An exploration of Britain’s Irish policy in the period immediately preceding and during the Great Famine of 1845-50. It looks particularly at interpretations of and reponses to the land question , in the context of debates on reconstruction of Irish rural society, the relief of poverty, and the interventionist role of the state. Political agitation increasingly focused attention on Irish social problems in the early 1840s, but it was the Famine which forced them to the forefront of British politics. This work analyzes the idealogical forces underlying the decisions which had such fatal consequences for the people of Ireland and for the country’s future.