PHILIP I. POWELL 'The Great Irish Famine' a disaster waiting to happen !!

PHILIP I. POWELL

The Great Irish Famine: A disaster waiting to happen ?

‘The Great Irish Famine’ a disaster waiting to happen ?

by PHILIP I. POWELL

PHILIP I. POWELL


The Great Irish Famine A disaster waiting to happen?

‘The Discovery of the Potato Blight’ by Daniel McDonald c.1852

PHILIP I. POWELL


INTRODUCTION

The Great Famine, ‘an Gorta Mór’ in Irish (The Great Hunger) from 1845 - 1849, was the greatest human disaster ever to befall the people of Ireland. It is a disaster which, to this day, still evokes great anger and hatred by the vast majority of the Irish diasporas, aimed mainly, at those who were perceived to have been complicit in the famine. The enormous, estimated death toll of over one million from starvation and disease, the one and a half million more forced to immigrate and the mass evictions of peasant farmers, changed the social and economic landscape of the country forever. Famine in Ireland was nothing new, in fact, it had been an ever present treat since the 1700s. Every two or three years from 1821 to the great blight of 1845 - 49, a failure of some kind occurred to the potato crop, not only in Ireland, but in almost every country in which it was cultivated to any great extent. The population in Ireland in 1821 was approx; 6.8m and rose steadily each decade, so that by the time of the Great famine in 1845, it had reached an estimated 8.5m, an increase of 25% in just under 25 years. Of this population, approx; one half was made up of peasant labourers, cottiers and their families who cultivated land of between 1-5 acres, on only 12.5% of the total arable land in Ireland. This Irish increase in population, however, was, relatively speaking, in keeping with the rest of western Europe, which had also experienced a rapid increase in populations in the early part of the 19th century. The proliferation of such small holdings and the practise of dividing and subdividing of land, had been in existence since 1695 under the Penal Laws (Ireland)1, but more specifically, the Popery Act of 1703 whereby, when a Roman Catholic died, his estate was divided equally among his sons and was intended to reduce the size of Catholic landed estates. This was carried out to a great extent after 1792, for the purpose of making freeholders, and created millions of landless, peasant, labourer-farmers and cottiers, working tiny pieces of land, on a ‘tenant-at-will’ basis. The German historian, Friedrich Ludwig Georg von Raumer (1781 – 1873), making a tour in Ireland around that time, tries to explain ‘tenant-at-will’ :-

‘How shall I translate tenants-at-will ? Wegjagbare ? Expellable ? Serfs ? But in

the ancient days of vassalage, it consisted rather in keeping the vassals attached to

the soil, and by no means in driving them away. An ancient vassal is a lord

compared with the present tenant-at-will, to whom the law affords no defence. Why

not call them Jagdbare {chaseable)? But this difference lessens the analogy — that

for hares, stags, and deer there is a season during which no one is allowed to hunt

them; whereas tenants-at-will are hunted all the year round. And if any one would

defend his farm (as badgers and foxes are allowed to do), it is here denominated

rebellion.’

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1 The Penal Laws in Ireland were a series of laws imposed by the English state, to force Irish

Catholics and Protestant dissenters to accept the state established Anglican Church as practised by the Irish state established Church of Ireland.

PHILIP I. POWELL


Population Growth in Ireland (1821-1845)

* 1845 estimate based on average growth from the preceding decades.

Farm Size (1840s)

(Ó Gráda, Cormac., - ‘An Economic History of Ireland’)

* The size of farms in acres ** The percentage of total land held

25% of the land is in the hands of ‘Absentee Landlords’. 10% of the land is on ‘Encumbered Estates’.

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1821 1831 1841 1845

6.8m 7.8m 8.2m 8.5m est.*

Class Size * Numbers Acreage Per % **

Landlords ? 10,000 3.5m 17.5%

Rich 80 50,000 4.0m 20%

Comfortable 50 100,000 5.0m 25%

Family 20 250,000 5.0m 25%

Poor peasants 5 300,000 1.5m 7.5%

Labourers, etc. 1 1,000,000 1.0m 5%

PHILIP I. POWELL


It has been suggested by many historians, that life in general for the Irish poor was abysmal in 19th century Ireland. However, with the establishment of state sponsored primary education under the Education Act (1831) brought about by Lord Stanley, literacy levels improved substantially. Attendances also improved and by 1841, 37% of males & 18% of females could read and write. The Commissioners of Education, 85% funded by the government, established 8,200 schools by 1914. Life expectancy in Ireland too improved and was almost equal to that of England. The economy too grew rapidly, by around 100% by 1845, due mainly to improved agricultural methodology, land reclamation etc; and the establishment of the Board of Works in 1831, which invested £49m on public works projects by 1914.

‘evidence that life was becoming progressively more precarious in the pre-famine

decades is scarce, no matter how persuasive the retrospective case for it.’

(Ó Gráda, Cormac., - ‘An Economic History of Ireland’ - p112) Ireland’s economy of the mid 19th century was mainly that of an agrarian one, fragile & inefficient, producing large quantities of food for export & a cottage industry of hand weaving and spinning of textiles. The onset of the industrial revolution in England in the 1780s however, devastated this industry, leaving tens of thousands unemployed, leaving only the north east of Ireland, in the linen mills of Ulster with any sort of industry. Ireland’s road network was relatively well developed by 1800 but many remote areas, particularly in the western regions, were not well served by roads and transport infrastructure suffered from lack of investment. The major transport network of Ireland in the early 19th century for heavy cargos, were the sea ports, inland waterways and the two canals, the Grand Canal, completed in 1803 & the Royal Canal, completed in 1817, that nearly encircled Dublin’s inner city & linked Dublin in the east to the River Shannon in the west. By the time of the outbreak of the famine in the mid 1840s, Ireland had very few rail lines. The Dublin to Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) Railway, which opened in 1834, was Ireland’s first railway followed by the Ulster Railway line, between Belfast & Lisburn, completed in August 1839, & the Dublin to Drogheda Railway, completed in May 1844. Although Ireland’s agricultural economy was earning large amounts of profit for its landlords, many of whom it must be stated were Irish, and was a net exporter of food, investment in land improvements & modernisation by these same landlords was practically none existent. They preferred instead to invest elsewhere, with as much as 25% of them leaving their estates to be managed by others who leased to large tenant farmers, who in turn sub-divided their holdings in even smaller plots to cottiers & peasant labourers. This left the Irish economy vulnerable to all the external, economic forces of a more modern, industrialised Europe. By looking at the facts available, referencing the accounts of those present at the time and drawing on the data collected, we may then be able to come to a most reasonable conclusion, whether or not, the Great Famine was indeed, a disaster waiting to happen.

