1. The Great Famine 1845-1850 Prof Peter Gray

2. Themes What were the causes of the Great Famine?
What was the impact and extent of the Famine?
How did British governments respond to the Famine?
What was the Famine’s legacy?
Why was the Great Famine remembered, and when?

3. What were the causes of the Great Famine?
Colonialism?
Poverty of much of population
Over-population
Economic stagnation
Uneven development / deindustrialisation
Over-dependence on the potato
Potato blight (an ecological ‘exogenous shock’)
Government policy – omission and commission
Class conflict within Irish society

4. POVERTY AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT
Potato ‘Lazy beds’
Labourer’s cottage, Co. Kerry 1845
POVERTY AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT
Derrynane Beg clachan, Co. Kerry, 1845

5. Were there too many people?
Rates of population growth amongst highest in Europe 1750s-1820s
Why did the population grow?
Where did it grow?
A population plateau: peaks at c. 8.5m in 1845
Supply and demand in Irish population growth
The demographic role of the potato
Ireland as Malthusian case study? – Theory would see crisis brought on selves by high nuptuality (early marriage) and large families? Was Malthus right?
Some problems of interpretation
True that Irish population growth near top of European league – up x3 in less than century
But not even growth – peaks in ; then falling to below European average for growth by – self-correcting process? Combination of some delayed marriage, but also higher emigration (1.5m )
But regional distinctions complicate picture– falling population growth in west, but at slower rate than east – ‘overshooting’ (and lower emigration from west)
While population growth levelling off, did so at high rate of density in many places – a population ‘plateau’ by 1840s
Reasons for Ireland’s demographic curve?
Some morality falls from better health – but a minor factor.
Controversy over role of potato – a wonder-crop of 18thC Ireland – produced nutritional value of corn for 1/3 of cost – most calorie-productive crop on Irish soil. Relatively reliable (much more so than wheat) and had added advantage of breaking up soil for tillage and (if in cycle) reviving soil nutrients. But did it CAUSE population growth; or was its expansion simply a RESPONSE to growing demand for food from a population rising for other reasons? Debate on this in Irish economic history.
Connell – Irish Population History - stressed nuptuality and fertility, stimulated by cheap food (but early marriage in Ireland not strongly borne out by evidence)
A function of higher wages and labour demand? = but in Ireland wages of agric lab not paid in cash but in access to land – ‘conacre’ potato plots
Estimates of Irish
population (millions)
Population density 1841 (Red = 150+ per sq mile)

6. REGIONAL FACTORS - Farming zones, c
REGIONAL FACTORS - Farming zones, c A1 – Pasture A2 – Dairy B – Tillage C – Peasant / subsistence D – ‘Protoindustrial’
This map shows regional variations and tendency of changes early 19thC
Traditional tillage areas (dryest) in SE – expanding westwards and northwards into pastoral and dairying zones of midlands. ‘Peasant’ (subsistence) agriculture still dominant on west coast, but even here pockets of commercialisation, and people of west drawn into tillage economy by labour migration. North – as we will see –developing different agricultural structure due to ‘protoindustrialisation’ – this also expanding south into S. Ulster and N. Midlands and west into N. Connacht.

7. Potato blight (PhytopHthora infestans)
A fungal disease unknown in Europe; origin S. America
No remedy known at time
Arrives in Europe summer 1845 – in Ireland by mid September
Thrives in mild, damp conditions
Associated with great uncertainty and fear
UK ‘Scientific Commission’ 1845 estimates up to half crop lost (actually c. 1/3), but offers no remedy

8. Seasons of blight
1844 harvest c.15m tonnes 1845 harvest c.10m tonnes 1846 harvest c. 3m tonnes 1847 harvest c.2m tonnes (despite little blight) 1848 harvest c.3m tonnes 1849 harvest c.4m tonnes Minimum food requirement for human consumption: 7m tonnes for 1845 population

