Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

===Whigs and the Famine===
Grouped around [[The Nation (Irish newspaper)|''The Nation'']], which had proposed as its "first great object" a "nationality" that would embrace as easily "the stranger who is within our gates" as "the Irishman of a hundred generations,"<ref>{{Cite book |title=A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes |last=Bardon |first=Jonathan |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |year=2008 |location=Dublin |page=367}}</ref> the dissidents suspected that in opposing the [https://vlex.co.uk/vid/queen-s-colleges-ireland-861222932 Queen's Colleges Bill] O'Connell was also playing [[Palace of Westminster|Westminster]] politics. O'Connell, who by September 1843 was again hinting at the possibility of a renewed alliance with the Whigs,<ref name=":4" /> welcomed the opportunity to inflict a defeat on the [[Second Peel ministry|Peel ministry]] and to hasten the return of his English "friends" to office.

The Young Irelanders' dismay only increased when at the end of June 1846 O'Connell appeared to succeed in this design. The [[First Russell ministry|new ministry]] of [[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Lord John Russell]] deployed the Whigs' new [[laissez-faire]] ("[[political economy]]") doctrines to dismantle the previous government's limited efforts to address the distress of the emerging, and catastrophic, [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Irish Famine]].<ref name=":14">{{Cite book |last=Woodham-Smith |first=Cecil |title=The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849 |publisher=Penguin |year=1962 |isbn=978-0-14-014515-1 |location=London |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|410-411}} [[Sir Charles Trevelyan, 1st Baronet|Charles Edward Trevelyan]], who as Assistant Secretary to the [[HM Treasury|Treasury]] became "virtually dictator of relief for Ireland" put a stop to the government's import and distribution of food with exception only for far western districts (O'Connell's home county Kerry included), where dependence on the failed potato crop was such that there was scarcely trade in any other description of food.<ref name=":14" />{{rp|105-107}}

In February 1847 O'Connell stood for the last time before the House of Commons in London and pleaded for his country: "She is in your hands{{snd}}in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. One-fourth of her population will perish unless Parliament comes to their relief".<ref name=":15">{{cite book |last1=Geoghegan |first1=Patrick |url= |title=Liberator Daniel O'Connell: The Life and Death of Daniel O'Connell, 1830–1847 |date= |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |year=2010 |isbn=9780717151578 |location=Dublin |pages= |access-date= |archive-url= |archive-date= |url-status=live}}</ref> As "temporary relief for destitute persons", the government opened soup kitchens. They were closed a few months later in August of the same year. The starving were directed to abandon the land and apply to the workhouses.<ref name=":14" />{{rp|410-411}}