April 27th, 1846: A commissariat officer considers four million people will have to be fed during May, June and July before the new potatoes are fit to eat. Gen Edward Pine Coffin stationed in Limerick, urges the British government to buy and store the grain which is being exported. He considers it inconsistent to be importing supplies of Indian corn "into a country which is at the same time exporting its own resources".
The Relief Commission intends to hold on to its meagre supply of Indian meal until the summer, leaving the poor at the mercy of speculators.
It is quite impossible for the government to support half the population of Ireland, Sir Robert Peel tells the House Commons. People in "the wilds of Galway or Donegal or Mayo" must look to their landlords.
The majority of resident landlords are contributing benevolently, according to Smith O'Brien. Appealing to the government to act generously, he estimates that spending a £500,000 on public works would be a more realistic grant than the £50,000 allotted.
O'Brien remarks: "The circumstance which appeared most aggravating was that the people were starving in the midst of plenty, and that every tide carried from the Irish ports corn sufficient for the maintenance of thousands of the Irish people."
In no part of Ireland has the potato failure caused so much distress as in his native Co Clare. Clarecastle is described as the most hungry village in the county.
A boat laden with flour and Indian meal is plundered on the river Fergus by 14 armed men. Richard Russell recovers 51 bags of flour belonging to his father, hidden near the Hurlers' Cross on the Limerick Ennis road.
Outside Clonmel, four or five thousand of the unemployed and destitute poor attack Mrs Shanahan's mill in Marlfield and carry off several sacks of flour.
The military is called out to protect property. As the soldiers march through Clonmel, with mounted artillery, they are passed by at least 250 carts laden with flour for export (the property mainly of Messrs Grubb and Sargent) coming from Cahir, under a heavy escort of cavalry and infantry. The Limerick Reporter obseryes that Clonmel appeared as if under siege. The crowd disperses before the army reaches Marlfield.
In Tipperary town, the police act with forbearance while a dray laden with flour is seized by hungry people. Another commissariat officer writes to Trevelyan: "The barges leave Clonmel once a week [for Waterford], with the export supplies under convoy which, last Tuesday, consisted of two guns, 50 cavalry and 80 infantry escorting them on the banks of the Suir as far as Carrick."
The Irish peasant sells his produce, even when his children are crying with hunger, to save them from eviction. To pay the rent is the first necessity of life in Ireland.