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DIPLOMA in IRISH HISTORY

Symptoms of the Potato Blight

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The Humble Potato

The central figure in the famine of the 1840s was of course the humble potato

and its nemesis, the fungal infection, ‘Potato Blight’, (Phythopthera Infestans).

The potatoes generally used by the people of Ireland were of the coarsest and

most prolific kind, of a particular variety called ‘Lumpers’ or ‘Horse Potatoes’,

from their size, and they were, for the most part, cultivated, not in furrows, but

in a way popularly known as ‘lazy beds’2. This variety of potato was highly

susceptible to blight but, as a crop, the Lumper potato was more nutritious than

grain, yielded large crops and could feed a peasant farmer and his family for a

year, pay his rent, using as little as an acre of sometimes poor land and would

not be subjected to crop rotation. The storage of the potato is almost impossible

as it does not last even a single year. The old crop, or what is commonly called

the ‘people’s crop’, is taken up in December and January, but becomes unfit for

human consumption in July, and were then generally feed to pigs and fowl. The

new crop does not come into harvest until September and so the months of July

and August are called the ‘meal months’, as those people depending on potatoes

would be forced to live upon meal or grain for that period.

This population of dispossessed peasantry, consisting of landless farm labourers

and cottiers, farming land on a tenant-at-will basis, were consuming 4.7 million

tons of potatoes per year by 1845, with an average daily consumption rate of 8.8

lbs (labourers) & 3.9 lbs (cottiers). This unsustainable dependence on a single

crop, which in the event of a scarcity would, almost certainly, lead to famine, is a

Malthusian3 view which was remarked upon by Mr. Joseph Sabine, Secretary of

the Horticultural Society of London in 1822, when he said:-

‘the potato, when in cultivation, is very liable to injury from casualties of season,

and that it is not at present known how to keep it in store for use beyond a few

months, a general failure of the year's crop, whenever it shall have become the

chief or sole support of a country, must inevitably lead to all the misery of famine,

more dreadful in proportion to the numbers exposed to its ravages’.

The summer of 1845 was unusually wet in Ireland and the potato disease, which

had manifested itself in North America in early 1843, (believed to have been

northern Mexico), first appeared in Ireland late in September of 1845 but was

already very destructive on the Continent, in Holland, Belgium, France, and the

west of Germany. The attack was partial and although few parts of the country

entirely escaped, a considerable portion of the crop, which had been a more than

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2 Lazy beds is a method of arable cultivation using parallel banks of ridge and furrow, commonly

found in the west of Ireland. The method used is normally to lift up sods of peat and apply

seaweed fertiliser to improve the ground. 3 Malthusian, comes from the writings of Rev. Thomas R. Malthus. Malthus believed in ‘positive

checks’, which lead to ‘premature’ death: disease, starvation, war, resulting in what is called a

Malthusian catastrophe. The catastrophe would return population to a lower, more ‘sustainable’,

level.

PHILIP I. POWELL


Potato Consumption by Social Class (c.1845)

(Daly, Mary E., - ‘Social and Economic History of Ireland since 1800’)

*This is the average daily consumption, based on 300 days. (Months of July & August, ‘meal

months,’ is not included)

**Others includes Large farmers, Industrial Workers, Professions, etc

POTATO CROP AT THE TIME OF THE FAMINE


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Occupation Population Consumption Average Daily *

Labourers 3.3m 3.9 (tons) 1.18 (tons) 8.8 lbs

Cottiers 1.4 0.8 0.53 3.9

Small Framers 0.5 0.3 0.60 4.48

Others ** 2.8 1.2 0.43 3.21

Year Acres (000) Yield per acre Produce (000 tons)

1844 2,378 (6.25) est. (14,862) est.

1845 2,516 (4.0) est. (10,063) est.

1846 1,999 (1.5) est. (2,999) est.

1847 284 7.2 2,046

1848 810 3.8 3,077

1849 719 5.6 4,024

PHILIP I. POWELL


an usually large one, was saved, and yield was only down from 6.25 in 1844 to 4

tons per acre planted for that year, and continued re-planting commenced as

usual in early 1846. However, the ‘Lumpers’ susceptibility to the blight was to

prove catastrophic, as the blight in the potatoes took hold earlier in 1846,

resulting in an almost complete failure of the crop, despite average planting, the

yield per acre is well below previous years at only 1.5 ton per acre, particularly

in the West and Southwest, adding to a huge increase in morbidity, which marks

1846 as truly the beginning of the Great Irish Famine.

Despite the devastating failure of that years crop, hopes were still high in late

1846 that the curse of the blight was over, although only a small acreage of

potatoes is planted. A report in the Cork Examiner dated 2nd September, 1846

suggests a guarded confidence. It wrote:-

‘It is very likely that a small cultivation of the Potato will take place in the next

year; but we have no belief in the theory that the root is permanently destroyed.

Stranger things have occurred with regard to the seasons than any witnessed in our

days. We have heard of a potato blight which occurred in America for three

successive years, and afterwards disappeared’. ‘There will be some to make another

venture upon it next year,-- and, probably, in 1848 there will be such a crop as had

not been witnessed within the time of the oldest man living’.

Others however, were not so sure, as Captain Mann of the Royal Navy Coast

Guard stationed in County Clare wrote in his narrative in 1846:-

‘The early culture of 1846 was in no way improved; a great proportion of the land

was again tilled with potatoes, under the expectation that, as in former years, the

late scarcity would be followed by a bountiful supply. The first alarm, was in the

latter part of July, when the potatoes showed symptoms of the previous year's

disease ; but I shall never forget the change in one week in August. On the first

occasion, on an official visit of inspection, I had passed over thirty-two miles thickly

studded with potato fields in full bloom. The next tune the face of the whole country

was changed ; the stalk remained bright green, but the leaves were all scorched

black. It was the work of a night. Distress and fear was pictured in every

countenance, and there was a general rush to dig and sell, or consume the crop by

feeding pigs and cattle, fearing in a short time they would prove unfit for any use.’

