1845-1850 CE, The Hunger

by Sarah Armstrong Joyal NicGhillieláidir

Many factors contributed to the tragedy that the Irish refer to as The Hunger, and the rest of us were probably taught in US public school to call The Irish Potato Famine.

Ireland is not a mineral-rich land, and the lack of coal during the 1800's made the industrialization, which increased the wealth of most of Europe, impossible for Ireland. Niether was Ireland a major trade or port land, being far from the most widely-traveled trade routes by either land or sea. Ireland's resources during that time were her mild and humid climate and rich soil, which until the 1700's had supported a relatively limited pastoral population.

During the 1700s, Ireland enjoyed a lengthy period of peace which was unknown prior to that time and has never been duplicated since. Even the limited sea trade that was enjoyed provided a measure of some prosperity; and roads and canals were built to increase communication. The linen industry showed moderate success. But, perhaps most importantly, the landed classes had discovered that they could profit by the tillage of pasture land and the growth and export of grain to Europe, a situation made possible by the adoption of the potato by the Irish peasantry as a source of primary sustenance. The laboring classes were willing to work the lands of the farming classes in exchange for small plots of land on which to grow potatoes for their own families. The population began to increase at an astounding rate, going from 5 million people in 1800 to over 8 million people by 1841, over 2/3 of which were dependant on agriculture for a livelihood. It is important to note that, although the Irish agricultural laboring classes were dependant on the potato for their own sustenance, the farms on which they labored produced other crops intended for exporting in order to enrich the landholders; it is also important to note that trade and industrial laws at the time of this rapid increase in population in Ireland favored England. The combination of a landed class motivated to sell agricultural products in order to produce profit, a large agricultural laboring class performing the labor in exchange for small tillages and feeding their families a diet centered on the potato, and the control of Irish industry by English laws in a time of rapidly expanding population resulted in disaster.

During the summer of 1845, which was unusually wet, potato blight began to strike in the south of England. In September, the blight had arrived in Counties Waterford and Wexford in Ireland, and rapidly spread over half of the country. Sir Robert Peel, the prime minister, purchased a large quantity of "Indian corn" from the US, set up a relief commission, and supplemented voluntary contributions with government grants. The government also provided employment "works" projects to combat unemployment, as the government determined that food must be sold rather than given away, and people had to have jobs in order to buy it. Rather than prohibit the exportation of food from Ireland, Peel repealed the tariffs on imported grain to England, in an effort to provide more jobs for the Irish peasantry by increasing grain sales to England. Politically, this was a very unpopular thing in England, and Peel brought down his own government. The laissez faire creed was popular politically amongst the aristocracy at that time, which basically believed that it was inappropriate and ultimately futile to meddle with economic laws. Charles Trevelyan was head of the treasury, and a strong believer in laissez faire. His new superior, Charles Wood, was also a firm believer in non-intervention. The two of them decided that, in the event of a second failure of the potato crop, the supply of food was to be left exclusively to private enterprise.

There was a second potato crop failure in 1846, a complete and devastating failure, and this caused no concern on the part of the new government. There was no longer any government-supported Public Works program, no importation of grain. The Irish landlords, who struggled to maintain the same standard of living as their English counterparts, were to bear the entire cost of relief efforts. Again, it must be reiterated that the potato was a subsistence crop for the laboring masses; other crops, mainly grains, were not affected by the Blight and were the source of income for the farmers and landholders. It is difficult to pay the rent on one's land without money, and money came from the sale of these cash crops, which in turn supported the landlords. The bitter fact is that there was no true famine in Ireland, there was starvation, brought about by an economy driven by the standards and laws of England, and an Irish landed class (composed of both English and Irish landlords) that strove to maintain the same standards for itself in a hobbled Irish economy as the English landowners did in a favored English economy. On top of this, the harshest and longest winter in living memory struck.

There was no food, and starving mobs began to roam the countryside; they simply overwhelmed the resources of the Irish landlords and the Irish relief works. A decision was made to extend direct relief to the starving, which again ran contrary to the English belief in workhouses. Soup kitchens were established, volunteer efforts in Britain and America were started to raise funds, and the Quakers reported accurately to the British public on the crisis, but it was too late to avert disaster.

By February of 1847, Ireland was in the grips of deep snow and harsh winds. Starving people flooded the towns and the public works programs that the government was proposing to close, and disease spread like wildfire. Typhus and dysentery became epidemic, brought on by eating raw turnips and seaweed and partially-cooked "Indian meal". Scurvy became rampant from the lack of Vitamin C in cornmeal.

People were now seized with a desperation to get out of Ireland, but it was an impoverished and emaciated population. Crowding themselves into rundown "coffin ships", over one-fifth of the escapees would perish during the journey and never set foot in the New World. The population was reduced by over two million, half of which starved and half of which fled to the US and Canada.

The economic and social ruin in which Ireland was left continued long after the Potato Blight ran itself out, with the country's brightest and best continuing to emigrate and use their energy to build in the New World rather than stay in Ireland, where resentment and bitterness was deep against the English government for their handling of the crisis.

Sources:

The Course of Irish History; ed. T.W.Moody and F.X. Martin, Roberts Rinehart Publishers, (c)1994, ISBN # 1-57098-015-2

prepared by Sarah Armstrong Joyal NicGhillieláidir

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