The beginnings of the starvation are said to be a "biometeorological phenomenon," however, the British reacted in a sociopolitical manner. Relief from the British government was slow and insignificant. The economic policies that existed were unhelpful and the British Parliament refused to make adjustments to provide for a national disaster. No free food was offered to the starving people as long as there was food for sale. Charities offered to undersell the merchants, but under Parliament policies, this was not acceptable. Ships carrying aid from other countries were intercepted before they could reach the hungry peasants. Several American groups contributed huge amounts of money, food, and clothing for relief purposes, but little, if any, reached the starving peasants of Ireland.
In March of 1847, Quakers and religious charities began funding soup kitchens and workhouses. For many of the hunger victims, this was the only kind of aid seen during the years of the famine. Before the peasants were fed, many protestant groups ordered the peasants to condemn Catholicism. Meals served by "soupers" consisted of watery soup and bread. These meals did not provide adequate nutrition to keep the starving people alive and, many times, made it worse. People who are starving to death suffer from water retention and nutritional edema and by trying to hydrate them with watered down soup, increased their chances of mortality. .
The workhouses were overcrowded as well as unhealthy. There were as many as 173 workhouses in Ireland, more than the number of health clinics. The workhouses sometimes housed more than three times the amount of people they were originally built to hold. This promoted the spread of disease that was already rampant among the Irish. These aid efforts were halted to finance improvements in long term seed distribution.
British soldiers were sent in during the 1846 food riots.
