Traill was born in Lisburn, County Antrim, on 15 July 1793 the son of the Venerable Anthony Trail (1755–1831) and his wife, Agnes Watts Gayer.

[8] However he realised this would not be successful and by December was trying, in vain, to persuade the local landlords to let their tenants keep some grain so that they weren't forced to eat their seed potatoes.

He was shown in the Illustrated London News visiting a dying man and his family, having been sketched by James Mahony who said of Traill that "his humanity at the present moment is beyond praise".

[3] Traill established a soup kitchen at his home to provide for the needy and wrote that "my house is more like a beleaguered fortress.

My family one and all are perfect slaves worn out with attending them; for I would not wish, were it possible, that one starving creature would leave my door without some-thing to allay the cravings of hunger".

Caffin wrote to a friend that "In no house that I entered was there not to be found the dead or dying ... never in my life have I seen such wholesale misery, nor could I have thought it so complete."

Goodwin wrote Traill into an episode of ITV's Victoria which told the story of the Great Famine, portraying a fictional meeting between the two.