The Irish Potato Famine 1846 – 1850



The Irish Potato Famine 1846 – 1850

Assignment:

[Irish potato famine 1846-1850 2 pages what were the social, political, and environmental conditions that contributed to the famine. also include a description of a the extinct of famine, and efforts that were taking to alleviate human suffering.]

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Also, feel free to include any pictures (see the references), change wording to reflect things the way you would say them, and otherwise update the document to personalize it.

I know that you cannot use Wikipedia, but you’ll find lots of good analysis of the subject in the article at (Ireland) You may want to go there to find background, additional sources, and stories for this topic (if you have time.)

This is a longer version (4 ½ pages) of the paper. I’ll post this one up here so you can look at it, and work on paring it down to two pages. Please let me know if this works for you.

Thanks – Steve

Body of the paper:

The Irish Potato Famine was one of the most significant events in the history of Ireland, with effects that impacted almost every area of Irish life. The Potato famine was caused by a mix of political, social, and environmental factors that combined to destroy the main food source for the Irish peasantry, leading to mass starvation, emigration, and social upheaval and unrest. Almost a quarter of the island’s population either died or emigrated.

The social and political settings for the famine were entwined. Ireland was conquered by Britain in a series of battles and wars over several hundred years previous to the famine. The Protestant English fought the mainly Catholic Irish; and large tracts of land were confiscated from the native Irish by British conquerors such as Oliver Cromwell. The landowners were descendents of these conquerors. As the saying goes, “Old memories die hard”. Enmity between the victors and conquered remained for long periods. These prejudices came into play later, during the famine, when relief efforts were affected by many of these attitudes.

The Landlords were often absentee, living in England. Many seldom visited their estates due to distance, concerns for their own safety, and lack of an appropriate social life. Indeed, some landlords only visited their holdings only once or twice in their lifetimes. Instead, the holdings were managed by middlemen, who managed the operations of the estates. These estates produced grains, beef, and dairy products for export (usually to England). The middlemen themselves were judged by the revenues produced by their estates. Part of the revenue came from rents collected from the tenant farmers, who would lease small plots of land from the middlemen. These were usually 5 acres or less, and larger plots might be subdivided over the generations into smaller and smaller plots.

The tenant farmers often lived in very cramped conditions, with many people living in small, windowless and chimney-less huts (that they often shared with their livestock). They were crushingly poor, and for some, their possessions amounted to their clothes, their animals, and the dung heaps that were used as fertilizers.

The potato was first discovered by the Spanish, in the Andes Mountains of Peru. When first brought to Europe, potatoes were a garden crop, and then used as a supplementary food. Potatoes grow well in poor soil, and produce a plentiful harvest. This made them an idea food for feeding the Irish peasants, as they could produce enough food to feed a family on their small plots of often marginal land. An acre of land could yield up to 12 tons of potatoes, triple the amount of grain that could be grown on the same plot of land. This was enough to feed a family of six for a year. The average laborer ate between 7 and 15 pounds of potatoes each day.

In order to increase the yields, a variety called "Aran Banner," (or “Lumpers”) was frequently grown because of its large size. A potato also contains the vitamins and minerals necessary for human life. These factors meant that the potato became more and more important as a primary food source for much of the year.

Potatoes were cultivated in “lazy beds”, in which a row of soil is dug up into ridges, and mixed with fertilizer (usually manure, sea weed, or shells.) The seed potatoes were then placed in the ridges, and the neighboring trenches provided good drainage. Potatoes held over from the previous year’s harvest (‘seed potatoes’) or volunteer plants from small tubers missed during the harvest provided the sources for the next year’s crop.

By the early 1840’s, the conditions were set for a disaster. The social practices of depending on a single crop for the majority of food, along with the practices of subdividing plots of land into smaller and smaller plots; the political divisions and prejudices between the English and the Irish; and the practices used in cultivating potatoes combined to set the stage for the Great Potato Famine.

The organism that caused the Potato Famine was Phytophthora infestans, a fungus-like micro-organism that originated in the Americas. In fact, it had caused widespread potato crop failures in North America in the early 1940’s, eventually spreading from Illinois to the Atlantic coast. The blight came to Europe in either ships carrying guano (used for fertilizer), as potatoes used as food on clipper ships, or in seed potatoes imported into Belgium. However it got there, once in Europe P.Infestans began causing widespread potato crop failures throughout the continent.

There had been failures of the potato crop prior to the great Potato Famine, of various levels of severity. However, those blights were caused by different organisms, and although some were severe, none spread as quickly and as completely that of Phytophthora infestans.

The spores of the organism can overwinter in infected tubers (such as the volunteer seed potatoes), or in manure/cull piles (used as fertilizer). Once a plant is infected, the surface part of the plant can quickly die, creating more spores that are carried by the wind to infect additional plants. Entire regions can be infected, and the plants die in a matter of a few weeks. The tubers underground may not be immediately infected, but once dug up they can in turn be attacked and destroyed quickly. Many people reported watching healthy appearing tubers turning black and rotting within hours. Potato stores could be attacked and almost literally melt away in days. These provided even more spores, to be carried by the wind to infect further areas.

