If you read the book "The Great Hunger' by Cecil Woodham-Smith, which I beleive is an articulate and highly accurate account of the famine in the mid 1800's, you will find out about Trevelyan and the rest of the English government leaders, who stood by and watched as the irish starved. Trevelyan did not try hard when it came to saving the Irish and the government at large, did nothing to assist the dying. The apology from Blair and the government was WELL deserved and should have never been required. The famines in Ireland were every bit as bad as the Holocaust in Europe during the second wolrd war, TAL, Dan