Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Social composition irish famine
Irish potato famine
Irish potato famine
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Social composition irish famine
The Great Irish Famine happened during the mid-19th century, and was caused by potato blight, which hit Ireland in 1845 (Grada, “Ireland’s Great Famine” 43). It destroyed a big portion of crops so it became “lethal” due to the fact that Ireland was very dependent on potatoes in their everyday meals (Grada, “Ireland’s Great Famine” 43). This led to a scarce amount of food and many died from starvation, or other diseases that resulted from the famine (Grada, “Ireland’s Great Famine” 51). In the 1800s, Ireland had already lost their own parliament, so “all legislative and executive power was therefore centralized at Westminster,” which meant the UK parliament of the British government was responsible for Irish relief in their time of need, especially when the potatoes failed (Kinealy, Death-Dealing Famine 41). The British government had many interventions in Ireland during the Great Famine, and the interventions were supposed to contribute to famine relief, and improve social conditions in Ireland. Social conditions included aspects of people’s health, jobs and employment at the time, as well as, the general well-being of the people and their quality of life. This leads to the question: How did the British Government’s intervention in famine relief impact the social conditions in Ireland during the mid-19th century? Through the analysis of government interventions, such as, the establishment of poor laws, the placement of taxes, the promotion of Indian meals, the creation of public works and soup kitchens, it will become evident that the British government did not positively impact the social conditions in Ireland during the mid-19th century.
There were many government interventions that happened at the time, and each intervent...
... middle of paper ...
...’47 and Beyond: The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Print.
---“Ireland’s Great Famine. An Overview.” When the Potato Failed: Causes and Effects of the ‘last European subsistence crisis, 1845-1850. Ed. Cormac O Grada, Richard Paping, and Eric Vanhaute. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2007. Print.
Gray, Peter. Famine, Land and Politics: British Government and Irish Society 1843-1850. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1999. Print.
Kinealy, Christine. A Death-Dealing Famine: The Great Hunger in Ireland. London: Pluto Press, 1997. Print.
---“The Role of the Poor Law during the Famine.” The Great Irish Famine. Ed. Cathal Poirteir. Dublin: Mercier Press, 1995. Print.
Lengel, Edward G. The Irish Through British Eyes: Perception of Ireland in the Famine Era. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2002. Print.
* Pearce and Adelman B believed that Ireland benefited from the Union, especially after 1829, and ‘maintenance of the Union therefore became the bedrock of British policy for almost the next 100 years’. * Policies were often based on ignorance of the situation – the British tended to try to get away with as little as possible. For example, the Maynooth Grant 1845, Land Acts 1870 and 1881, the attempt to push Home Rule on the Irish in 1920 * ‘Irish practical problems were turned into English political ones’ (e.g. land) – something that they were n’t. Legislation was considered and judged in an English context, not in an Irish one.
middle of paper ... ... n that after nearly seven hundred years of attempted domination, the British oppression of the Irish had deprived them of all but the bare necessities of survival, and caused such destitution that when the potato famine struck, the poor could not avoid the worst privations, given the social and political conditions controlling their lives. The British government’s ineffectual attempts at relieving the situation played a major role in worsening the situation; they allowed prejudice and State and individual self-interest, economic and religious dogma to subjugate even the least consideration for humanity. Ultimately British politicians bear considerable blame because they were not prepared to allocate what was needed to head off mass starvation, and they as the parent government did nothing to protect its subject people.
The analysis of the Irish economic problem, the Great Famine, was a remarkable topic to study by several classical authors such as, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo or William Senior. A contextualization skim of the economic characteristics of the country is required in order to know about their main ideas with respect to the topic, taking into account the aspects like the land property, the political power and the relation between Ireland and England.
The Irish began immigrating to North America in the 1820s, when the lack of jobs and poverty forced them to seek better opportunities elsewhere after the end of the major European wars. When the Europeans could finally stop depending on the Irish for food during war, the investment in Irish agricultural products reduced and the boom was over. After an economic boom, there comes a bust and unemployment was the result. Two-thirds of the people of Ireland depended on potato harvests as a main source of income and, more importantly, food. Then between the years of 1845 and 1847, a terrible disease struck the potato crops. The plague left acre after acre of Irish farmland covered with black rot. The failure of the potato yields caused the prices of food to rise rapidly. With no income coming from potato harvests, families dependent on potato crops could not afford to pay rent to their dominantly British and Protestant landlords and were evicted only to be crowded into disease-infested workhouses. Peasants who were desperate for food found themselves eating the rotten potatoes only to develop and spread horrible diseases. ¡§Entire villages were quickly homeless, starving, and diagnosed with either cholera or typhus.¡¨(Interpreting¡K,online) The lack of food and increased incidents of death forced incredible numbers of people to leave Ireland for some place which offered more suitable living conditions. Some landlords paid for the emigration of their tenants because it made more economic sense to rid farms of residents who were not paying their rent. Nevertheless, emigration did not prove to be an antidote for the Famine. The ships were overcrowded and by the time they reached their destination, approximately one third of its passengers had been lost to disease, hunger and other complications. However, many passengers did survive the journey and, as a result, approximately ¡§1.5 million Irish people immigrated to North America during the 1840¡¦s and 1850¡¦s.¡¨(Bladley, online) As a consequence of famine, disease (starvation and disease took as many as one million lives) and emigration, ¡§Ireland¡¦s population dropped from 8 million to 5 million over a matter of years.¡¨(Bladley, online) Although Britain came to the aid of the starving, many Irish blamed Britain for their delayed response and for centuries of political hardship as basi...
