My bad. However, my understanding of the situation is that there was a british debate at the time as to what to do, if anything. The bleeding hearts suggested f

My bad. However, my understanding of the situation is that there was a british debate at the time as to what to do, if anything. The bleeding hearts suggested food relief for the starving irish, but were overridden by the libertarians of the day, who were horrified that anyone should attempt to trump economic considerations with moral ones, and insisted that one should not tamper with markets: the price of foodstuffs was the price. (if the irish could not afford to keep that beef or to import other food, they had obviously made a poor decision when selecting their parents!) Therefore nothing was done. Edit: in the case of government response, my recollection does seem to have been a reasonable oversimplification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Government_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#Governm...