February 26th, 1847: Soup is now considered the best hope and cheapest means of keeping the Irish alive until the harvest. The Temporary Relief Act is rushed through Parliament. Known as the "Soup Kitchen Act", it is to provide emergency rations during the summer months.
After August 15th, notwithstanding the financial difficulties which Irish unions particularly in the south and west are already experiencing, the British government is determined that the Poor Law shall become responsible for providing relief.
Charles Trevelyan maintains: "The owners and holders of land in these districts had permitted or encouraged the growth of the excessive population which depended upon the precarious potato and they alone had it in their power to restore society to a safe and healthy state."
The Quakers have pioneered soupkitchen relief. In King's County, Edenderry Poor Law Union is dealing with the problem of overcrowded workhouses by opening a soup kitchen in each electoral division.
Initially, the Poor Law Commissioners refuse to sanction any expenditure for what they consider tantamount to outdoor relief, i.e. other than in the poorhouse. The Edenderry guardians respond by pointing out one of the major flaws in government policy: "There is most poverty where there is least means of getting funds."
But the Home Secretary, Sire George Grey, impressed by the Edenderry experiment, regards soup kitchens as an effective way of providing extensive relief cheaply. He therefore recommends that soup kitchens, organised by local relief committees, be established in areas of intense distress. By placing the soup kitchens under the control of relief committees, the government ensures that at least part of the cost will be borne locally.
In addition the Lord Lieutenant begins to issue small sums of money to the insolvent unions.
The impact of the Famine is being experienced even in the wealthiest parts of the country. The Belfast union, for example, has problems common to all workhouses at present rapidly increasing pauper numbers (as the destitute flock to the town) and a high rate of disease within the poorhouse. Mortality among the older inmates is averaging 50 to 60 a week.
With Indian meal selling at famine prices, labourers and smallholders have no choice but to consume their seed potatoes. The ensuing deficiency of seed dwarfs last year's shortage. A commissariat officer asks the parishioners of Templecrone, Co Donegal, why, instead of being idle, they do not dig their land. The answer he receives is: "They have neither food to eat while working, nor seed to put in."
The combined adverse circumstances result in an enormous decline in the potato - acreage in 1847 - a mere one seventh of what it was last year.