Throughout the summer of 1846, the cool, moist summer weather had been ideal

for the spread of blight. Diseased potatoes from the previous harvest had also

been used as planters and sprouted diseased shoots. At first, the crop appeared

healthy but by harvest time the blight struck, destroying nearly every potato in

Ireland. A Catholic priest in Cork named Father Theobald Matthew wrote to the

Chief Secretary, Trevelyan:-

‘In many places the wretched people were seated on the fences of their decaying

gardens, wringing their hands and wailing bitterly the destruction that had left

them foodless.’

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By late September, starvation struck in the west and southwest. British

Coastguard Inspector-General, Sir James Dombrain, upon encountering

starving paupers, ordered his subordinates to give free food handouts. For his

efforts, Dombrain was publicly rebuked by Trevelyan. The proper procedure, he

was informed, would have been to encourage the Irish to form a local relief

committee so that Irish funds could have been raised to provide the food:-

‘There was no one within many miles who could have contributed one

shilling...The people were actually dying,’ Dombrain responded.

To make matters worse, the winter of 1846-47 became the worst in living

memory as one blizzard after another buried homes in snow up to their roofs. In

Ireland the climate is normally mild and entire winters could often pass without

any snow. The summer of 1847 was drier than usual but owing to the huge

shortage of seed potatoes and the ever present fear of the return of the blight,

only a small acreage is planted. Although yields are quiet high, 7.2 tons per acre,

only one tenth of the total available acreage is cultivated as compared to 1845,

leading to enormous food shortages. An estimated 200,000 are forced to emigrate

in this year, mostly from the west of the country in counties Clare, Kerry and

Mayo. By July 1848, the return of the potato blight results in the failure of the

crop and this, despite the extra planting of seed potatoes, resulted in yields of

only 3.8 tons per acre, down nearly 50% on 1845, but cultivation was also down

by 70% as compared to 1845 and food shortages continued. The rate of mortality

continues to rise to around 1,100 per week in January 1848, despite food

shipments from abroad and the food kitchens run by the Society of Friends and

the British Relief Association, it is similarly high to the previous year. In

December, 1848, Cholera, an acute diarrhoeal disease contracted by drinking

contaminated water or eating contaminated food and which had been spreading

westwards from the Indian sub-continent since 1817, began to spread through

many of the overcrowded workhouses, hospitals, and jails in Ireland. Evictions,

for non-payment of rents, and mass emigration also continues to occur at a very

high rate. The Cholera, which had begun to appear in early December, 1848,

continued on into 1849 in epidemic proportions, exacting a great toll on the

populations of the workhouses and hospitals. Less planting is undertaken this

year and although it was a relatively blight free year, yields of 5.6 tons per acre,

(up on 1845 yields), cultivation was also crucially down by nearly 75% as

compared to 1845.

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The Government Response Initially the British governments response was relatively prompt. Sir Robert Peel had become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for the second time on the 30th August 1841 and had also served as Chief Secretary of Ireland from 1812 to 1818, so he knew the country very well having also been Prime Minister at the time of Catholic Emancipation. He oversaw the setting up of a public works program, indoor relief which the workhouses provided and the importation of corn. However, the workhouses, set up in 1838 under the Irish Poor Relief Act4 to house the destitute poor, were only ever envisaged to cater for 80,000 destitute poor and were mainly built in urban market towns of the Poor Law district. Although 130 workhouses were built by 1842, this was wholly inadequate, so that by 1847 they became hugely overcrowded and unable to cope, catering for 300,000 persons and spreading the highly infectious disease Typhus among its inmates. This led to a drastic increase in the death rate. In relation to this Law, (Irish Poor Relief Act - 1838), on the 21st May, 1838, the Duke of Wellington made the following observations in a debate at the Dublin Mansion House Committee on the introduction of the Irish Poor Law:- ‘There never was a country in which poverty existed to so great a degree as it exists

in Ireland. I held a high situation in that country thirty years ago, and I must say,

that, from that time to this, there has scarcely elapsed a single year, in which the

Government has not at certain periods of it entertained the most serious

apprehension of actual famine. I am firmly convinced that from the year 1806,

down to the present time, a year has not passed in which the Government have not

been called on to give assistance to relieve the poverty and distress which prevailed

in Ireland.’ In April 1846, Peel moved to repealed the Corn Laws, a law that imposed high tariffs on imported grain into Britain & Ireland and kept the price of bread artificially high, to allow the importation of cheap American grain, suspend Irish food exports (oats) and, it was hoped, that these actions, along with public works, would provide famine relief. Peel himself had secretly imported £100,000 of Indian corn (maize) from the America into Ireland and it became known as ‘Peel’s brimstone’ primarily because of its yellow colour. However, he was forced to resign as Prime Minister on 29th June with the defeat of the Coercion Bill by the Whigs, helped by the Irish Parliamentary Party led by Daniel O’Connell.

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4 The Irish Poor Relief Act (1838) created Poor Law Unions governed by Poor Law Guardians, elected and appointed to a Board of Guardians.