There are several circumstances to take into consideration when looking at the causes of the Great Potato Famine in Ireland. Due to the great dependence the Irish people had on the potato, it is clear how blight could devastate a country and its people. To understand the Irish people's dependence on the potato for diet, income, and a way out of poverty, it is necessary to look at several key factors that were evident before the famine. Factors such farming as the only way of life, rise in population, and limited crops explain why the people of Ireland relied on the potato. But not only do these reasons clarify why the famine hit the Irish people so hard, other important factors play into effect as well. By looking at the weak relationship between England and Ireland through parliamentary acts and trade laws, it is more evident what the causes of the Great Famine are and why it was so detrimental.
As crops across Ireland failed, the price of food soared. This made it impossible for Irish farmers to sell their goods, the good which the farmers relied upon to pay their rent to their English and Protestant landlords. These people were thrown into the streets with no money and nothing to eat.
Singer, Peter. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” Current Issues and Enduring Questions. 8th ed. Eds. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 7-15. Print.
Ireland is a beautiful country in Europe, about the size of Maine. Today, Ireland is mostly populated with middle-class families. Irish is famous for its potatoes, but in 1845 a disease attacked the potato crops. The potatoes were what most of the Irish families lived on. They ate and sold potatoes in order to make a living, so when the potatoes stopped growing, people ran out of money. This is known as "The Great Potato Famine". It was so bad; people were actually starving to death. Two million people died. There was almost no help from the British government. Often people rebelled against the government, angered by its carelessness. Many people didn't want to leave their beloved country, afraid of change. With no food to eat, emigration seemed to be the only solution for most of the population. People often talked about "streets paved with gold" in a country called America. There was said to be many job opportunities in this new country. America seemed like the best choice to settle down and finally start a new life.
It's a common assumption that Ireland's mass exodus during the first half of the l9th century was the result of the disastrous potato blight of 1845, but the famine was actually the proverbial last straw. Until the 17th century, the Irish, like much of feudal Europe, consisted of many peasants under the rule of a minority of wealthy landowners. When Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland in the mid-17th century, those landowners who refused to give up Catholicism saw their property confiscated and then redistributed to the English Army. By 1661, 40% of Ireland was owned by England. Many Irish peasants-stayed on as tenant farmers, working the land and paying rent for the small plots of land where they lived and grew their own food. But as crops became less profitable, many landowners began taking back the land from the Irish poor in order to graze sheep and cattle for English consumption. This led to a series of evictions, where tenant farmers were forced off the land that sustained them, often with no warning at all. One of the worst, now known as the Ballinglass Incident, (after the wes...
...sh potato famine lasted for several years, resulting a reduction of land holdings for small farmers and nearly a million Irish dead. Those farmers who survived the Phytophthora Infestins were able to buy land back from the land lords under the Encumbered Act of 1849 (Johnston). A non-violent peasant revolution occurred as the number of farms over 15 acres increased from 19 percent from 1841 to 51 percent in 1851 (Johnston).
During the mid 1840’s, blight in the potato crops in Ireland caused widespread starvation and migration of Irish citizens to the United States. Yet, the massive loss of life and massive exodus could have been avoided if British taxation upon the working class of Ireland was nullified. Though the struggle for liberation was already taking place, the potato famine furthered the cause and helped spread awareness. Furthermore, the potato famine made the average Irish family more reliant upon the government for subsidies and supports to get by.
The Great Famine was destructive, and affected population, people, and the future of Ireland. While the famine was a major event in Ireland’s history, it is hard to say what would have happened without it. Maybe, today, there would be no Republic, and Ireland would still be under the rule of the Crown. But without the famine we would never know.
INTRODUCTION The history of Ireland "that most distressful nation" is full of drama and tragedy, but one of the most interesting stories is about what happened to the Irish during the mid-nineteenth century and how millions of Irish came to live in America (Purcell 31). Although the high point of the story was the years of the devastating potato famine from 1845 to 1848, historians have pointed out that immigrating from Ireland was becoming more popular before the famine and continued until the turn of the twentieth century. In the one hundred years between the first recording of immigrants in
In Ireland, at the time, there was only one strain of potatoes being grown. At the time, citizens of Ireland were mainly eating potatoes and drinking milk. These two menu items provided them with all the necessary nutrients required for a healthy diet(History Magazine). The Irish were only growing one strain of potatoes at the time. When a fungus came through Ireland that only affected that strain of potatoes, it wiped out the entire potato population in Ireland, causing a famine to occur. This famine killed one million people and caused two million to move out of Ireland in a quest to find food. Potatoes killed one million people, or should I say the lack of potatoes killed one million people. This famine became one of the deadliest famines in history. After the potatoes were wiped out, the Irish started growing more than one strain of potatoes in order to ensure that another famine similar to the Irish Potato Famine of 1845 could not happen again. The Irish Potato Famine led to the Industrial Revolution(Ted Talks). When 2 million people were forced out of Ireland while the famine was going on, they moved to European countries. This boost in population aided the Industrial Revolution because now there were enough people to sustain the positions needed to run factories. We do not know where the world would be if the famine had not happened, but it definitely would not be in the same place it is
McCann et al. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994, 95-109).