January 1st, 1846: The British government does not want to end up feeding the hungry in Ireland, where in "normal" times an estimated 2,385,000 are destitute for half the year.
On arrival in Dublin Sir Randolph Routh, chairman of the Relief Commission, writes to Charles Trevelyan at the Treasury: "Claims will be made on account of the distress of the people, rather than from their want of food proceeding from losses of the potato crop. There must be a distinction clearly kept."
Marianne Nevill, who owns estates in Cos Kildare, Wexford and Cork, suggests that the people eat yams. She has written for a supply from the West Indies.
A meeting of farmers and labourers in Charleville, Co Cork, sends a report to Dublin Castle, which reads in part: "Widow Sheedy had 13 barrels dug out sound; out of the entire, though she has adopted all the remedial measures hitherto recommended, she has two barrels fit for pigs not one fit for human food."
A Dublin correspondent appeals to Horace Greeley, of the New York Tribune, for American aid: "Society is so selfishly and antagonistically organised that men generally try to keep their souls at ease while pursuing their legitimate callings, yet the excitement here is daily growing more intense and the time is not distant when a terrific outbreak must be the consequence.
January 2nd: The Waterford Chronicle reports that recruiting sergeants are busy. "The farmers are in dread of the potato failure, and they will not employ labourers; consequently, many poor Irish unfortunates are thrown by the force of bitter adversity into the ranks of the English army.
January 5th: A Poor Law commissioner is censured for refusing to examine a witness because she could not speak English. A member of the Gort Union Board of Guardians complains that, during a work house inquiry, one of the assistant commissioners, a Scotsman, excluded testimony "because the witness could only speak her native language".
January 6th: An epiphanic deputation from Dublin Corporation presents an address to Queen Victoria in Windsor, concerning what the Observer calls "the alleged famine in Ireland".
The queen's reply offers no practical measures of relief. The Freeman's Journal forbears comment except to note the apathy of her ministers towards Irish misery - "because we believe that no sentiment of that nature finds a place in the bosom of the Royal Lady,
The delegation is entertained by the lord mayor of London, however. Replying to a toast, the lord mayor of Dublin, Henry Arabin, remarks that until recently the Irish nation was an object of ridicule in England.
"If Englishmen were placed in the same situation as the people of Ireland, instead of asking as he had done that day in the address presented to her Majesty, Englishmen would demand and be sure to obtain what they sought."