PHILIP I. POWELL


Sir Robert Peel, Conservative Prime Minister in 1841-6 Lord John Russell, the Whig Prime Minister at the time of the famine

Charles Edward Trevelyan in 1840s Treasury Under Secretary to Ireland

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After the defeat of the Conservative government led by Sir Robert Peel in July, 1846, a new Whig administration under Lord John Russell came to power, which appointed Sir Charles Wood as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Charles E. Trevelyan as Treasury Under Secretary to Ireland, charged with the administration of relief works, when approximately 100,00 men in October 1846 to 750,000 men by March 1847, were employed by the government on ‘outdoor’ public work schemes. These public works were to be paid for by Irish property owners and were chosen not to benefit individual landowners, most of whom were Tories, but for the common good. Trevelyan, who termed the Great Famine as ‘this great calamity’5 & Woods, were firm believers in laissez faire,6 and were determined to ensure that the Government intervened as little as possible, and then only to help local efforts, not replace them. ‘Relief should be made so unattractive as to furnish no motive to ask for it, except

in the absence of every other means of subsistence.’ (Trevelyan C. E., -‘The Irish Crisis’ p.187)

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, food prices generally collapsed but slowly improved so that by 1845 agricultural output in Ireland had expanded by 80-100%, due mainly to progressive farming techniques and the exploitation of cheap peasant labour, so that by the 1840s the national income totalled around £80m. This, Trevelyan & Woods mistakenly believed, was proof that there was sufficient Irish wealth among the Irish landlords and they should bear the main cost of the relief;-

‘It has been a popular argument in Ireland, that as the calamity was an imperial

one, the whole amount expended in relieving it ought to be defrayed out of the

Public Revenue. There can be no doubt that the deplorable consequences of this

great calamity extended to the empire at large, but the disease was strictly local, and

the cure was to be obtained only by the application of local remedies. If England

and Scotland, and great part of the north and east of Ireland had stood alone, the

pressure would have been severe, but there would have been no call for assistance

from national funds. The west and south of Ireland was the peccant part. The

owners and holders of land in those districts had permitted or encouraged the

growth of the excessive population which depended upon the precarious potato, and

they alone had it in their power to restore society to a safe and healthy state. If all

were interested in saving the starving people, they were far more so, because it

included their own salvation from the desperate struggles of surrounding

multitudes frenzied with hunger. The economical administration of the relief could

only be provided for by making it, in part at least, a local charge.’ (Trevelyan C. E., -‘The Irish Crisis’ p.108)

Perhaps this was an insight into the Protestant evangelistic attitude prevalent in early Victorian times among the upper & middle classes of Great Britain.

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5 Trevelyan C. E. -‘The Irish Crisis’ p.108 & 122 6 Laissez faire is a French phrase broadly meaning ‘let it be’ or a completely free market, free from tariffs & government subsidies.

PHILIP I. POWELL


The Society of Friends

Illustration from ‘Illustrated London News’ (1845-50)

The Society of Friends, or Quakers, first became involved with the Irish Famine in November, 1846, when some Dublin-based members formed a Central Relief Committee. They intended that their assistance supplement other relief. However, the relief provided by the Quakers proved crucial in keeping people alive when other relief systems failed. The Quakers donated food, mostly American flour, rice, biscuits, and Indian meal along with clothes and bedding. They set up soup kitchens, purchased seed, and provided funds for local employment. During 1846-1847, the Quakers gave approximately £200,000 for relief in Ireland. A number of Quakers were critical of government relief policies, holding them to be inadequate and misjudged.

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In 1847, once Trevelyan had taken control, he ordered the closing of the government food depots in Ireland that had been selling Peel’s Indian corn, believing Peel’s policy of providing cheap Indian corn meal to the Irish would undercut market prices and as a devout advocate of laissez-faire, Trevelyan believed it would discourage private food dealers from importing the much needed food. By March 1847 the ‘Destitute Poor Act’ was passed which provided for the opening of Soup Kitchens and showed clear evidence, that after two years of hunger, the government had accidentally come upon an effective kind of relief. But after great success feeding up to 3 million people a day, they were closed in September of that year. This left local charities & religious houses as the sole providers of cheap food for the poor & destitute and of these the most revered among them were the Society of Friends (Quakers). The Quakers, whose soup kitchens were concerned solely with charitable work, were never associated with the practice of proselytism7, and causes them to be held in high regard in Ireland even to this day, with many Irish remembering the Quakers with the remark ‘They fed us in the famine’. The closure of the soup kitchens in the summer and autumn of 1847, the comparatively minuscule potato crop and the great mass of evictions particularly in the west, made disaster on an unprecedented scale inevitable and marked the summer of 1847, commonly referred to as ‘Black ’47,’ the worst year of the Great Irish Famine. As Cormac Ó Gráda writes:-

‘The Irish famine relief effort was constrained less by poverty than by ideology and

public opinion. Too much was expected of the Irish themselves, including Irish

landlords. Too much was blamed on their dishonesty and laziness. Too much time

was lost on public works as the main vehicle of relief. By the time food was

reaching the starving through the soup kitchens, they were already vulnerable to

infectious diseases, against which the medical science of the day was virtually

helpless. Too much was made of the antisocial behaviour inevitable in such crisis

conditions. Too many people in high places believed that this was a time when, as

the Times put it, “something like harshness is the greatest humanity”. … Most

important, public spending on relief went nowhere near the cost of plugging the

gap left by the failure of the potato. … a shortfall of about £50 million in money. …

exchequer spending on famine relief between 1846 and 1852 totalled less than £10

million.’

(Ó Gráda, C., - ‘Black ’47 and beyond: the Great Irish Famine in history,

economy, and memory,’ p. 82-3) The cost of outdoor relief in February, 1848, was £72,039 but by March it had risen to £81,339, giving relief to an estimated 700,000 people. An estimated 140,000 were receiving indoor relief, while more than 200,00 school children were being fed (and in part clothed) by the British Relief Association8.

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7 Proselytism was a practise of religious conversion for food, carried out in many, mainly Protestant soup kitchens but also in some Jewish establishments. 8 The British Relief Association was founded in 1847, and raised money in England, America and Australia. They benefited from a ‘Queen’s Letter’ from Victoria appealing for money to relieve the distress in Ireland. Their total raised was £470,000.

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The Workhouses

The Irish Famine Scene at the Gate of a Workhouse

Illustration from ‘The People’s History of England’ (Cassell, Petter & Galpin, c. 1890.) Initially, the greatest relief to the starving came through the Poor Law Act (1838), which aimed to provide accommodation for the absolutely destitute in workhouses. There were 130 of them in Ireland by 1842. The conditions for entry were so strict that people would only go to them as a last resort. Families were torn apart, as women and men lived in different parts of the workhouse, and children were kept separately from adults. Inmates were forbidden to leave, and the food provided consisted of two meals a day, of oatmeal, potatoes and buttermilk. There were strict rules against bad language, alcohol, laziness, malingering and disobedience, and meals had to be eaten in silence. Able-bodied adults had to work at such jobs as breaking stones (for men) and knitting (for women). Children were given industrial training of some sort.

