THE GREAT FAMINE AND Afterwards

THE GREAT FAMINE AND AFTERWARDS

                                                                     In 1841 the population of Ireland stood at 8.2 million, four years before the commencement of the Great Famine, having risen from 6.8 million twenty years previously. In 2024 the combined populations of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland stands at exactly 7 million, the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain.

                                                                     There had been nine major famines in Ireland prior to 1845 (five in the 1700’s, and four more in the 1800’s), with the1741 disaster causing almost as much death and destruction as the Great Famine. Just over one-third of the population lived on potatoes alone. After the first crop failure appeared in the summer 1845, the Sir Robert Peel led Tory government reacted by purchasing £150,000 worth of maize from the United States and Britain that November. Because of those purchases, along with the help of private charities, and the fact that the deadly fungus destroyed only half of the annual potato crop that year, a major catastrophe was avoided. However, when the crop failed again during the following year, the loss was total.

                                                                      British elections took place in July of 1846, resulting in the Tory’s being ousted and the Liberals (Whigs), led by Lord John Russel, being voted into power. The change of government proved to be disastrous, certainly as far as the handling of the famine in Ireland was concerned. (There was a less severe famine in Scotland at the same time) Not that what ensued was genocide, as a number of Irish writers like to claim, but Russell had no idea of how to handle the situation. He was a man lacking in both feelings and an abundance of brains, who subsequently removed most of Peel’s relief measures, although he did continue with a system of public works, mainly road-building, which was providing relief. At its peak some 715,000 were employed on the scheme, supporting some 3.5 million people, but when a number of workers began dying during the very severe winter of ‘46/’47, it was abandoned.

                                                                      Early in1847 the government set up soup kitchens in many areas, ensuring that some three million people were being fed daily. But they were shut down after only six months, leaving only private charities and religious organisations to look after the people. The potato blight had disappeared that year and it was assumed that the crisis was over (it would return in ‘48), but only a small percentage of potatoes had been planted compared to previous years. A bad harvest in Britain was also part of the reason for the cut-back. While another reason was the assassination that November of Major Denis Mahon, landlord of Strokestown House in county Roscommon, who had commenced removing the majority of his 12,000 tenants by shipping them off to Canada in appalling shipboard conditions.

Because of the spiralling relief costs the government, fearful of a taxpayers revolt, brought in a new Poor-Law which placed the cost of relief on the Irish landlords. It was assumed that ‘’the law will work wonders on Ireland’s leisure classes. The idle poor at the bottom of the barrel, and the idle rich at the top’’. But the new law meant that small land-holders could not now seek relief, and within one year almost one million destitute people had abandoned their lands and entered the workhouse.

Yet another reason for the fall-off in sympathy for the Irish by the Whig government was Daniel O’Connell’s continuing call for repeal of the Union. The Great Liberator was correct in stating that an Irish government would have handled the famine crisis far better, but during his final House of Commons speech in March of 1847, three months prior to his death, he pleaded ‘’If you do not save her, she cannot save herself’’.

The famine continued until the end of the decade, leaving death and immigration in its wake. The population had been reduced from 8.2 million in 1841, to 6.6 million in 1851, a loss of 1.6 million. A dreadful figure, even though its not the 2.5 or 3 million often claimed, with deaths amounting to around half of the 1.6 million. While there was some immigration to the UK most people went to the United States, either voluntary or because they were given little option by landlords who wished to remove their destitute tenants by sending them to North America. Having no wish to support them indefinitely in Ireland.

Between 1846 and 1847 the Quakers gave a total of £200,000 for Irish famine relief, a vast amount at the time. The British Relief Association, founded in 1847, contributed £400,000 to the same cause. And, despite tales to the contrary, Queen Victory wrote a personal cheque for £2,000 to the cause.

Here is an interesting if unconnected side-note. The worst-ever famine took place in China between the years 1959 and 1961, where some 30 million people lost their lives, with around the same amount of lost births.

