The Great Potato Famine in Ireland
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Who would have guessed a simple crop, such as the potato, would have caused a major crisis in Ireland? The “white” potato, known today as the Irish potato, originated from the Andean Mountains. It arrived in north Peru and records state that they brought the potato to Europe in the second half of the 16th century (O’Grada 14). Originally, people thought potatoes were poisonous and refrained themselves from eating the crop. During this time, the monarchs of Europe discovered the nutritional value of the potato and ordered it planted. (O’Grada 19). By the 1800's, ninety percent of the Irish population depended on the potato for its’ significant calorie intake and as an export. In 1845, the potato blight struck Ireland, causing a massive famine. The blight was caused by a fungus Phytophthora infestans, which destroyed the potato plants (Kineally 64). People were left with nothing to eat and no way to make money to support themselves. Over the course of the famine almost one million people died from starvation of disease. Another one million people left Ireland, mostly for Canada and America. The Famine of 1845 in Ireland led to extensive emigration, agricultural conflicts, and a changes in the Irish language and religious practices.
There were two ways out of this Irish nightmare, death and emigration. People began leaving from every port in Ireland. In 1847, two-hundred and fifty thousand Irish men, women, and children left Ireland and the rate of emigration was continuing at the same level and sometime higher for the following four years (O’Grada 78). This massive emigration caused a permanent change in the population s...
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...ch, because their faith was all that was left after the famine. Irish Nationalism continued to rapidly grow, uniting people through the Catholic Church.
The Famine of Ireland left a devastating memory to all. The population decrease due to emigration, agricultural issues, as well as, the loss of the Irish language, play huge roles in determining the outcome and effects of the famine. "It is difficult to know how many men and women died in Ireland in the famine years between 1845 and 1852. Perhaps all that matters is the certainty that many, very many died. The Great Famine was not the first nor the last period of acute distress in Irish history. The Great Famine may be seen as but a period of greater misery in a prolonged age of suffering, but it has left an enduring mark on the folk memory because of its duration and severity” (Dudley-Edwards and Williams).
The Irish Famine 1845-1849 “Is ar scáth a chiéle a maireann na daoine” “It is with each other’s protection that the people live” From the Fifteenth through to the Nineteenth centuries English Monarchies and Governments had consistently enacted laws which it seems were designed to oppress the Irish and suppress and destroy Irish Trade and manufacturing. In the Penal laws of 1695 which aimed to destroy Catholicism, Catholics were forbidden from practicing their religion, receiving education, entering a profession, or purchasing or leasing land; since Catholics formed eighty percent of the Irish population, this effectively deprived the Irish of any part in civil life in their own country. In the eighteenth century the Irish condition had improved: The Irish merchant marine had been revived and ports improved, and the glass, linen, and clothing industries developed. Agriculture had also been improved and in 1782 the Irish Constitution was formed.
The force that brought Irish immigrants can be described in two ways, both negative in the way of the Famine Years and the control of Protestant England. On the other hand, Irish immigrants were able to use the United States as a chance for economic opportunities as well as a chance to be free to practice their Catholic faith. The economic events that helped fulfill the need for Irish workers were thanks to the Industrial growth of the United States. The Transcontinental Railroad was completed by the continuous harsh labor that was done by Irish immigrants. The Eastern half was largely built by Irish men that were hired by the Union Pacific Railroad Company. The chance to make a life and put some money in their pockets was an attractive situation for struggling Irish immigrants. The inevitable factor for Irish immigrants to leave their homeland was the effects of famine that was occurring among the rural population of Ireland. Ireland depended heavily on potato crops, but as the crops failed they diminished the hopes of surviva...
To know why the Irish left Ireland, one must look at what was going on in Ireland from approximately 1815, a time before the famine began, to 1854 when the famine came to an end. Firstly, the Irish population had been steadily increasing from 2.8 million in 1712 until an estimated 8.5 million in 1841. This naturally led to harder times as families had more children to support. There also came a decline in agricultural prices, leading the average farmer’s income to decline as well. There was a legislation, as well, that was passed in 1816 and 1819 that decreased the cost of eviction, which led some of the landowners to evict their tenants to use the land for the purpose of grazing. This left those tenants without a place to live and a way to support themselves. As well, the Union with Great Britain in 1801, and the free trade that followed, ruined many of the forms of labour in Ireland at the time, including manufacturing and the products of artisans. This led many of the farmers and labourers to resort to begging, stealing and even starvation. This seemed to be enough of an incentive for people to start migrating overseas, and it is only common sense that those with the most money were able to leave first in 1815, these people mainly Protestant farmers. However, there was a reduction in fares in 1817 and that allowed some of the poorer classes, most usually were the Protestant counterparts, to finally migrate. During that period, many of the Irish immigrants came from the town of Ulster. This has been found to be due to the collapse of the linen industry there, which left the former employees unemployed. It seems apparent that in the decade prior to the Potato Famine, unemployment and a decline in the level of lifestyle were the major driving forces behind the first
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...
- Edwards, R. Dudley and T. Desmond William. The Great Irish Famine: Studies in Irish
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.
Much of the very early migration had been heavily male, but during the famine years, migration was largely a family affair. Families were arriving serially in ?chain? migration while others suffered high mortality rates in these years. The Irish were the first to practice ?chain or serial migration? on a large scale. During the famine years males still outnumbered women in migration numbers but not by a large margin. However in the post famine years and especially after 1880 more women came from Ireland than males. The reason for this was that women were always more deprived of work than men in Ireland, and in the post-famine years the position of women got exponentially worse. In Ireland, contrary to what was happening in the United States, women did not live longer than men. The lives of immigrant Irish women were not easy, but much better than a life back in Ireland.
...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.
Emmigration was a powerful and most obvious result of the famine. ("BRIA 26 2 The Potato Famine and Irish Immigration to America - Constitutional Rights Foundation.") A Frenchman named Gustave de Beaumont who traveled the country compared the Irish to “the Indian in his forest and the Negro in chains. . . . In all countries, paupers may be discovered, but an entire nation of paupers is what was never seen until it was shown in Ireland.” The famine gave Irish a reason to leave Ireland. Along with population decrease, family went down as well.
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
Beginning in 1845 and lasting until 1861 the Great Potato Famine of Ireland killed over a million people, and causing another million to leave the country. The famine began in September 1845 as leaves on potatoes suddenly turned black and curled, then rotted. The cause was an airborne fungus (phytophthora infestants) originally transported by ships traveling from North America to England. Many other factors contributed to this devastation.
...ight hit the fields and destroyed the crops, disaster ensued. In those terrible years, between 1846 and 1851, one million people died of starvation, malnutrition, typhus, recurring fever, dysentery and scurvy. Another million Irish citizens emigrated.
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
Mac Einri, P. 1997. Some Recent Demographic Developments in Ireland. [Online] Available from: http://migration.ucc.ie/etudesirlandaises.htm [Accessed 7th May 2012]