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These numbers added together gives a total exceeding 1 million people receiving relief in March, 1848, approximately one-seventh of the population of Ireland. Critics maintained that even after the government recognised the extent of the crisis, it failed to take sufficient steps to address it. John Mitchel, charged in April, 1848 with sedition, later replaced with a charge under the Treason-Felony Act9 and convicted in May 1848 and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years, was one of the leaders of the Young Ireland Movement. He wrote:- ‘Further, I have called it an artificial famine: that is to say, it was a famine which

desolated a rich and fertile island, that produced every year abundance and

superabundance to sustain all her people and many more. The English, indeed, call

that famine a '"dispensation of Providence;" and ascribe it entirely to the blight of

the potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no

famine save in Ireland. The British account of the matter then, is first, a fraud —

second, a blasphemy. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English

created the famine.’

(Mitchel, John., - ‘The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)’ ( 1861 - p.219.) On the 29th July 1848 in the village of Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary, other members of the Young Ireland Movement led by William Smith O’Brien, Terence Bellew McManus and James Stephens started a rebellion. The ‘affray’ at Ballingarry, also known as ‘the battle of the Widow McCormack’s cabbage patch’ & the ‘Famine Rebellion’ was a complete disaster and fizzled out. Its leaders were arrested, convicted under the Treason-Felony Act and deported to Tasmania (Van Dieman’s Land), Australia. The Cholera which had first appeared in December, 1848, was, by the beginning of 1849, an epidemic. Death rates soared from over 900 per week in March, to over 1,200 by May. The government believed it had done as much as it could but this was not a view held even by Lord Clarendon, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He pleaded with the Prime Minister, Lord Russell for help. On the 26th April, 1849, he wrote:-

‘...it is enough to drive one mad, day after day, to read the appeals that are made

and meet them all with a negative...At Westport, and other places in Mayo, they

have not a shilling to make preparations for the cholera, but no assistance can be

given, and there is no credit for anything, as all our contractors are ruined. Surely

this is a state of things to justify you asking the House of Commons for an advance,

for I don’t think there is another legislature in Europe that would disregard such

suffering as now exists in the west of Ireland, or coldly persist in a policy of

extermination.’

No advance was granted by Parliament.

(Ó Gráda, Cormac., - ‘Ireland before and After the Famine: explorations in

economic history 1800-1925,’ ( Manchester, 1989.)

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9 The Treason-Felony Act reduces the maximum sentence for rebellion from death to transportation or imprisonment.

PHILIP I. POWELL


Famine Scene

From a series of illustrations by Cork artist James Mahony (1810-1879), commissioned by ‘Illustrated London News’ in 1847.

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In July, 1849, the Whig administration passed the Encumbered Estates Act, which provided for the setting up of an Encumbered Estates Court and allowing the sale of entailed and bankrupt landlords’ estates. This was government policy of the day, as Russell, Woods & Trevelyan wanted to change and modernise the agricultural landscape of Ireland, creating, they hoped, peasant proprietorship. As Trevelyan put it:- ‘The master evil of the agricultural system of Ireland, however, is the law of Entail,

and the Incumbrances which seldom fail to accumulate upon entailed estates. The

remedy for this state of things is simply the sale of the encumbered estate, or of a

sufficient portion of it to enable the owner to discharge his encumbrances and to

place him in a position to do his duty towards the remainder. This is the master-key

to unlock the field of industry in Ireland.’

(Trevelyan C. E., -‘The Irish Crisis’ p.25-31) However, Mitchel thought it was of no use to the famine poor and destitute of Ireland and was only enacted to force even more of the population off the land. He wrote:-

‘this Act was not intended to relieve, and did not relieve, anybody in Ireland; but

that, under pretence of facilitating legal proceedings, it contemplated a sweeping

confiscation and new 'Plantation' of the island.’

(Mitchel, John., - ‘The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)’ (1861 p.213) Trevelyan’s policies in Ireland, policies which were shared by the Whig administration & the upper and middle classes in Britain, of Divine Providence & laissez-faire ensured his eternal legacy as one of the most detested figures in Irish history, along with Oliver Cromwell. Indeed, so much so that he is referred to in a famous Irish balled ‘The Fields of Athenry’ in the words:-

‘For you stole Trevelyan’s corn, So the young might see the morn. Now a prison

ship lies waiting in the bay,’

which laments about a young, destitute Irish man who stole food to feed his starving family & is transported to Australia for his crime. Perhaps, a fate less severe after the passing of the Treason-Felony Act of 1848, which reduced the penalty for such a crime, from death to transportation or imprisonment. On 27th April, 1848 he was made a Knight Commander of the ‘Order of the Bath’ in reward of his services to the Crown during the famine and after returning to India in 1862, he was made a Baronet on the 2nd March 1874.

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PHILIP I. POWELL


IRISH AGRICULTURAL PRICES DURING THE FAMINE YEARS

(1840 equals 100)


18

1845 1846 1847 1848 1849

Wheat 98 131 98 87 66

Oats 118 187 107 196 83

Barley 118 175 116 100 85

Potatoes 88 323 254 292 215

Butter 92 105 99 87 74

Pork 92 117 149 115 88

Mutton 120 120 125 120 105

Beef 103 104 105 110 79

PHILIP I. POWELL


PROFITERRING & PRICES With the failure of second crop of potatoes in 1845, food prices, primarily those of potatoes, rose substantially, so that by 1846 they had risen almost four-fold. The prices of grains also increased by between 30 - 80%, while that of pork rose by almost 20%. These were the very food stuffs that would have the most detrimental impact on the lower classes, i.e., the peasant labourers & cottiers, who, finding that their main source of food was no longer available, found it almost impossible to supplement the potato with any other viable alternative. Peel’s secret importation of Indian corn & the suspension of the tariffs on corn under the repeal of the Corn Laws, did little to stem the rise in prices. Moreover, the Prime Minister Lord Russell did not think it wise or within his governments remit to do so, as it would, he believed, have a disastrous impact on the normal commercial activities of the free-market. In October 1846 he said:-

‘It must be thoroughly understood that we cannot feed the people...We can at best

keep down prices where there is no regular market and prevent established dealers

from raising prices much beyond the fair price with ordinary profits.’

