Traditionally government policy had been to intervene during famine crises. In the 1780s, Irish ports had been closed to food exports; in 1817, 1822, 1830 and 1845, the government imported food supplies from abroad. In London, the new Whig government of 1846 were pressurised by corn merchants and worried by rising prices and fears of shortages in England. It decided against such measures, and instead concentrated on providing employment through public works - mainly road building - in return for wages so labourers were able to buy food. The private sector would provide most of these food supplies.

Although defended by the novelist Anthony Trollope, then working as a Post Office official in Ireland, in a series of letters to The Examiner this policy failed. Bureaucracy could not cope with a public works scheme for hundreds of thousand of labourers, and delays in the payment of wages, partly due to a shortage of currency, sometimes proved fatal. A good example is the famous Case of Skibbereen.

By the end of 1846, more than 390,000 were employed on road-building, with a further 150,000 wanting such work. It was exhausting labour and, to avoid any private enterprises benefiting, the roads often led nowhere. Money wages had become essential to survival, but the weekly wage of 6-8 shillings was too low to support an average family, which needed 21 shillings to meet rocketing food prices.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Next >