The Great Irish Famine by Yair Davidiy (3 July, 2014, 5 Tammuz, 5774)
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Ireland and Britain
3. The Potato
4. The Hungry Forties all over Europe
5. The Scottish Highlands, Hunger and Clearances
6. The Irish Disaster
7. The Effects on Ulster
8. The Export of Food from Ireland.
9. How Many Really Died?
10. How Culpable were the British?
11. Comparisons with Scotland. Similar Case
12. Conclusion
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1. Introduction
The Great Irish Famine of 1845-9 resulted in the death and emigration of about 2 million Irishmen.
The famine was caused by a failure of the potato crop. The British have been blamed for not doing more to mitigate the effects of the Famine.
Genocidal intentions have been attributed to the British mainly by descendants of Irishmen in the USA. In Ireland itself a more balanced appreciation of what happened usually prevails.
This is not our field of study but it concerns matters we have related to in our other writings.
There is nothing very original in the notes below. Our sources were those we found readily available on the Internet. Before preparing this article we had done some general reading relating to the matter. Not every point has been given an accredited source since we did not take the necessary notes at the beginning.
We intended to give some idea of what happened, to be fair, and to provide a short overall picture.
This article may be of interest and value to some.
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2. Ireland and Britain
Ireland and the rest of the British isles were always involved with each other.
Irish Tribes raided and sometimes settled on the western coasts of Scotland, England and Wales.
The major towns of Ireland, Limerick, Cork, Waterford, Wexford, Dublin, were all founded by Viking settlers mainly from Norway but also from Denmark. The Vikings were all conquered by Irish monarchs and incorporated into the Irish population.
With the sanction of Pope Adrian-iv, in 1164 the conquest of Ireland was attempted by the Anglo-Normans from England. It went on and off for quite a while but was never completed.
From 1536 under Henry-viii up to James-i in 1603 the English asserted themselves more completely over Ireland. Henry-viii had broken with Rome, a matter that the Irish never accepted.
In the 1500s and 1600s century Plantations were carried out meaning the confiscation of land by the English crown and the colonization of this land with settlers from England and the Scottish Lowlands.
The results were:
(1) The removal of the Catholic ruling classes and their replacement with what became known as the Protestant Ascendancy - Anglican landowners mostly originating from Great Britain.
(2) Northern Ireland (Ulster) became a Province with a majority of Protestant settlers.
[For the purpose of this article we shall concentrate on the native, Catholic, non-Protestant section of the Irish population].
(3) The English Language came to replace the use of Gaelic.
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3. The Potato
The potato (along with maize and other crops) was introduced to Europe from the Americas.
The potato enabled a growth in population throughout Northern Europe. It helped the Industrial Revolution in Britain.
The goodly spud (i.e. potato) became especially important in Ireland. By 1845 it occupied one-third of Irish arable land. The potato supplied ca. 60% of the Irish food requirements.
Landless laborers would rent tiny plots from landowners who were themselves interested only in raising cattle or in producing grain for market. A single acre of potatoes and the milk of a single cow would go to feed a whole Irish family.
Thanks to the potato between 1740 and 1840 the population of Ireland increased from ca. 2.7 million to ca. 8.3 million, i.e. by a factor of three!
[By way of comparison, the population of the Republic of Ireland in 2011 was given as 6,378,000. ]
[It is estimated that about 55 million people worldwide can trace their ancestry back to Ireland.]
In 1845, a plant disease known as late blight spread rapidly through the poorer communities of western Ireland, resulting in potato crop failures that led to the Great Irish Famine.
The Irish Famine in the western and southern parts of Ireland between 1845-49 was a catastrophic failure in the food supply that led to approximately a million deaths from hunger and (especially) diseases that attacked weakened bodies. It also resulted in a massive emigration to Britain, the U.S., Canada and elsewhere.
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4. The Hungry Forties all over Europe
Not only Ireland but other countries were also affected by the Potato crisis. The period was known as the Hungry Forties. While the crisis produced excess mortality and suffering across the affected areas, particularly affected were the Scottish Highlands and even more harshly Ireland. Many people starved due to lack of access to other staple food sources.
About 40,000 died in Prussia; 50,000 in Belgium; 10,000 in France.
Indirectly these nations also suffered in other ways due to the famine: Flanders (in Belgium) lost 20-30% of its population, the Netherlands about 10-20%, and Prussia about 12%. Further east Polish Galacia also suffered from famine and related epidemics (1846-1855) killing about 200,000.