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The handling of the famine (mishandling would be more appropriate) left a dark stain on the history of the Liberal government. While many in Ireland will never let the British forget that fact, it would also be in order to show that some Irish people did little or nothing to help rectify the situation. Of course we then arrive at the question as to who actually is Irish! There is the Anglo-Irish, and then (as many would say) there is the real Irish. How long has one has to be in Ireland before becoming a native? The first plantation in Ireland took place in 1556, in counties Laois and Offaly, which means that at the commencement of the Great Famine one segment of the population had been living in the country for almost three hundred years. More than ten generations.

In 1845 some 90% of the land was owned by English landlords (mainly absent), along with Anglo-Irish landlords, who were mainly in situ. The remaining 10% was held by real Irish people, who did almost nothing to relieve the desperate situation when shove came to push. There was also present the ubiquitous ‘’middleman’’, who, together with the ‘’Irish landowner, or farmer’’ is almost never mentioned. Probably out of embarrassment at his very existence, and a wish to maintain the myth that the Irish never did any harm to their fellow countrymen.

In Myles Dungan’s excellent book ‘’Land Is All That Matters’’ the ‘’middleman’’ takes centre-stage for once. They were a class of ‘’real Irishmen’’ (whatever that means) who took advantage of the cottiers, people who were just about managing to exist on a small holding. (Cottiers were farm labourers who rented a tiny holding from a tenant farmer in order to grow food (potatoes) for his family.) The ‘’middleman’’ rented or leased land from a landlord and then sub-let it to under-tenants, at double the price, while pocketing the difference. Unfortunately for the cottiers, in many cases these middlemen would ‘’forget’’ to pass on the rent they had just recently collected, often resulting in trouble for the cottier in question. They were not very nice people, but in Irish mythology they never existed.

Following an election in August of 1847 one-hundred-and-five Irish M.P’s were returned to Westminster, which, if they had merged into one unified unit, would have been strong enough to force the government into taking a far more proactive response to the famine. But unfortunately no such agreed approach emerged, and nothing changed. Reading some of the election pamphlets of the time, its apparent that the extent of the famine was not known by every Irish candidate. Hardly credible, but true nonetheless. And also, like the government, many believed that the worst was over when the fungus disappeared that year. But a glorious opportunity was right there at hand, and ignored. Obviously the government-of-the-day has to take most of the blame for the poor response to what was happening on its doorstep, but there were other culprits there also.

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By 1851, at the end of the Great Famine, the population of Ireland was down to 6.6 million, a fall of 1.6 million inside a decade, the number who had died, mainly from starvation or hunger-related disease, and those who had emigrated. From that time on the amount of potatoes sowed every year reduced enormously. Never again would so many people rely solely on them.

But emigration did not cease when the fungus disappeared and the famine ended, and even when major land-reforms were taking place during the second-half of that century, although the myth-makers would have us believe that it did. By 1891 the population had fallen to the remarkably low figure of 4.7 million, a drop of almost 2 million in forty years. It is estimated that between 1841 and 1939, the outbreak of the 2nd World War, 4.5 million Irish people emigrated to the United States. An amazing figure.

Did all those people clear out of Ireland because of the famine, or because of memories or stories from back then? Hardly. Young women and men, in particular the former, saw a bright future in the New World, far away from the degradation and clawing theocracy they had to endure at home. Jobs were available, and along the east coast many women were employed by well-off families as maids, cooks and cleaners, soon developing into a cottage industry. Later generations would find employment in supermarkets and as secretaries, while at the same time managing to obtain further education, which opened up various prospects.

In the big cities there was plenty of entertainment, the theatre and dance bands, and young men to escort and court them. But most of the early female arrivals were the last to marry of any ethnic group, as deciding to give up their work in the big house did not always work out so well. Irish men were found to be deserting their wives and families at a far higher rate than any other ethnic group. But the dam had been breached, and the Irish could go wherever they wished.

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Copyright Ron Walsh. 2024.