontarf (1843) with many of the more radical younger generation of Repealers decrying it as a lost opportunity for a successful revolution. When O' Connell emerged from prison some ten months later they were further perplexed & horrified by his brief flirtation with 'federalism' wherein 'the Liberator' cited the US Constitutional arrangement as an acceptable template for Irish conditions. This diluted form of independence they found unacceptable but O' Connell, it was clear, was simply working towards another means of tying the Whigs into a further liberal package of reforms. Nevertheless, the fact that he could compromise on the principle issue of repeal left many disillusioned and looking elsewhere for guidance.
After the death of Thomas Davis in June 1845 a vital moderating force was lost and John Mitchel, now de facto political editor of the Nation became increasingly strident in his anti-government rhetoric. His 'seditious' railway article commenced a government crackdown on the paper but the state prosecution of Gavan Duffy (held culpable as proprietor) was brilliantly defended by the veteran United Irishman barrister Robert Holmes in February 1846. O' Connell was outraged as the article implied Repeal wardens could be used were excessive coercion applied by the state by ripping up railway tracks and making pikes out of them. The article was written after the first blight had struck in Autumn 1845 and when it emerged Peel's government were contemplating another coercion bill for the country. O' Connell for his part had long experience of successive Emancipation and Repeal organisations being proscribed by the Tories on far flimsier grounds.
25th June - Tories lose vote on the Irish Coercion Bill.
27th June - Peel resigns
June - Daily average number of labourers throughout the month on Board of Works is 21,000.
End of June - Russell forms his cabinet.Two most influential figures aside from Russell himself are Palmerston and Lansdowne. The Gray/Hilton taxonomy of Whig allegiance/influence are posted in brackets while major Irish landowners are underlined.
Prime Minister, Lord John Russell (Foxite)
Lord President of the Council, Marquis of Lansdowne (Bowood)
Foreign Secretary, Viscount Palmerston (Bowood)
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Charles Wood ('Moralist')
Home Secretary, Sir George Grey ('Moralist')
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl of Bessborough (Foxite)
Chief Secretary of Ireland, Henry Labouchere (Bowood)
President of the Board of Trade, Earl of Clarendon (Bowood)
Secretary for War and the Colonies, Earl Grey (Foxite 'Moralist')
President of the Board of Control, John Cam Hobhouse (Bowood)
Lord Chancellor, Lord Cottenham
Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Minto (Foxite)
First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl of Auckland (Bowood)
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Campbell
First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, Viscount Morpeth (Foxite)
Postmaster- General, Marquis of Clanricarde (Bowood)
Paymaster-General, Thomas Babbington Macauley ('Moralist')
15th July - 71,000 the daily average of labourers on the Board of Works schemes.
17th July - Routh to Trevelyan; "The reports of the new potato crop are very unfavourable. All letters and sources of information declare disease to be more prevalent this year than last in the early crop." The fate of the main, or 'people's crop' wouldn't be known until the first week of August.
21st July - Treasury minute demands all public works to be wound down by 15th August at the latest. This is to prepare for the new public works scheme about to be introduced.
28th July - Secession of Young Ireland from the Repeal Association after the 'sword speech' of Francis Meagher. John O' Connell had attempted to impose 'peace resolutions', demanding members abjure violence in the push for Repeal under all circumstances. Smith O' Brien joins Meagher & Mitchel in the definitive split. Notably, at least three prominent priests gave vocal support to the Young Ireland camp; Fr O' Carroll, Fr. Meehan, & Fr. Kenyon, the latter remarking; "to say that no force but moral force should ever be employed was fanatical and ... in his opinion, monstrous folly". Articles appeared in the following weeks in the Pilot and Freeman's Journal attacking the seceders, particularly Smith O' Brien while Richard O' Gorman, Thomas Darcy McGee & John Martin (a Protestant landlord friend of Mitchel's) are expelled from the Association for not supporting the resolutions.
1st August - Internal memorandum issued to the new Whig government by Trevelyan outlines the fault's of last season's relief effort and suggests means of improving them. This will form the basis of the new Labour Rate Act, the cornerstone of the Whig's response to the crisis. In it he stated that 'the supply of the home market may be safely left to private entrepreneurs'.
4th August - Routh to Trevelyan; "You cannot answer the cry of want by a quotation from political economy. You ought to have 16,000 tons of Indian corn .. you ought to have half the supply which you require in the county before Christmas"
5th August - In Limerick, labourers tear up a stretch of road they had just built in anger of being told the works were to end.