Ranelagh, John O’Beirne, - ‘A Short History of Ireland’ (Cambridge, 1983-p.114) Indeed, this very point was echoed by his Chief Secretary in Ireland, Trevelyan, another rigid exponent of the laissez-faire policy of non-interference with market forces. He wrote:- ‘the proper business of a Government, is to enable private individuals of every rank

and profession in life, to carry on their several occupations with freedom and

safety, and not itself to undertake the business of the landowner, merchant, money-

lender, or any other function of social life.’

Trevelyan, C. E., - ‘The Irish Crisis’ (1848 - p.190)

Near Famine conditions in most of Western Europe, had led to rising food prices throughout the region, so that by late 1846, there were widespread reports of large-scale profiteering by merchants and retailers in the grain being imported from America and also by the millers & bakers. This was undoubtedly, well known to the authorities, as General Hewston writing from Limerick to Trevelyan on 30th December, 1846 wrote:-

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PHILIP I. POWELL


‘Last quotations from Cork: Indian corn, £17 5s. per ton ex ship; Limerick: corn

not on the market; Indian meal £18 10s. to £19 per ton. Demand excessive. Looking

to the quotations in the United States markets, these are really famine prices, the

corn not standing the consignee more than £9 or £10 per ton. The commander of

an American ship, the Isabella, lately with a direct consignment from New York to

a merchant house in this city, makes no scruple, in his trips in the public steamers

up and down the river, to speak of the enormous profits the English and Irish

merchant houses are making by their dealings with the States; it is an uncharitable

thought, but really there is so much cupidity abroad, and the wretched people

suffering so intensely from the high prices of food, augmented by every party

through whose hands it passes before it reaches them, it is quite disheartening to

look upon.’

O’Rourke, John., - ‘The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847’ (Dublin, 1902 - p.171)

Another, Fr. Theobald Mathew, who wrote letters on numerous occasions to the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Charles Trevelyan during the period of the famine years, wrote from Cork on 16th December, 1846:-

‘I deeply regret the abandonment of the people to corn and flour dealers. They

charge 50% to 100% profit. Cargoes of maize are purchased before their arrival

and are sold like railway shares, passing through different hands before they are

ground and sold to the poor.’

Cummins, N. M., - ‘Some chapters of Cork medical history’ (Cork, 1957 - p.114)

Government sale of Indian Corn, at Cork

(From a series of illustrations by Cork artist James Mahony (1810-1879),

commissioned by ‘Illustrated London News’ in 1847.)

20

PHILIP I. POWELL


Newspapers too, reported on the rising food prices and seemingly large-scale profiteering. A letter from Loughrea, published in the Galway Mercury on the 8th March, 1847, contains the following passage:-

‘On this day (Thursday) wheat has been sold at from 55s. to 60s. per barrel, and

oats reached up to the enormous price of from 29s. to 30s. per barrel, and who can

tell but that, a few markets hence, the above articles may reach so high as to be

almost above purchase. It is no wonder then that the people should be panic-

stricken, especially when the wisest and best amongst us has no hope in the Whig

Administration.’

Another letter from Father John Coghlan, Parish Priest in Kilkelly, County Mayo to the Editor of the Times states that:-

‘the very small quantity of oatmeal to be found is selling at 28s per 112 lb. Indian

meal is not to be had in Sligo for less than 19 l. per ton.’ Rampant profiteering by millers & bakers, hell bent it seemed on making the most of others destitution, was also well documented and widely reported by the newspapers of the day. The Editor of the Cork Examiner, dated 20th November, 1846, wrote an article headlined ‘THE PRICE OF BREAD’ and in it they ask why there is such a difference between prices charged by Cork millers, as opposed to those charged by Kerry millers. They wrote:-

‘Is still kept up, while Corn is going down. The bakers say it is not their fault, for

the Millers keep up the price of flour. They say that if they got the flour cheap, they

would give cheap bread to the public. Let us turn, then, to the Millers of Cork, and

ask them, why they do not lower their prices, when the price of corn has declined?

The cost of grinding is not more one week than it is another. If corn rise, the Miller

raises the price of flour. If corn fall, the flour is stationary. Its tendency is ever

upwards. It is a very singular thing to us, who can only look on the surface of

things, that the Cork Millers would not lower the price of flour, as the Kerry Millers

have done. Prices have fallen about four shillings a bag in Tralee. No such

reduction has taken place in Cork. How is this? In Tralee, there is a reduction of

three pence a stone on flour sold by retail. The Cork retailer, not having received

the benefit of the reduction on corn from the Cork Miller, cannot allow the Cork

consumer the sixpence reduction that Kerry retailers allow the Kerry consumer. We

should like to have a little explanation of this singular discrepancy.’

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PHILIP I. POWELL


And yet, almost two months later, the Editorial in the same paper, the Cork

Examiner, dated 17th January, 1847, again reports about the prices rises. It stated:-

‘The price of the large (4 lb.) loaf is this week 10 1/2 d.; after today another half

penny will be laid on, and flour factors calculate that it will go up to 1s. at which

figure it will remain stationery for some months. This refers to the first quality;

inferior is, of course, somewhat cheaper. Bacon, which was heretofore a common

article of food article of food with labourers and mechanics, is now from its

enormous price, placed quite beyond their means; and as to eggs, they have become

as rare as good potatoes. Their present rate here is 2s. per dozen, and even in

country towns, where a year ago they could be had three for a penny, they have

increased fourfold in value. Owing to the inability of the poor people to feed fowls

without the assistance of the potato crops, they are killed, and either consumed by

the owners or disposed of in the adjacent towns and villages. And thus is another

means cut off by which the cottier tenant was enabled by thrift to save something

for rent-day.’ And so it would seem, that wide spread profiteering & the extortionate prices been charged, were of common knowledge to the government and yet nothing was done to end these practices. To compound the crisis, the export of food from Ireland to Britain had not only been maintained at pre-famine levels but had in fact increased in volume. In his book, author Cormac Ó Gráda writes that:-‘although the potato crop failed, the country was still producing and exporting

more than enough grain crops to feed the population. But that was a ‘money crop’

and not a ‘food crop’ and could not be interfered with.10’ ‘In 1845, a famine year in

