as to his acceptance of a commissionership on the Board, or as regarded the partial application of the Act. The latter has since then been so amended, that in its present form it is quite favourable to Catholic charities and the Catholic poor. In his zeal for the cause of the Catholic religion and of Ireland, so long down-trodden, but not in the 1830s, Dr. MacHale frequently incurred from his opponents the charge of intemperate language, something not altogether undeserved. He did not possess that suavity of manner which is so invaluable to leaders of men and public opinion, and so he alarmed or offended others. In his anxiety to reform abuses and to secure the welfare of Ireland, by an uncompromising and impetuous zeal, he made many bitter and unrelenting enemies. This was particularly true of British ministers and their supporters, by whom he was dubbed "a firebrand", and "a dangerous demagogue". Cardinal Barnabo, Prefect of Propaganda, who had serious disagreements with Dr. MacHale, declared he was a twice-dyed Irishman, a good man ever insisting on getting his own way. This excessive inflexibility, not sufficiently tempered by prudence, explains his more or less stormy career. The Famine of 1845–49 The Irish famine of 1846–47 affected his diocese more than any. In the first year he announced in a sermon that the famine was a divine punishment on his flock for their sins (as did Cardinal Wiseman). Then by 1846 he warned the Government as to the state of Ireland, reproached them for their dilatoriness, and held up the uselessness of relief works expended on high roads instead of on quays and piers to develop the sea fisheries. From England as well as other parts of the world, cargoes of food were sent to the starving Irish. Bread and soup were distributed from the archbishop's kitchen. Donations sent to him were acknowledged, accounted for, and disbursed by his clergy among the victims. Political matters The death of Daniel O'Connell in 1847 was a setback to MacHale as were the subsequent disagreements within the Repeal Association. The 1850 Synod of Thurles emphasised differences within the hierarchy on education with MacHale strongly in favour of exclusively Catholic institutions, along with Papal policy. During the recrudescence of "No Popery" in 1851, on the occasion of the re-establishment of the Catholic Hierarchy in England and Wales, and the passing of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act