6th August - Board of Works were employing a daily average of 98,000 labourers. This would be the peak amount employed under the old Public Works Bill began by the Conservatives. It has been estimated that an additional 30,000 persons obtained work on grand jury schemes or on pier and harbour projects and perhaps another 10,000 on schemes set up by local relief committees thus making at it's peak a total of around 148,000 persons employed by various agencies set up by the Peel government. Assigning four dependents to each worker this would amount to around 700,000 beneficiaries.
7th August - Almost complete loss of the potato crop is reported. Times declares 'total annihilation'. "I shall never forget the change in one week in August. On the first occasion, on an official visit of inspection I had passed over thirty-two miles thickly studded with potato fields in full bloom. The next time the face of the whole country had changed, the stalk remained bright green, but the leaves were all scorched black. It was the work of a night." Capt. Mann, Coastguard Relief Officer. Only 3,000 tons of Indian meal are left in the food depots, the residue of Peel's earlier purchase.
7th August - Fr Matthew, the 'apostle of temperance' writes to Trevelyan of rumours that 'the capitalists in the corn and flour trade are endeavouring to induce government not to protect the people from famine but to leave them at their mercy'
17th August - Fr. Matthew's fears are confirmed. Charles Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, declares in the House that merchants had promised 'not to import food at all if it were the intention of the government to do so', that they (the government) had, in turn, given them assurance they would not interfere 'with the regular mode by which Indian corn and other grains were brought into the country but to leave that trade "as much liberty as possible"
The Labour Rate Act of 1846
17th August - Russell introduces a Bill 'to facilitate the employment of the Labouring Poor for a limited period in distressed districts in Ireland' ie the Labour Rate Act.
The major difference with the previous works bill under Peel was that;
(a) the 'half-grant' system was to be abolished and all costs were now to be borne locally by Poor Law ratepayers (ie anyone holding land worth £4 or more annual rental). Works would be organised by the Board of Works and loans to pay for them would be advanced by the Treasury repayable in ten years at 3.5 % interest.
(b) the government would not interfere in the market. No food depots would be set up and no Indian meal or grain of any other description would be purchased abroad except for the West of Ireland; Kerry, Donegal, impoverished areas west of the Shannon, West Cork & the Dingle Peninsula, places in general where no trade in food provisions apart from the potato previously existed.
(c) local relief committees were no longer elected but nominated by the county Lieutenant & government would now contribute only half the money subscribed as opposed to matching it as they did the previous season.
- also, £50,000 in free grants were to be made available to those districts too poor to support themselves.
"Fifty thousand pounds to save a starving people! .. Although twenty million pounds of public money were spent by England to emancipate the negroes of West India, £50,000 was all that was to be allotted to save Ireland from death." - Archbishop John MacHale to Russell.
The act was a body blow to the landed interest in Ireland;
Stephen Spring Rice (son of Lord Monteagle) - "rushed through in ten days after all the Irish members had left London, ... it is enough to make a man turn Repealer"
Lord Palmerston - "if the Act were to remain in force for any length of time, the landlords will be in the end as well qualified as their cottiers to demand admission into a Union workhouse".
Trevelyan had little sympathy - "the backwardness of landlords had made compulsory measures inevitable".
18th August - A 'mob' of 400 labourers marched into Cork city carrying spades, saying they were starving and demanding work.
28th August - Numbers on works less than 38,000. Food stocks in depots now dwindled to 2,100 tons of Indian meal and 240 tons of oatmeal.
4th September - Presentment sessions under the Labour Rate Act begin.
19th September - Commissariat General Routh to Trevelyan; "It would require a thousand tons to make an impression, and that only a temporary one. Our salvation of the depot system is in the importation of a large supply. These small shipments are only a drop in the ocean.".
22nd September - "Large sums are voted at baronial sessions as though there were no such thing as repayment in the memory of the ratepayers", reported The Times.
Many of the sessions were chaotic; "All persons had a right to attend and make proposals without stint, mobs beset and crowded the session- houses until there was scarcely space to sit or air to breathe. Hundreds of proposals drawn up by illiterate and interested persons - labourers, petty farmers or whiskey sellers - were thrust before the persons appointed to preside, and supported by threats within doors and sometimes by violence without". - Stephen Spring Rice.
26th September - Numbers on works less than 15,000.
1847
23rd January - Bessborough to Russell; "I cannot make up my mind entirely about the merchants. I know all the difficulties that arise when you begin to interfere with trade, but it is difficult to persuade a starving population that one class should be permitted to make fifty per cent profit by the sale of provisions, while they are dying in want of these."
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