9. Phases of Famine First Phase: autumn 1845-summer 1846:
The Subsistence Crisis
Second Phase: autumn 1846-summer 1847:
The Absolute Famine
Third Phase: autumn 1847-summer 1850:
‘Famine in the Midst of Plenty’
Illustrated London News sketches from west Cork, Feb. 1847

10. Wider contexts Poor grain harvests 1846, 1848, 1849
International food shortages
British industrial and trade recession
Agricultural recession and low prices
Political upheavals in Europe and Ireland 1848
‘Reasons for emigration’ - Ladies’ Magazine, 1849

11. Government policy (1) Sir Robert Peel’s administration (1841-46)
Public works schemes
Local relief committees (grants in aid)
Importation of £100K of maize from US
Management of food prices through depots
Praised for relatively rapid and generous response
But dealing with only first year of crisis and 1/3 shortfall
Conservative party splits and government falls June 1846

12. Government Policy (2) Lord John Russell’s administration (1846-52)
- Charles Wood (Chancellor of Exchequer)
- Charles Trevelyan (Assistant Secretary to Treasury)
Weak govt led by Whig prime minister
Withdrawal from food market (Sept 1846)
Public works (Sept 1846-March 1847)
Soup Kitchens (May-August 1847)
Poor Law Amendment Act (Sept 1847)
Rate in Aid (March 1849)
Encumbered Estates Act (1849)
C.E. Trevelyan

13. . Were food exports to blame?
Irish grain exports/imports (000s of tons grain equivalent) - after Bourke (1976)
exports .
imports
Military guard on a food convoy (Pictorial Times, 1847)

14. Soup KitchenS, 1847
Opening of the model Dublin model soup kitchen, April 1847
Proportion of local population on SK relief, July 1847

15. Irish workhouse plan (1839)
The Poor Law
Poor Law introduced 1838; not intended to deal with Famine
Initially relief only available inside 130 workhouses
Funded by local taxation on land (rates)
Workhouses overwhelmed and racked by disease
1847 Amendment Act permits outdoor relief and workhouse expansion
But many poor law unions bankrupt by 1848 – unable to cope with weight of Famine – high mortality
Irish workhouse plan (1839)

16. Failure of Russell government, 1846-51
Mass famine mortality (over 1 million)
Failure to ensure adequate food supplies and
equitable distribution at affordable prices
Relief capacity of state demonstrated under soup
kitchen regime summer 1847
False belief that famine ‘over’ autumn 1847
Withdrawal from central state responsibility and reliance on locally-funded poor law
Failure to introduce ‘comprehensive measures’ to relieve poor law (railway/drainage works; assisted emigration)
No evidence for ‘genocide’, but much for ideological pre-occupations: Providentialism, Moralism, Laissez-faire economics

17. Private Charity Quakers most active group 1846-9
Charity encouraged by Government
(British Association: £400K raised; £2K
from Queen Victoria)
Significant aid from American
charities: arrival of USS Jamestown and Macedonian 1847; also European Catholic charity
But charitable aid tails off from summer 1847
‘Souperism’ (Protestant conversionist relief) causes great controversy in west
Charity fails to address failure of government spending
Cptn Kennedy distributes clothing to the poor, Co. Clare, ILN Dec.1849

18. Regional aspects Uneven regional impact of famine
Western counties suffered largest
population declines (more than ¼ of popn
in Mayo, Sligo, Galway)
Why was the west hardest hit?
Why was it so slow to recover? – famine
conditions continue in Clare and Mayo to 1852
Mortality spread by migration and fever
Did Ulster suffer from famine? Acute fever epidemics in spring 1847 – thousands died in Belfast. South/West Ulster badly affected.
ILN, Co. Clare, Dec. 1849