The almost complete dependence on the potato as a food source, the vulnerability of the lumper variety to the potato blight, and its quick and virulent spread meant that large areas were quickly deprived of food. Seed potatoes were either destroyed, or there weren’t enough for the next year’s crop.

In 1845, the first of the potato crop failures occurred. This was just the beginning of a four year string of failures that came to be known as the Great Starvation to the Irish peasantry. The attack of the potato blight was just beginning. Reserves were low, and more potatoes were planted in 1846 than the previous year, both to make up for the prior year’s failure, and because the blight was not expected to strike two years in a row. This crop failed as well, and again in 1847 and 1848. The resulting starvation, accompanying disease, and emigration reduced the population of Ireland by more than two million people.

The extent of the famine went beyond death by outright starvation. Some farmers grew other grains which they sold to pay their rents. The failure of the potato meant that they had to choose between hunger and selling their crops to pay their rent, or eating their other crops and not paying their rents. If rents were not paid there was the very real chance of eviction, resulting in joining the hordes of starving homeless already crowding roads and towns.

Strangely enough, during the famine Ireland continued to have net exports of grain, dairy, beef, lamb, and pork. Landowners and their middlemen overseers continued to produce export crops and graze cattle on the large pasture lands. Tenants, who either exchanged their labor for rent or sold their extra crops for food to pay rents, had little money to purchase domestically grown products.

Humanitarian efforts

There were several attempts to reduce human suffering, although they met with no widespread success. Although the British were largely responsible for the social and political conditions which set the stage for the famine, they also deserve some credit for trying to prevent the catastrophe (as well as credit for its worsening.)

The Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, authorized the secret purchase of £100,000 worth of American maize. Unfortunately, there were several issues with the delivery of the corn. Not all of it was milled, or ground, into corn meal before it was delivered to the peasantry, who lacked the equipment to grind the corn locally. Additionally, it needed to be cooked twice in order to be fully edible – otherwise it could cause severe bowel upsets, further draining already weakened individuals.

More importantly, the protectionist Corn Laws had to be repealed. These placed high tariffs on imported grains, to assure that home grown produce was less expensive. Sir Peel was able to force through a repeal of the Corn Laws by May of 1946, but it cost him his office within a month.

Unfortunately, the starving and often disposed had no money to purchase domestically grown crops at the high prices that prevailed, let alone imported grains.

Great public works projects were enacted, with laborers paid to build roads and level hills. These had mixed successes. In order to avoid competing with private enterprises, the roadways often led to nowhere, and projects were deliberately run inefficiently. It was not unknown for labors to starve to death before receiving their wages.

In 1846, in the belief that market forces would provide the relief necessary (and also wishing to shift the burden of relief efforts to private groups), the British government halted the public works projects and food sources. This left many without any work, money, or food.

Official British government aid, although initially promising, was reduced and almost eliminated. The burden was shifted to the local governments and landlords, and private charities.

Work Houses, administered through the Poor Laws, sheltered and fed many. They provided shelter and food, and were supported by the local landlords. In order to reduce their own costs and increase the amount of land that could be used for profitable grazing, many of these landlords increased the evictions of their tenants.

Various charities also attempted to provide aid. Funds were raised for famine relief from a number of sources. Soup kitchens, often supported by religious groups, also were used to help feed and support the starving. Donations of food and funds came from all around the world; from Irish soldiers serving in British regiments in Calcutta, to American Irish Immigrants. Queen Victoria donated £2,000. The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was going to send £10,000; however, Queen Victoria requested that he send only £1,000, because she had donated only £2,000 herself. The sultan complied, but he also sent three shiploads of food. Although the British courts tried to block the arrival of the ships, it was delivered and left on the docks by the Ottoman sailors.

Many of the landlords also tried to help their tenants. Some fed their tenants from the produce originally marked for export. Others either forgave or deferred rents until the situation had improved.

Some landlords helped the starving to emigrate, by encouraging or paying for passage. Many left on “Coffin ships”, so named because they were poorly built and sailed. Arrival in the New World was not necessarily escape: Of the 100,000 Irish that sailed to Canada in 1847, an estimated 20% died of disease and malnutrition. Arrivals in the United States often faced economic hardship and prejudice – especially in eastern cities that had been settled by Protestant Puritans who hardly welcomed the influx of poor, uneducated Irish Catholics.

Summary

The Irish Potato Famine was devastating. An estimated 1 to 2 million people, of an estimated population of almost 8.2 people in 1841, either died or emigrated during the famine, leaving a population estimate of 6.5 million in the 1851 census. Hunger continued for years afterwards, as the social and economic echoes continued to reverberate through Ireland. Since many of the victims of the famine tended to be the poor farmers and tenants, the Irish language suffered the loss of many of its speakers – leaving English as the language of many of the survivors in the cities and less hard hit regions. Distrust between the Irish and English, due to the poor relief efforts, the harsh tenant eviction laws, and overall repression continued to deepen – resulting in continued rebellion and discontent. Huge numbers of Irish emigrated throughout the world, landing in North America.

References:

Ireland: The Great Famine

The History Place: Irish Potato Famine

The Irish Potato Famine

The Irish Famine: 1845-9

The Fungus That Conquered Europe

Letters on the Irish Potato Famine

The Irish Famine

Gratitude to the Ottomans

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