Tensions with the British
-In years before the blight, Great Britain's Prime minister, Robert Peel, helped stimulate Ireland's economy by creating job opportunities including many public work projects such as bridge, road, and canal building. (Coffey 28).
-He ordered supplies from America when things began to take a turn for the worst and created makeshit shelters to help the rising number of people evicted from their homes.
-He resigned from his position in 1845, just before the famine.
-Charles Trevelyan came to power for the duration of the famine. He sent back all of the supplies Peel had requested from the United States and revoked all of the jobs Peel had set in place.
He believed the blight was an opportunity sent from God to reorder society and leave only the elite who could suvive without the potato crop (Coffey 30).
-A common belief in Great Britain that the famine provided an opportunity to reform agriculture, the blight would leave behind a smaller, more prosperous class of farmers and a greatly reduced labor force that would have secured jobs (emancipation).
-Any aid that Great Britain had been giving Ireland was all but gone by 1847 when the country was hit with an economic crisis itself (emancipation). This lack of assistance was another deciding factor in hundreds of thousands peoples decisions to leave their homes.