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This week we continue our series on the Irish Potato Famine of 1845. We start to dive into the committee relief programs that Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel instated. He wanted the Irish to work for wages to buy subsidized food, instead of bartering or getting food donated to them. London also expected the middle class of Ireland to donate to the cause, but they were very hesitant because they feared for their own prosperity.

Most of the country survives the 1845 harvest, although the prosperous Irish have started to leave the country in hopes of finding greener pastures. And while the public works programs paid several hundred thousand men, they mostly built roads to nowhere. And at the beginning of the harvest of 1846, the potato blight returns.

Sources: The Graves are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People by John Kelly

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