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5. The Scottish Highlands, Hunger and Clearances
In Scotland,
the Potato Famine came to the Highlands as following on from the Clearances of the 1800s: The landowners wanted to clear the land of the tenant farmers so they could raise sheep. Tenants with unclear claims to the land they lived on were forced out en masse.
Over 1 million emigrated from the Scottish Highlands, assisted by landlords and the government. [In effect they were expelled and sent away.] They were shipped off mainly to North America and Australia.
Of those who migrated from Scotland possibly more than 20% perished on the way.
For some reason historians seem to overlook the Scottish experience.
Meanwhile Ireland was in a far worst state and refugees from Ireland crowded into the cities of Scotland. This was apart from the million or so from Ireland who sailed for the USA and Australia.
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6. The Irish Disaster
More than a million Irishmen may have died due to the famine. Probably another one to two million emigrated over a ten year period (1845-55).
In 1846 and successive years blight destroyed the crop that had previously provided approximately 60 per cent of the nation's food needs.
Ireland had been on the verge of disaster even before the Great Famine.
Benjamin Disraeli in 1844 described Ireland as having, "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world."
The Irish were ruled by agents of absentee landlords. Ireland was seen as a hostile place in which to live. Some landlords only visited their property once or twice in a lifetime, or never. Most Irish worked plots of land to which they had no claim and from which they could be, and often were, easily evicted. In Ulster the situation was better with the tenants having more rights.
Ireland had already experienced periodic plagues and crop failures of the potato. The Great Famine of 1845-46 was caused by a new blight.
In 1845 one-third to a half of the crop had been destroyed.
In 1846 it was a three-quarters loss.
The 1847 harvest was better.
1848 however brought yet another total failure which was compounded by a poor grain harvest.
In 1849 a cholera outbreak against already weakened bodies increased the casualty rate. In 1849 about 939,000 Irishmen had been maintained for a time in Workhouses. By 1850 the Famine was over.
Out of a population of 8 million, more than 3 million Irishmen had been totally dependent on the potato.
In response to the Famine, the British Government distributed corn (maize) meal and set up a program of public works. Work houses and soup kitchens were also opened.
These measures were grossly inadequate and in some cases illogically and insensitively operated. People died by starvation or by diseases and sickness brought on by inadequate nourishment.
The west and south were hit the most but all of Ireland was affected.
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7. The Effects on Ulster
Ulster relatively speaking was better off but here too some areas suffered greatly.
Cavan had the highest mortality in Ulster (42.7%).
# Ulster suffered 224,000 'excess deaths' or 8.6 per cent, i.e. the number over and above those who would have died from natural causes during that decade. #
Fermanagh and Monaghan had a loss rate of 28.6%. Tyrone, Antrim and Armagh were close to the national average with rates of around 15% .
The 'excess death' rate for Donegal was 10.7%, 6.7% for Down and 5.7% for Derry.
Eastern Ireland appears to have not been more severely affected than Ulster was.
See map below:
The Famine 2: Distribution of Famine Effects
![Severity of the Famine in 1847 [13kB]](http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/maps/historical/famine_1847.gif)
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8. The Export of Food from Ireland.
It needs to be remembered that both Britain and Ireland were not so much autocratic as anarchic.
Laissez Fare rules prevailed. People did what they wished as long as they had the money to do it.
Previously in another famine (1782-83), ports had been closed to keep food grown in Ireland to feed the Irish.
This had been effective. Local food prices had promptly dropped.
In the 1840s this was not done.
Up to 75 percent of Irish soil was devoted to wheat, oats, barley and other crops that were grown for export and shipped abroad while the people starved.
It has been claimed (incorrectly, see below) that enough food was exported from Ireland to have been sufficient to avert starvation. Food related commodities exported included peas, beans, onions, rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey, tongues, and butter.
# Cecil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered relations between England and Ireland "as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation."John Ranelagh claims Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.[79] #
NEVERTHELESS,
Woodham-Smith, Cecil (1991) [1962], The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849, claims that in addition to the maize imports, four times as much wheat was imported into Ireland at the height of the famine as exported.
That food was exported from Ireland at such a time is execrable. It was however only partially responsible for the starvation.
