Black 47 Jan-Mar

1st Jan - 'A London Clergyman' in a letter to the Times makes the argument that people would rather donate charitably than pay for relief via taxes; "Government cannot give gratuitous relief, only wages for labour, and even then great care had to be exercised.... if the public purse were to opened without restriction for the relief of that distress, all private exertion would be relaxed, and the consumption of the already insufficient stock of food would go on at a rate which would lead to ever more disastrous results then these with which we are already threatened". "A channel must and will be immediately opened through which that charity may flow".
1st Jan - British Association (for the relief of extreme distress in the remote parishes of Ireland and Scotland) is formed by Stephen Spring Rice, Baron Lionel de Rothschild, Mr. Abel Smith, Mr. Thomas Baring (chairman), Mr. Pim of Dublin who was secretary to the Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends and Mr. J. J. Cummins of Cork. Assistance was to be afforded by "the distribution of Food, Clothing and Fuel" but under no circumstances was money to be directly provided. Over £470,000 would be collected by the Association, one sixth of which given to provide relief in Scotland. Anglicised Polish nobleman Count Strzelecki is appointed agent for the Association in Donegal, Mayo and Sligo, the committee adjudging that it were wise not to appoint an Englishman. On arrival in Westport he wrote; "No pen can describe the distress by which I am surrounded ... you may now believe anything which you may hear and read because what I actually see surpasses what I ever read of past and present calamities" (Woodham-Smith: The Great Hunger: 165)
6th Jan - Colonel Jones to Trevelyan; several deaths due to starvation reported of men waiting for Presentment Sessions to renew as new projects waited approval
7th Jan - Revs Caufield and Townsend, two Church of Ireland ministers lead a deputation of the Skibbereen Relief Committee to garner subscriptions for relief but return empty-handed. They write in the Times the reasons they believed for their poor reception. There was a perception that; (1) there was abuse of former British munificence (2) Irish society not ameliorated by former kindnesses (3) the purchase of arms (4) no energy on Irish behalf to scramble out of the thicket themselves but instead tended to lean further on British goodwill (5) widely perceived that the money so far granted was given out of the English exchequer, a permanent drain on its resources without realising that these monies were all loans.
7th Jan - Rev. Mr. Begley (a Catholic clergyman) writing in the Times; He knew "men to be working two entire days upon the public works without a morsel of food ... Proceeding on their favourite principle of political economy, they have given the people some trifling employment, but, gracious mercy, what does it avail, when I tell you that the people employed on the roads are in absolute starvation - when they cannot, from their scanty earning, derive one substantial meal in the 24 hours"
8th Jan - Times editorial; "Mendicancy, in one form or another, pervades all the classes, institutions and customs of that country. A beggar peasantry, a beggar demagogue [O' Connell], and beggar landlords, vie with one another in the exercise of the national privilege. 'Give, give, give', more , more, more', is echoed from every quarter of the Irish compass .. in a perpetual chorus of importunity". "It is too true that the English prefer to bestow where they can direct its application. They wish to secure both benefit to the recipient, and something like gratitude to the giver. Money thrown into a ditch , even though that ditch were the hovel of an Irishman or the pocket of his landlord, is their abomination. "
Jan 9th Routh to Trevelyan; "The people cannot purchase at our prices to the extent they require" - to which Trevelyan responded; "If we make prices lower, I repeat, for the hundredth time, the whole country will be upon us". Relief policy at this time was to keep depot prices 5% dearer than the prevailing market price.
13 Jan - Inaugural meeting of the Irish Confederation. John Shea Lawlor, a Kerry landlord convenes with John Blake Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy appointed honorary secretaries, the latter soon replaced by Thomas Francis Meagher. 10,000 enrolled initially but according to Gavan Duffy; "the gentry only furnished a few stray volunteers, the bulk of the middle class stood apart, the Catholic clergy were unfriendly, and the people in their suffering and despair scarcely knew what was going on". (Kinealy: Repeal and Revolution: 93). Office in Dolier St. with one full-time paid secretary, weekly meetings like the Repealers renting the Music Hall in Dublin.
14 Jan - A meeting, headed by Daniel O' Connell is convened in the Rotunda by disillusioned Irish Repealers and landlords in an attempt to reverse the Whig's newly announced famine policy of making Irish relief a responsibility of Irish property. 30 MP's, 20 Peers and 600 other 'gentlemen' including Smith O' Brien despite disapproval from some quarters of Young Ireland. Demands of the 'Irish Party' included (1) suspension of the Navigation Laws - protective legislation that only allowed British registered ships to brings goods (including foodstuffs ) into the UK. (2) the removal of remaining duties on corn imports (3) a request for the navy to be used to bring food to Ireland (4) a plea to spend whatever was necessary to save Irish lives (5) a plea for a limited form of tenant right to give those evicted some compensation for improvements (6) a tax on absentee landlords. Most of the British press denounced the meeting as an attempt by Irish landlords to protect their own interests.
Kinealy repeats Gwynn's charge that at this stage the Repeal Association had virtually abandoned the nucleus of its policy and had instead under the influence of John O' Connell turned to providing 'jobs for the boys'. (Kinealy: Repeal and Revolution: 91).
16th Jan - Total employed on the Board of Works was 574,000, daily expenditure was £30,000, weekly cost was £172,000, with 11,587 staff employed by the Board of Works.
21 Jan -  The Famine Year, by Speranza appears in the Nation -
                                              VI

We are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride,

But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died.

Now is your hour of pleasure—bask ye in the world’s caress;

But our whitening bones against ye will rise as witnesses,

From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffin’d masses,

For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes.

A ghastly, spectral army, before the great God we’ll stand,

And arraign ye as our murderers, the spoilers of our land.

Jan 22nd. Trevelyan to Routh; "However serious and painful it may be , it is indispensable that the prices at our depots should keep pace with the Cork prices .. else mercantile supplies should cease to be sent to at least one half of Ireland"

Feb 4th - Tory Lord George Bentinck proposes a Bill to spend £16 million building railways in Ireland. There were at the moment "500,000 able-bodied persons living upon the funds of the state, commanded by a staff of 11,587 persons, employed upon works that have variously been described as 'works worse than idleness' .. as 'public follies' and as works which will answer no other purpose that that of obstructing public conveyances". There were at the moment he argued only 123 miles of railway in Ireland; the loan of £16 million would be paid back over 37 years at 3.5% interest with the railways themselves as security.

 

18 March - Patrick O' Donoghue, young legal clerk proposes in the Council of the Confederation that Smith O' Brien "relinquish his present pursuit of vainly trying to awaken sympathy for Irish wrongs in a foreign legislature and resume his place as a leader of the loyal Irish millions." (Kinealy: Repeal and Revolution: 96). Only representative of Young Ireland in parliament at this point and while Duffy, Mitchel and Meagher wished to see him withdraw the bulk of the Confederation wished him to stay on in Westminster and continue to apply some kind of pressure.