ABSTRACT
Social issues, especially the relations between landlord and tenant, rather than the old demand for repeal were to determine much of the character of Irish politics from the autumn of 1848 onwards until late in the eighteen-fifties. The breakdown of the old pattern of society, in the circumstances, affected all classes. The landlords answered the tenants’ unwillingness or inability to pay rents by evictions, often on a scale which warrants the description of ‘clearances’. The debate on these Poor Law issues dragged on into July 1849, accompanied not merely by prolonged discussions in Parliament and in the cabinet but by confused and unsatisfactory consultations between Russell and the Irish members drawn from all parties. The much amended franchise bill was the only significant measure for which the Whig administration could claim credit. The time was an inopportune one for raising the question of state aid to the Catholic church.