19. Excess mortality by county 1846-51

20. Reactions Clearances: extensive in western counties from 1847 – land
clearance for pasture and to relieve
rate burdens on landowners
Peasant resistance: food riots,
violence vs evictions, theft
Nationalist responses: Young
Ireland and 1848 rising
British public opinion: generous
Spring 1847; increasingly hostile
after towards ‘ungrateful’ Ireland

21. Emigration c. 1m emigrants leave Ireland 1815-45 c. 2.5m 1845-55
Around 1.5m to USA, 340K to Canada
Emigration around 3 times previous rate (of late 1830s-early 1840s)
Peak years: 1847 (230K), 1851 (250K)
Numbers falling by c.1855, but 4m leave
‘Coffin Ships’ to Canada 1847 (c. 20% mortality)
Only small numbers assisted by state or landlords

22. Conclusions Excess mortality of c. 1.1 million
A national catastrophe, with regional
variations
Disproportionate impact on land-poor and
landless
Few immediate ‘gainers’ over , but
clears way for shift to pastoral economy and grazing
Cultural consequences – accellerates decline of Irish language and ‘folk Catholicism’

23. Why was the great famine remembered?
Scale and trauma of catastrophe (but cf Irish Famine – killed similar proportion of population but ‘forgotten’)
Recollection through folklore and family tradition (recorded in 1930s-40s IFC collections)
Recollection through fiction and poetry (‘minor literature’ of famine; Carleton, Lady Wilde etc – in 20th Century O’Flaherty, Heaney, O’Connor etc)
Recollection through nationalist political narratives, including histories (John Mitchel, Gavan Duffy, James Connolly, etc)
Recollections through ‘popular’ histories (Fr John O’Rourke, Cecil Woodham-Smith, Tim Pat Coogan)
New agendas of 1990s sesquicentenary, led by Irish NGOs: internationalisation; third world focus; cultural politics; curriculum wars in US

24. HISTORICAL MEMORY
Scale of death allows for ‘genocidal’ interpretation in nationalist tradition (John Mitchel, The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps),1860)
Question of responsibility remains central to historiography
Nationalist interpretation challenged by ‘revisionist’ historians from 1930s
‘Postrevisionist’ historiography from 1990s

25. POLITICAL MEMORY Mural, Springfield Road, Belfast, c.2011
Mural, Whiterock Road, Belfast, c1997
Swinford Famine Memorial, Co. Mayo, sponsored by Action from Ireland (AFrI), May 1994, in the Famine graveyard, Swinford Hospital (formerly Swinford Union Workhouse)

26. A traumatic memory: Localities
Famine Memorial Garden, St Patrick’s Hospital, Carrick on Shannon, Co. Leitrim (formerly Carrick on Shannon Workhouse),

27. National Famine Memorial, Murrisk, Co. Mayo
Text:
‘To honour the memory of all who died, suffered and / emigrated due to the Great famine of 1845 – 1850 / and the victims of all famines / This memorial was unveiled by the President of Ireland / Mary Robinson, on 20 July 1997’
National Famine Memorial / Coffin Ship – By John Behan. Commissioned by Irish Government, unveiled July 1997
Irish State introduces ‘National Famine Memorial Day’, mid 1990s

28. Diasporic memory Toronto Irish Famine Memorial (1997)
Grosse Ile Memorial, Canada, unveiled 1909 by AOH
Toronto Irish Famine Memorial (1997)
Irish Hunger Memorial, Manhattan, 2002, by Brian Tolle

29. SOME READING
J. Crowley et al (eds) Atlas of the Great Irish Famine (2012)
E. Delaney, The Curse of Reason: The Great Irish Famine (2012)
J.S. Donnelly, The Great Irish Potato Famine (2001)
P. Gray, The Irish Famine (1995)
C. O Grada, The Great Irish Famine (1989)
C. Poirteir (ed). The Great Irish Famine (1995)

30. Questions Why remember a catastrophe? What purposes might it serve?
Why remember this catastrophe?
Are famines / famine mortality preventable?
How did the Great Famine change Ireland?