One of the main problems in Ireland during the famine years was that there was a huge divide in wealth. The diagram shows the different classes of people in Ireland at that time. The Landlords were the wealthiest and the labourers were the poorest. The people who rented the land from the landlords were called tenants. The tenants were split into two classes, the strong farmers, who rented a lot of land and were well off and the small farmers who rented only a small amount of land and were poorer. The poorest of all were the labourers, who could not afford to rent any land and worked for the landlords and tenants. The Landlords didn't help the labourers and poorer tenants and even made things worse for them by evicting them from their homes when they couldn't pay their rent.