Ireland, 3,251,907 quarters (8 bushels = 1 quarter) of corn and 257,257 sheep were

exported from Ireland to Britain. In 1846, another famine year, 480,827 swine, and

186,483 oxen were exported to Britain.11’ This view is echoed by Cecil Woodham-Smith, regarded as the most eminent authority on the Irish Famine. She wrote that it is an:-‘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.’12 The tackling of the unfolding disaster, was undoubtedly, a huge task to undertake by any government. However, the British Government at the time never quiet grasped the enormity of the crisis at hand and had instead stuck rigidly to the mistaken belief that there was enough wealth among the landlords of Ireland to take care of the crisis. Trevelyan initially believed that the crisis could be sufficiently dealt with financially and with existing programs. He wrote:- ‘The question, therefore, at that time, was a money one ; and all that was required

to relieve the distress, was to purchase a sufficient quantity of food elsewhere and to

send it into the distressed districts’. Trevelyan, C. E., - ‘The Irish Crisis’ (1848 - p.81)

22

10 Ó Gráda, Cormac., - ‘Ireland before and After the Famine: 1800-1925’ ( Manchester, 1989) 11 Ó Gráda, Cormac., - ‘Ireland before and After the Famine: 1800-1925’ ( Manchester, 1989) 12 Woodham-Smith, Cecil., – ‘The Great Hunger Ireland 1845–49’ (Penguin Books, London, 1962)

PHILIP I. POWELL


CONCLUSIONS

Was the Great Famine of 1845-49 a disaster waiting to happen? As was stated

earlier, Ireland was no stranger to famine and the arrival of the potato blight in

late 1845 was not initially of any great concern and was an accepted fact of 19th

century potato production. In 1739, an early and severe frost destroyed the

potatoes in the ground, leading to a great fall off in tillage in 1740 and is known

as the ‘Irish Great Frost’. This famine prolonged to the following year, 1741,

which was long known as the ‘bliain an áir’ or the ‘year of slaughter’ due to the

great rate of morbidity. In the 19th century, major famine of some kind or

another was recorded in 1807, 1817, 1821-22, 1836 and 1839. During the famine

of 1817, Robert Peel, then Chief Secretary of Ireland, had personally intervened.

The potato crop failure of 1821-22 in the provinces of Munster and Connaught,

was caused by continued and excessive humidity, causing the potatoes to rot

after they had been stored in the pits, so that the shortage of food was only

discovered late in that year. Counties Cork, Limerick, Kerry, Clare, Mayo, and

Galway were the most severely effected. The 1839 crop failure effected all the

Western and Midland Counties. But it was this famine, of 1845-49, that caused

the virtual elimination of the peasant labourers and cottier classes in Ireland.

The over zealous eagerness of the Whig administration to modernise agriculture

from labour intensive tillage to a more profitable livestock farming system, that

saw small farm holdings of 1-5 acres virtually disappear in four, short years.

The enormous scale of mortality and the mass emigrations of a particular class of

people could have been avoided or lessened, had the Government of the day

grasped the enormity of the situation. They had at hand in 1847, the tools by

which they could have halted the starvation and emigration of hundreds of

thousands. Those tools of public work schemes and soup kitchens, had given

employment and food to millions of destitute poor in that year. However, the

public works projects had been on going since the establishment of the Irish

Board of Works in 1831 & the Poor Law Unions (est. 1838) had, by 1842,

constructed nearly 130 workhouses. Moreover, the government had waited until

March 1847 before the opening of the soup kitchens, allowed under the

‘Destitute Poor Act’. But inexplicably, they choose to end them, rigidly adhering

to their orthodox market policies of laissez faire & Protestant evangelisms to the

detriment of the destitute poor classes, whom they regarded as lazy & idle and

corrupted by Catholicism. But probably the fundamental failure of the

government programs, were the workhouses. The workhouses were never

intended to cater for such vast numbers, nor were they suitable in rural areas,

for it was the concentration of the people into larger groups, in confined

quarters, that allowed disease, the main killer of the Famine, to rapidly spread

and exact its greatest toll.

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PHILIP I. POWELL


Providing the poor with seed to grow food was considered by the administration

as early as 1845. Trevelyan thought it unwise to interfere with the workings of

the private economy and believed that this seed would instead be eaten by the

hungry and not used for the growing of food. He wrote:-

‘From the first failure of the potato crop in 1845, the subject of providing seed was

repeatedly considered, and the conclusion invariably arrived at was, that the

moment it came to be understood that the Government had taken upon itself the

responsibility of this delicate and peculiar branch of rural economy, the painful

exertions made by private individuals in every part of Ireland to reserve a stock of

seed would be relaxed, and the quantity consumed as food in consequence of the

interference of the Government, would greatly exceed the quantity supplied by

means of that interference.’

Trevelyan, C. E., - ‘The Irish Crisis’ (1848 - p. 96)

The rampant profiteering by grain merchants may also have been curtailed, if

not avoided altogether, for when Ireland had experienced a famine in 1782–1783,

the government closed the ports to keep Irish grown food in Ireland to feed the

Irish and subsequently, local food prices had promptly dropped. But Britain was

facing a recession in 1847, a possible famine was threatening the Scottish

Highlands and great food shortages in Europe, so that food importations from

Ireland were of the greatest necessity. He wrote:-

‘In 1846-7, the scarcity was general, and threatening a famine in other quarters

besides Ireland. The present question, therefore, was not a money, but a food

question. The entire stock of food for the whole United Kingdom was insufficient,

and it was only by carefully husbanding it, that it could be made to last till harvest.’

Trevelyan, C. E., - ‘The Irish Crisis’ (1848 - p. 81)

Financially, the Westminster Treasury could have contributed much more to

tackle the crisis. It did in fact spend almost £7 million in relief in Ireland between

1845-50 but that only represented less than half of 1% of the GNP over five

years. This compared to the £20 million on compensation given to West Indian

slave-owners in the 1830s & the £70 million subsequently spent on the Crimean

War in 1853-56, makes it a paltry sum for the welfare of its citizens. These

people were supposed to be equal citizens and not colonists after the Act of

Union13 in 1800, whereby both countries were united under the Act and the

entire United Kingdom was an area free trade, similar to the present day EU.

