ABSTRACT
British discourse concerning the Irish Famine developed within a complex series of political contexts that helped frame and shape opinions and policy regarding Ireland. In his The Politics o f Repeal Kevin B. Nowlan noted that any attempt to understand the Irish Famine runs into the problem that ‘too many of the factors involved stretch back into the years before 1845’ (1965, 1). Developments following the initial appearance of the potato blight in 1845, therefore, cannot be considered in isolation from a variety of pre-existing issues. Some of these, such as tenants’ rights and the tithe rent, were largely Irish issues. Broader debates about free trade, poor-law reform, and municipal and ballot reform stirred interest on both sides of the Irish Sea. Looming over all other problems in Anglo-Irish politics, however, was the controversy over the repeal of the Act of Union, a challenge to the very structure o f the Empire. All of these issues had some bearing on how the British press and its readers would later react to the Famine in Ireland.
