June 28th, 1847: Parliament prepares to throw the financial burden of Famine relief exclusively on Irish taxpayers by passing the Poor Law Amendment Act.
A Poor Law designed to help approximately 100,000 paupers will be forced shortly to provide relief to 1 1/2 million people.
The Poor Relief (Ireland) Act empowers boards of guardians to grant outdoor relief to the aged, infirm and sick poor, and to widows with two or more dependent children. Ablebodied man can secure relief only if destitute and solely as inmates of the workhouse, although exceptions will be allowed for limited periods.
This latest measure to assist the Irish poor will become an agent of depopulation. Firstly, under Sir William Gregory's clause, those holding more than a quarter acre are excluded from benefit; hence forth, a tenant farmer in need of help will have to surrender his holding before becoming a "burden on the rates".
Secondly, leaving Irish rate payers to carry the full cost of Famine relief - with each electoral district responsible for supporting its own poor - increases the pressure on larger farmers to dispense with labourers. Thirdly, making landlords liable for all poor rates on holdings valued at £4 or less will spur them on to evict smallholders.
But the consolidation of farms is considered a necessary part of restructuring Irish society.
A separate Poor Law Commission for Ireland is created.
Granard (Co Longford) board of guardians requests, unsuccessfully, its own dissolution due to the intolerable burden of relieving the destitute from local rates.
Despite being made scapegoats for their country's social ills by the burgeoning English middle class, Irish landlords share a strong community of interests with British ministers. Lords Lansdowne, Clanricarde and Palmerston are cabinet members and Irishlandlords. They are votaries of political economy and favour minimal government intervention.
On the other hand, a high proportion of people on Irish estates are squatters or subtenants. Lord John Russell, voicing the general opinion of landed men on their rights, says: You might as well propose that a landlord compensate the rabbits for the burrows they have made."
Unsurprisingly, therefore, a second reading of William Sharman Crawford's Bill to give legal effect throughout Ireland to the Ulster custom is refused by 112 votes to 25 in the House of Commons.
Patriotic gentlemen such as Lord Cloncurry, William Smith O'Brien and Sir Colman O'Loghlen lament in vain that the principle of securing compensation to tenants for permanent improvements has been neglected in the present session of parliament.