But that was not in fact the case. Ireland was not part of the Union as Wales or

Scotland were. Ireland was in fact treated like a colony, there for the use of her

resources and for the betterment of the English Treasury.

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13 Passed in1800, the Act united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland to

create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

PHILIP I. POWELL


Sir Isaac Butt (1813–1879) MP & Professor of Political Economy in Trinity

College Dublin, writing in the Dublin University Magazine in April, 1847 wrote:-

‘What can be more absurd, what can be more wicked, than for men professing

attachment to an imperial constitution to answer claims now put forward for state

assistance to the unprecedented necessities, by talking of Ireland being a drain on

the English treasury. The exchequer is the exchequer of the United Kingdom. … If

the Union be not a mockery, there exists no such thing as an English treasury. …

How are these expectations to be realized, how are these pledges to be fulfilled, if

the partnership is to be one of loss and never of profit to us? if, bearing our share of

all imperial burdens—when calamity strikes upon us we are to be told that we then

recover our separate existence as a nation, just so far as to disentitle us to the state

assistance which any portion of a nation visited with such a calamity has a right to

expect from the governing power? If Cornwall had been visited with the same

scenes that have desolated Cork, would similar arguments have been used?’.14

Ultimately, the cause and/or culpability for the Great Irish Famine, cannot be

lain at any, one particular deed or event. Although the blight can be seen as the

catalyst, it was a combination of natural forces, past political decisions, economic

failures, profiteering and social injustices, that resulted in the deaths of the

countless forgotten and the forced dispersion of a nations Diaspora around the

world. - The total failure of the food of a nation and their total dependence on

that food source. - The continued practise of land sub-division, with ever

decreasing farm sizes and the fanatical eagerness for agricultural modernisation

in Ireland. - The governments market policies & economic errors, along with the

shortcomings of that Government, that did not act with promptness and

decision, for fear of the cost of such state financial intervention, nor take action

to curb rampant profiteering by Irish grain merchants. - Religious bigotry &

racism too played a part, spreading a perception that the Irish were sub-human,

lazy & idle and that the famine was an act of an Almighty & righteous God. - All

were contributory factors to the catastrophe that unfolded in those infamous

years of 1845-49 and it is those events that still have a resonating effect on the

relationship between Ireland & Britain to this day. As one of the fore-most

authorities on the Great Irish Famine, Cecil Woodham-Smith has said:-

‘The famine left hatred behind. Between Ireland and England the memory of what

was done and endured has lain like a sword. Other famines followed, as other

famines had gone before, but it is the terrible years of the Great Hunger which are

remembered, and only just beginning to be forgiven.’

Woodham-Smith, Cecil., – ‘The Great Hunger Ireland 1845–49’

(Penguin Books, London, 1962 - p.75)

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14 Butt, Isaac., 'Dublin University Magazine' (29th April 1847 - p.514)

PHILIP I. POWELL


BIBLIOGRAPHY Butt, Isaac., - ‘A voice for Ireland. The famine in the land: what has been done,

and what is to be done’ ( Dublin, 1847.) Daly, Mary E., - ‘Social and Economic History of Ireland since 1800’

( Educational Co. of Ireland; 1st ed.) ( Jun 1981.)

Cummins, N. M., - ‘Some chapters of Cork medical history’ ( Cork, 1957.) Kinealy, Christine., - ‘The Great Irish Famine: Impact, ideology and Rebellion’

Mitchel, John., - ‘The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)’ ( 1861 - Edited by Patrick Maume.) Ó Gráda, Cormac., - ‘A New Economic History’, 1780-1939. ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.) Ó Gráda, Cormac., - ‘Ireland before and After the Famine: explorations in

economic history 1800-1925’ ( Manchester, 1989.)

Ó Gráda, Cormac., - ‘Black ’47 and beyond: the Great Irish Famine in history,

economy, and memor’ ( 1998.) O’Rourke, John, Rev., - ‘The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847’ (3rd ed.) ( Dublin, 1902.) Porteir, Cathal., - ‘The Great Irish Famine’ ( Cork, 1995.) Ranelagh, John O’Beirne, - ‘A Short History of Ireland’ ( Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1983.) Sabine, J., - Secretary, Horticultural Society - ‘Transactions of the Horticultural

Society of London’ ( 1822.) Trevelyan, C. E., - ‘The Irish Crisis’ ( 1848 - London.) first published in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ January, 1848. Woodham-Smith, Cecil., – ‘The Great Hunger Ireland 1845–49’ ( Penguin Books, London, 1962.)

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PHILIP I. POWELL


LIST OF IMAGES cover image ‘The Discovery of the Potato Blight’ c.1852 by Daniel McDonald (1821-1853) Irish Painter. image of symptom of late potato blight, taken by Fk ( August, 2000.) Portrait of Sir Robert Peel by John Linnell (1792-1882), Painter - oil on panel, 1838, in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Image of Lord John Russell (c.1816) by John Jabez Edwin Mayall (1813-1901) Photographer. image of Charles E. Trevelyan...Contemporary Lithograph of Charles Trevelyan, (1840s) - Author unknown. image of the Cork Society of Friends soup kitchen - Illustration from ‘Illustrated

London News’ (1845-50) image of The Irish Famine Scene at the Gate of a Workhouse from ‘The People’s

History of England’ ( Cassell, Petter & Galpin, c. 1890.) image of famine scene, from a series of illustrations by Cork artist James Mahony (1810-1879), commissioned by ‘Illustrated London News’ in 1847. image of Government sale of Indian Corn, at Cork , from a series of illustrations by Cork artist James Mahony (1810-1879), commissioned by ‘Illustrated London

News’ in 1847. back cover ‘The Bay and Harbour of New York’ by Samuel Waugh (1814-1885), depicting Irish immigrants in New York harbour in July 1847 ( water colour on canvas, Museum of the City of New York.)

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PHILIP I. POWELL


Irish immigrants debark at New York in 1847 by Samuel B. Waugh (1814-1885)

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PHILIP I. POWELL 'The Great Irish Famine' a disaster waiting to happen !!

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