# The food gap created by the loss of the potato in the late 1840s was so enormous that it could not have been filled, even if all the Irish grain exported in those years had been retained in the country. In fact, far more grain entered Ireland from abroad in the late 1840s than was exported-probably almost three times as much grain and meal came in as went out. #
See:
The Irish Famine
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml
By Jim Donnelly
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9. How Many Really Died? Mortality and Emigration
As a result of the famine about 500,000 were evicted from their holdings.
Emigration from Ireland increased due to the famine but it had been in full sway before then.
In the 1750s about 250,000 went to the New World.
In the early 1800s the number was ca. 1,500,000.
Many died on the way. A mortality rate of ca.30% on the ships out was common, and this was only the beginning.
Emigration during the famine years of 1845-1850 was to England, Scotland, the US, Canada, and Australia.
The number given is ca. 1,500,000 to 2 million.
Perhaps 1 million died from the famine and another 1 million (or more) emigrated OR the fatality rates have been over-estimated.
Census figures for 1841 give the Irish population as more than 8 million.
For 1852 the population was given as 6,552,000 though this has been disputed and is claimed to be inaccurate.
It shows a loss of one and a half million over about 10 years.
The numbers claimed for death by starvation and emigration are DOUBLE this figure.
Something may be wrong.
The numbers were undoubtedly very high but may have been exaggerated.
[This issue of casuality rate is a sensitive matter. I myself am Jewish by religion. I am sensitive to claims that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust was less than that claimed. In fact, it was probably more. Numbers are not always an absolute value. When a mass crime is committed with intent the result is not the entire sum of culpability. Nevertheless it is very important. I am also partly Irish and do not want the estimated numbers to be lower than they were. Even so, we need credibility. Given numbers in historical works need to be AS CORRECT AS POSSIBLE.]
The bottom line is that hundreds of thousands (possibly more than a million) of Irish died while an approximately equal number were forced to emigrate under very harsh conditions.
Another point is that the British must bear some of the blame for what happened, as discussed below.
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10. How Culpable were the British?
THE IMPACT OF THE GREAT FAMINE of 1845-51 with special reference to ULSTER
By Eamon Phoenixz
Eamon Phoenix:
Government apologists such as Charles Trevelyan (Assistant Secretary at the British Treasury) tended to take a providential view of the Famine as the solution of 'an allwise Providence' to the problem of over-population in Ireland while the Newry Nonconfomist and Young Irelander, John Mitchel accused the British government of 'genocidal intent'.
Eamon Phoenix makes the following points concerning British attitudes:
1. Laissez -faire:
The British Government did try to help but in a manner that attempted not to disturb market forces and the rights of property.
In retrospect this attitude worked against those in need and there were numerous commentators who said as much at the time.
2. Clearances.
Many landowners and their agents used the crisis to expel the smallholders and labourers of the west and the south of Ireland from their holdings. This must have increased the mortality rates due to death from exposure, disease, dislocation, and disheartenment.
3. Administrative blunders.
Not enough was given and what was given was not efficiently distributed.
4. Lack of Mutual Assistance (The Rate in Aid issue)
Attempts to make better-off sections of Ireland (e.g. Ulster) assist other sections met opposition.
5. 'The Official Mind':
This in effect refers to anti-Irish bigotry amongst some British officials that resulted in less vigorous actions been taken than may have been possible.
Eamon Phoenix notes:
# There is no doubt, as Professors Mary Daly and James Donnelly have concluded , that the Irish Famine was real, not artificial; food was extremely scarce; it could not have been solved by closing the ports; the charges of genocide cannot be sustained. However, It is clear that more money could have been spent on relief while (as Professor Cormac O'Grada argues) a temporary embargo on grain exports in early 1847 might have alleviated starvation in those critical early months. #
There were Britishers who campaigned on behalf of the Irish and many who extended them much assistance.
Charitable Work:
# Regardless of the shortcomings of Irish property, individual landlords offered minor acts of philantrophy. The clergy of all denominations were active in relief work; in 1847 alone 40 Protestant ministers died of typhus or Famine fever. However, the religious denomination most conspicuously associated with famine relief was the Society of Friends. The scale of Quaker relief was by private standards enormous. Not only did they provide soup kitchens in the worst-affected districts but they collated accurate information on the actual state of affairs.#
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11. Comparisons with Scotland. A Similar Case
We noted above that the famine also struck Scotland, especially the Highlands.
