The botanical image that so transfixed the Irish public in the autumn-winter of 1845 was that of the putrefying tuber. The sense of foreboding and despair this inspired was captured in a contemporary oil painting – ‘The discovery of the Potato Blight’ – by the Cork-born artist, Daniel McDonald (1821–53). It has graced the cover of several histories of the Irish Famine. Yet the image of the mess of potatoes was symptomatic of a deeper malaise, of a social system that accommodated runaway population increase, leaving its people vulnerable to harvest failure. George Nicholls’ hastily compiled reports on a Poor Law for Ireland in 1838 spoke of a ‘reckless disregard of the future’. Weak landlordism, which might be seen as a consequence, though not a necessary consequence of seventeenth-century colonialism, had accepted or acquiesced in the proliferation of cottier and labouring households, most notably in mountainous localities and west of the Shannon. Strong landlordism would have meant a more interventionist ruling class exercising tighter control over household formation, accompanied by periodic evictions of squatters and smallholders as market conditions changed. To take a nearby comparator, this would have meant a tenurial regime more akin to that of Scotland where landlords were vigilant in controlling access to land and housing. This had a ruthless edge, so the Scottish historical alternative had its downside, particularly in the shorter term. .