Thank you Jean for yet another part of Ireland's history. To add to "Trevlyan's corn" -- Sir Charles Trevlyan was Asst. Secretary of the Treasury in London. Throughout the Famine - Great Hunger (An Gorta Mor) Trevlyan made the Irish pay rent with corn. Ireland did not have a shortage of food; it was shipped out to England and elsewhere. Soldiers guarded warehouses of corn and other grains. The song reflects what happened when people tried to keep food to feed themselves and their families. During the Great Hunger over one million people in Ireland died from starvation and disease, over a million and a half were forced to immigrate. The following is a little bit about Trevlyan. "Trevlyan was Assistant Secretary to the Treasury in London between 1840 -1859. This position put him in charge of the administration of Government relief to the victims of the Irish Famine in the 1840s. In the middle of that crisis Trevelyan published his views on the matter. He saw the Famine as a 'mechanism for reducing surplus population'. But it was more: 'The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. .The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people'. Such racist and sectarian views of the Irish were common enough within the English governing classes and were more crudely expressed by others. For the most part, Trevelyan's views reflected the prevailing Whig economic and social opinion and that of the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, who held office from 1846 until 1852. Trevelyan was stiff and unbending. He firmly believed in laissez faire (essentially, the importing of food should be left to the food merchants), he thought that the Government should not intervene, and warned of the danger that people might get into the habit of depending on the state. From March 1846 he controlled the public works through the disbursement of public funds. Under Trevelyan, relief by public works in 1846-7 was too little too late but also it was slow, inefficient and sometimes corrupt. He defended the export of grain from famine-stricken Ireland on the grounds that the Government should not interfere with free trade. When his own administrators described this export of food as 'a most serious evil' Trevelyan refused even to consider banning it. When rioting broke out in protest against at the export of corn, he sent 2,000 troops, provisioned with beef, pork and biscuits, 'to be directed on particular ports at short notice'. He was against railway construction as a form of relief and successfully opposed Russell's scheme for the distribution of some £50,000 worth of seed to tenants. The failure of government relief schemes finally became clear to Trevelyan and early in 1847 soup kitchens were organised under a high-level government commission. It worked badly. In the autumn of 1847, Trevelyan ended government-sponsored aid to the distressed Poor Law districts although there was an outbreak of cholera. He declared that the Famine was over, and that from now on Irish landlords were to be responsible for financing relief works. He gained a well-deserved reputation as a cold-hearted and uncompassionate administrator.". Taken from Tomás O'Riordan, Ireland and the Union, 1815-1870.Charles Edward Trevelyan University College Cork, Multitext Project http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Charles_Edward_Trevelyan Beannachtai agus síocháin, (Blessings and Peace) Margaret (Máiread) From: "Jean R." <[email protected]> > FIELDS OF ATHENRY > > By A Lonely Prison Wall > I Heard A Young Girl Calling > Michael They Have Taken You Away > For You Stole Trevelyn's Corn > So The Young Might See The Morn > Now A Prison Ship Lies Waiting In The Bay