Here the results were severe but less so than in Ireland. Other sources of sustenance were available. Government relief works were put into effect. These were similar to those of Ireland and subject to the same criticisms and limitations. Clearances continued at an even greater rate than in Ireland. In Ireland the landowners were an alien breed who had displaced the native chiefs by conquest. They exerted control through native middlemen who often lacked sympathy for their fellow Irishmen. So too, in Scotland local chieftains ruthlessly expelled their own brothers and sisters and packed them off like sardines in boats sailing for North America. The Chieftains and landowners were often supported in this endeavor by the local Presbyterian clergy who helped ensure acquiescence from the expellees.
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12. Conclusion
Concerning Ireland there had existed among the British public, government, and landowners those who were not sorry to envisage a diminution in the numbers of Irishmen.
The Irish were considered primitive and indolent. They were also mainly Catholic and traditional allies of potential invaders from Spain or France.
This however is not the whole picture. Much effort was expended in the Irish cause and certain remedial measures were undertaken.
On the whole the British Governments and ruling classes may be accused of criminal irresponsibility but not, on the whole, of genocidal intent.
The faults, prejudices, and misconceptions of the era need to be factored in.
Genuine attempts to alleviate the situation were made.
The British, on the whole, did what they could according to the lights of the time.
Some degree of criminal irresponsibility, foolishness, and malice existed alongside genuine intentions to do what was possible.
An Irish government would not necessary have done any better.
Out of the few sources we looked at, the most helpful was probably:
Ireland's Great Famine 1845-1849
http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/past/famine/distribution.html
Extracts:
The farmers in the east depended upon cereal crops, while those in Ulster grew flax. Only in the small farms of west of Ireland, and in parts of Munster, was the potato in a monopolistic position. It is estimated that at the eve of the famine 30% of Irish people were largely or wholly dependant on potatoes for their food. Thus, when the Blight struck it was these people who had nothing to fall back on. In Connaught some have estimated that as many as 25% of the population died.
Those who lived nearer to large cities had more access to imported goods. Although food was exported as usual from Leinster in 1844 and 1845, there was a net import of almost a million tons of grain by 1847. However, these imports naturally reached those nearer to the cities and these are in the east and south. Dublin, Belfast and Derry escaped with almost no effects at all, while Cork and Wexford were relatively better off than their rural environs.. It was the inland and especially the western areas that could benefit least from the food of the cities. Given the fact that potatoes are notoriously hard to transport in any case, it would be difficult to get potatoes to Connaught even in a non-famine situation.
More people were killed by malnutrition-related diseases (such as dysentry and scurvy) as well as cholera that swept through the famine-ravaged countryside, than by actual starvation. While already prevalent in the west, many of these diseases spread most effectively in damp conditions where people live closely together. Dysentry is not caused by hunger, and its incidence was not significantly higher during the famine as before. However, recovery from Dysentry depends upon good nutrition and in many cases this was unavailable. The Cholera epidemic was coincidental to the famine, but was responsible for a large number of deaths. It was the closely packed west that suffered most from these effects.
Note in the otherwise well-written and balanced account above we find the surprisingly inappropriate comment:
# Given the fact that potatoes are notoriously hard to transport in any case, it would be difficult to get potatoes to Connaught even in a non-famine situation.#
Why should potatoes have been sent to Connaught if grain had have been available? Three times as much grain was brought into Ireland as was sent out but some was still sent out. That which was brought in along with food supplies in general were inequitably distributed. This brings up another point. The blight attacked a particular type of potato. This type had been introduced relatively recently. It had advantages and was easier to raise. The Irish preferred it. Part of the reason why Ulster and other areas were less severely stricken was because they grew another breed of potato. In England they did not understand why after the first visitation of the blight another breed of potato had not been introduced in the stricken regions. This in effect reflects a failure BOTH of Irish society as it then existed and of British rulership.
Finally, concerning the Jews we find:
The Annals of Inisfallen record for the year 1079 CE, records that: "Five Jews came from over sea with gifts to Toirdelbach [king of Munster], and they were sent back again over sea".
If Jews in substantial numbers had have been present in Ireland at the time of the Famine they would probably have been accused of causing the problem.
They may also have done something to help solve it.
A positive result of the Great Famine and everything associated with it was an increased Irish presence in North America and Australia.